<VV> Towing with Vairs

Fri Nov 11 18:17:28 EST 2011

In the 1970's I flat towed other cars with my corvair:

My 1966 Corvair Monza had a bumper trailer hitch which I misused terribly.
This was a steel bar that bolted under the bumper using the bumper mounting
locations.  I apologize for the quality of the photo but my dog urinated in
a box of my photos & this was the only one I could salvage of this Corvair.

I had purchased a Studebaker dealers stock of new old parts - with them I
got two 1955 Studebaker Presidents - a coupe and a hardtop.  They were in
Mount Pleasant, Michigan and I needed to get them to Saginaw.

A friend of mine had an old U-Haul tow bar which I borrowed.

Using the 1966 Monza I drove to Mount Pleasant and picked up the 1st
Studebaker.
I towed it halfway & left it at an abandoned bar - then went back & got the
other Studebaker.  After that I went back and picked up the 1st Studebaker
at the halfway point.  This worked fine even thought I was on pins & needles
the whole time - the Corvair was a very small vehicle to tow those heavy
Studebakers.

Towing a trailer:

In at least 3 occasions I have towed a trailer behind a Corvair- twice I had
a real adventure with the same trailer.  Unknown to me the trailer that was
built by my grandfather was never finished - the wheel spindles were just
tack welded to the axle and the leaf springs were tack welded to the axle.
I got this trailer after my grandfather had died so I never knew it was not
finished.  I put an old Model A Ford pickup box on it and the first time I
used it I had a Corvair power train on it (from a Greenbrier I had bought
for parts).  I was taking the power train to a friend who was building a
dune buggy.  He lived about 5 miles down a washboard gravel road.  It was in
the evening after work so it was dark out.  I was within a half mile from
his place when my dash lights went out and something jerked behind me.  I
stopped and checked the back and discovered the power train down the road
behind me and no wheels or spindles on the trailer axle.  The wheel
assemblies were nowhere to be seen.  What happened when the trailer spindles
broke off the trailer dropped down on the axle and jerked the hitch so bad
that it pulled the Corvair bumper into a "V"-shape - it also yanked out the
wiring from the tail lights which blew the fuse.  I unhitched the trailer &
drove to my friends to get his pickup to come back and get the power train
and trailer.  We spent a lot of time looking for the wheel assemblies in the
dark- they were quite a distance in front of the trailer in the woods on
both sides of the road.  I left the trailer at his place for him to weld the
spindles on the axle and would come back for it later.  We also repaired the
taillight wiring and replaced the fuse.
I came back with my Corvan to pick up the repaired trailer.  He had some
items he wanted taken to the dump so we put them on the trailer & I took
them to the dump.  The trailer was so small I could not see it in the van
mirrors.  After dumping the trailer at the dump I was headed home - I did
not get very far before I no longer saw the trailer bouncing up & down
behind me - so I stopped.  To my surprise there was no axle under the
trailer and I was pulling it down the road on the leaf springs!  I never
felt the drag.  Now where is the axle?  After looking for a while we finally
found it in someone's front yard about 300 feet past us.  Back to the
friends to get the axle fastened back to the springs - I had no more
problems with that trailer while I owned it.  I sold it to a friend and the
coupler came off the tongue on an exit ramp (another part only tacked?).

Towing a car trailer with a Corvair:

One other time I towed a trailer behind a Corvair - this time it was a
tandem axle car trailer with a Ford 8N tractor and disk onboard.  After
moving into our new place in Bridgeport we discovered that the back yard
flooded in the spring but that further back was a small rise with a drainage
ditch behind it.  I decided I needed to re-sculpt the yard so that it would
drain away from the house to the ditch.  My dad had a tractor, disk & rear
scoop that could do the job so I borrowed my brother-in-law's car trailer to
bring the tractor to my place.  I used the Corvair 95 van to tow the
trailer.  I had to go to Flint to get the trailer, to Millington to get the
tractor & implements and back to Bridgeport to do the work.  It was a very
heavy trailer and, combined with the tractor & implements, was hard to tow
with the Corvair.  At one stop I had to back up and make a run for the
slight hill that was there - the Corvair would not go up the hill from a
stop.  After I got it home I needed to unload it - when backing the tractor
off the trailer it lifted the rear of the van clean off the driveway.  I had
not further instances with this trip and the yard work went fine.

Robert Jennings
317 Division St
Morenci, MI 49256
517-458-1586
jennirw at cass.net

-----Original Message-----
From: virtualvairs-bounces at corvair.org
[mailto:virtualvairs-bounces at corvair.org] On Behalf Of Matt Nall
Sent: Friday, November 11, 2011 5:24 PM
To: virtualvairs at corvair.org
Subject: Re: <VV> Towing with Vairs

How about   those that have pics of them towing,  posting pics..  It should
be interesting!

Matt Nall
Charleston, Oregon
http://tinyurl.com/The-Patio
http://tinyurl.com/Matts-Tech-Pages

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