Fitting a tow bar.

[pyestudiocolour]

Hi,

Well,I have had my 1987 740GL Auto Estate since March and apart from its initial injection problems, it has been superb - a really comfortable and easy drive and not too bad on fuel!

I have just acquired a Witter tow bar so I can tow a small trailer for carrying really manky stuff to the tip and other general duties (and also with a view to getting a small caravan next year perhaps). Fitting the bar seems relatively straightforward, but I was wondering about the electrics. I have a new socket and cable and having rewired trailer electrics before, have all the colour codes of the wiring etc, but where do I connect the wiring too? Being a Volvo which is designed with tow bar fitment in mind, I wonder if there is a connection socket somewhere rather than having to "splice in".

Of course, having the tow bar should also hopefully help to protect my rear bumper if some idiot should hit it (I know, I hit the back of a Discovery with a tow bar, in a Proton some years back. The collision was at a roundabout at about 5mph - it smashed a headlight, sidelight, wrote off the steel bumper and valance and pushed in the inner panel on my car. It broke the little plastic cover on the tow bar electric socket on the Discovery!).

Any help would be very much appreciated, Thanks!

[Chris1Roll]

You _might_ find the wiring already there, under the left hand cubby hole in the boot, then Its just a case of matching colours Last on i did was.
The wiring from this runs up under the seats, and the centre console, then disappears into the dash. If you already have the little orange "indicators working" light fitted on the dashboard, then its likely it will be.
If not, if you just wire the towbar in "as normal" you will find the bulb failure light is on with the trailer connected, depends if you can live with this or not...if not everything needs to be wired in under the dashboard, upstream of the detector.
Your right, the bar itself is super easy, there are already holes with set nuts in them under the car... I found I had to hammer a "lip" on the rearmost part of the box section though.

[ivor940]

Hi, Does your 740 have the Bulb Failure light? If so you will need to be careful in where you connect the towbar wiring. The later 940 had a connector in the LH under-luggage floor cubbyhole. As to the actual towbar, if you are using a Volvo towbar, you may have to leave the LHS towing eye ( held on by the same bolts which will hold on the towbar) off. If you are using a Witter or similar, the towing eye can be refitted with a small adjustment.

ivor940

[pyestudiocolour]

Thank you very much for both replies. There doesn't seem to be any trailer wiring in the cubby holes, so it looks like I will have to make up a loom - which hopefully shouldn't be too difficult (famous last words!). The towbar I have just bought is in excellent condition, I am thinking that it would be better to use new bolts rather than reusing the (slightly rusty) old ones. Would anyone know off-hand what size the bolts are - I assume they are Metric. I can mail-order some then together with trailer wiring bits 'n' pieces.

Thanks again!