alko v winterhoff

[minesa240x3]

Originally Posted by outnumbered

pulls up chair with pop corn and awaits

Well I havent got popcorn ,However I do have a tub of cheesey footballs yum yum...
I use the old style antisway bars and find them no problem at all.
The new ALKO ones must work or else they wouldn't have caught on so well,,,BUT I just can't see how the two pressure pads about the size of pound coins can grip the towball sufficiently to stop the sideways movement of a caravan?

I only had one swaybar up until recently as the van I had was only fiftheen foot long.Now that our new van is twenty odd foot long I decided to use two.
Not easy to fit as the jockey wheel were it fixes to the chassis is right in the way.Consequently I have to stow the jockey wheel in the front of the van while on the road.
The force needed to move the sway bar is considerable and can be adjusted by unlocking the two nuts and tightening the clutchplates.
If someone knows the mathematical formulae for the two types of device I would be grateful to know.I can find out the force needed to move each of mine by attatching a spring scale like the fishermen use to the end of the arm with it connected to the car and pulling until the arm moves.This would be similare to measuring preload on wheel bearings.not quite sure how you could do this with an alko hitch though.

Regards Brian.

[Big Stew]

Originally Posted by gillberry

The big thing with towing a caravan whatever type of stabiliser you have is loading it correctly .

As you say it doesn't matter had good the car/caravan/stabiliser if you don't load it correctly it will behave like an Adder on a hot plate ! ! !

[JimDay]

I have used the "Bulldog & "Scott" leaf spring type stabilises on the older caravans I have owned & always thought they were good but then on my 1988 ABI Marauder I decided to fit an Alko AKS1300 hitch in place of the std hitch & "Scott" stabiliser & Oh my god what a difference it made the snaking was near on eliminated all together & no more clonking & creeking, oh & the occasional times the leaf spring would jump off it's bracket on the "A" frame of the van (mostly on one roudabout not far from home the road surface was not the flatest)
On my current van a 22'11" Swift Charisma 550 I have a Alko AKS 3004 & it is also near perfect I have only towed the van twice since I bought it in Aug last year while on holiday in Kent but it towed very well on the 2 hour trip back to Aldershot along the M20,M26 & around the M25. The van originally had the std hitch fitted but I managed to strike a deal with the guy in the workshop & I purchased a second hand Alko hitch from him for £100 fitted but as I don't know the previous history of the unit I will be fitting new friction pads to it before the start of this years season just to be sure it performs correctly.