volvo tow bar fitment

[volvo28]

Hi thinking of fitting a towbar to my s40 2002 does any have fitting instructions and do u have to cut rear bumper thanks for reading

[clarkey1984]

if its a phase 2 car then no cutting needed, and if its a phase 1 the instructions say that you need to cut a section completely out, but in reality you can just cut down both sides and score across the middle of the 2 cuts from the back and fold that part of the bumper up and out of the way.

My advice would be to hit the 4 mounting points and also all rear bumper fixings with lashings of WD40 beforehand, especially the towbar mounting points, the threaded holes are already in the floor but will more than likely be rusted at best, full of crud and hardened rust at worst, i would get your hands on an m10x1.25mm thread tap to run through the holes beforehand.

Fitting instructions can be found here

http://www.pfjones.co.uk/witter/VL34.pdf

[kieran40]

As Clarkey says take youre time aswell but it's one of the easiest cars to fit a bar on

[clarkey1984]

Very true Keiran, the instruction print out that came with my witter bar also had an approximate fitting time on it as well, which said 90 minutes, that is bollo, bullsh, twaddle, i ordered mine with an estimated delivery date of a wednesday, it turned up the following tuesday evening, and we towed on friday lunchtime (last august bank holiday) much hurrying and stress ensued, which involved driving to work minus a rear bumper and a back box for a day or 2 as i found taking the box off was easier than buggering about trying to fit bits around it, moral of the story is that i got it done in time though lol

[volvo28]

Thanks everybody for info

[ww1dm1]

Originally Posted by clarkey1984

if its a phase 2 car then no cutting needed, and if its a phase 1 the instructions say that you need to cut a section completely out, but in reality you can just cut down both sides and score across the middle of the 2 cuts from the back and fold that part of the bumper up and out of the way.

My advice would be to hit the 4 mounting points and also all rear bumper fixings with lashings of WD40 beforehand, especially the towbar mounting points, the threaded holes are already in the floor but will more than likely be rusted at best, full of crud and hardened rust at worst, i would get your hands on an m10x1.25mm thread tap to run through the holes beforehand.

Fitting instructions can be found here

http://www.pfjones.co.uk/witter/VL34.pdf

Hmm, mine's P1 and has a towbar fitted, but I'm pretty sure it somehow tucks under the bumper without cutting into it. Depends on the bar, maybe?

[Matt86]

Some tow bars tuck under bumper. Volvos removable one requires cutting on either phase

[rkeegan]

Having already in the past fitted a Witter tow bar to a 2001 phase 2 V40 and spent today fitting a VR towbar (found on eBay) to my recently acquired V40 sport lux I would recommend three things:
One as mentioned before, get a m10x1.25mm thread tap and chase out the rust in the existing mounting holes, saves a lot of time/pain trying to get bolts done up while resting a tow bar on your chest!!
Second take the rear bumper off! Even if the instructions say you don't need to, the improvement to access of the rear of the car is well worth it.
Thirdly to remove the heat shield bolts you won't be able to remove the back exhaust box as the clamp will have rusted up. So take the rear box off it's rubbers and with no rear bumper you can access the bolts over the top of the box & from the back of the car. It still removes the skin off your knuckles but with no bumper you can see the bolts.
Electrics are my next task; 13 pin socket. Anybody fitted one of these? 7pin was straight forward but 13pin, where is a V40s fridge circuit!!

[franksings]

thanks for this. any advice on removing the bumper or is it just easy?