General: Towing without an eyelet!

[Wilkolad]

Hi All - hopefully a quick question.

I've got a MY10 with a Volvo fit detachable tow bar for the caravan (brilliant tow vehicle BTW).

Yesterday my Dad's car broke down and needed towing to the local garage. No problem I thought, I'll use my rigid tow bar and it'll be simple.

No so, as the car has a fitted towing kit, the rear eyelet removal cap reveals no screw in 'receiver' for the eyelet. Checking the manual this is how it is, and it suggests you 'use the tow ball'. How?

I clearly can't connect the 'D'ring on the towing bar to the tow ball as it's too small.

Options I can think of:

1)Buy some kind of 'hitch / bar contraption' - is there such a thing?
2)Buy a tow rope and loop it round the towbar and clip it back onto itself (is this legal)?
3) Find some kind of larger 'D' bracket to fit on the towball and then thread the small tow bar 'D' bracket to that.
4) Give up an ask a neighbour to do it.
5) Spend £50 on a tow truck for the 1/2 mile journey.

Ideally the answer isn't either (4) or (5) so what's the safest and most cost effective option ?

Cheers and regards.

[60041]

I used to occasionally recover cars for a local garage and we used a home-made rigid towbar that was made out of a 6' length of scaffold pipe that had a steel loop welded on one end and a cheap trailer coupling bolted to the other. It was a safe, simple and quick job to attach the ring to the towing eye on the car to be recovered with a small screw shackle and drop the coupling onto the tow-bar of the Land Rover we used.
The trailer coupling can be bought from Towsure for less than £10, so the whole thing should cost less than £20

[Wilkolad]

Thanks - the 'keyword' there was 'shackle'.

A quick Google search later came up with:

http://www.southernriggingsupplies.c...ckle-411-c.asp

I'm now thinking that I simply need to check the size to ensure its big enough to slot around the neck of the tow ball (but not too big as to slip over the ball) as I ought to be able to connect the locking pin of the shackle to the 'D' clip (shackle) on the rigid tow bar.