ClassicCar

PaulButler - I'm not sure a 112 would be able to tow a trailer - maybe a small trash trailer to the dump. That 175 cube engine is, at best, anemic just hauling the car. It wasn't one of Hudsons better ideas. You might not get it out of your driveway.

My wife and I went on vacation, back in the late 60's, to Newfoundland. We spent an ejoyable week enjoying some really great scenery. When we got back to Channel-Port aux Basques to catch the ferry back to Nova Scotia we were informed we would be guests of Newfoundland for a while - the railroad which ran the ferry was on strike!!!!!!!!!! Try calling your military unit and telling them you need some extra leave because the ferry was on strike. My division officer, when he stopped laughing told me to get back when I could - and that was an excuse he'd never heard before.

Hudsonly,
Alex Burr
Memphis, TN

Most Hudsons would not have any problem pulling trailers. O.k., I'm sure there's a limit on weight, but most smallish travel-trailers should not be a problem. One thing Hudson's do not lack in is torque, which translates into pulling power. Gobs and gobs of torque, far exceeding the hp ratings. Hornets especially, will have no problem pulling a travel trailer. And, for the most part neither would many other models, perhaps, except the 175, which really was not Hudson's best effort.

Sorry, Lee, I can understand the problem. Drop me an email and I'll send you a copy of what I sketched for Ray. It's a bit too crude to post here on the Forum. Sure wish I'd have taken photos of the rig when we were using it back in '56-'58. Dang! That said, I think the cost of having a hitch like this fabricated might be prohibitive. hetpwald@comporium.net (drop the het)

OK, OK ... geez! (LOL) Here's a sketch. I don't honestly recall if there were diagonal braces from the ends of the under-axle mount plate to somewhere on the drawbar. I think not. Were I fabricating a hitch like this, I'd terminate the drawbar with the standard 2" square Class III hitch socket, so I could just plug a standard equalizer type ball mount/spring bar setup into it. The hitch I had was made of really heavy stock, as it was rated for trailer tongue weights of 700 lbs. or so. One wouldn't have to use such heavy material for a lighter trailer.

It's a second attempt ... you don't wanna see the first one!

Now, I have to tell this really scary story: Making our first move with the trailer and the axle hitch, we'd traveled an entire day and into the night. At about 10 PM, in Atlanta somewhere, we somehow got off the truck route and I needed to reverse course. There was an empty supermarket parking area so I swung the Hornet in there and started a slow turnaround. There was a little strange noise from the rear, then a big "clunk." Egad, the trailer had separated! Stopping and inspecting, I saw what had actually happened --- the hitch assembly had separated from the car. Sounds like no really big deal, but my thoughts immediately went back to just a few minutes earlier when we'd been climbing a several block long hill there in the city. If that hitch would have separated then .... Yikes! OK, back to the hitch ... why had it come off? Contary to the depiction above, the two u-bolts, rather than going through holes in the heavy mount plate, actually straddled the plate and went through a strap-plate under the mount plate. With the day's driving, those u-bolts had stretched a little, enough that they simply worked their way off the end of the main mount plate (I noted that a few months later, ads for that hitch showed some little tabs at the end of the mount plate such that the u-bolts couldn't slide off the ends!). OK, so my hitch is on the ground, and it's 10:15 in January ... darker than a black hole. A police car came by to see what was going on and used its spotlight to let me see while getting everything disconnected. We lifted the hitch into the trunk and drove a couple of blocks to an all night gas station with a lift. They kindly let me put the Hornet in the air to reattach the hitch ... firmly!

It would take another three pages to tell about the rest of the trip. This was just the more exciting part. The entire journey held a few more surprises and was a real test of our six-week old marriage!

Ray, the main mount plate was clamped tight to the axle housing. I've drawn the drawbar bolting directly to the mount plate, but there may have been some arrangement where it could move vertically. I seem to remember that the "hitch ball end" of the drawbar would drop to the ground if it wasn't supported by the little chain from the bumper or by being hooked up to the trailer tongue.

PM500, are we acquainted? What's your job in the military? What branch?
Former Lifer!

See private personal msg. On the hitch, it occurred to me that a better design would be a wishbone-like structurre so the two main legs would attach to the axle out very near to the springs, so as not to apply weight in the center of the axle housing and bend it, which happened on my '55 Chrysler. The single leg of the wishbone would then terminate in a Class III receptacle. This structure would make the drawbar assembly more stable laterally without requiring really heavy attachments as needed on the original long drawbar to the heavy main mount plate. The whole thing could be made lighter.

I understand the idea and I will send it forth to my brother.

Isfirth, there is NO weight on the bumper because there's no attachment to the bumper. All the weight gloes onto the axle housing. The little chain I drew is only used to hold the hitch up when there's no trailer attached.

Load on the chain? What chain? The one described is only used when there's no trailer connected, to support the end of the hitch. My text discusses that there must be load-leveler (equalizer) bars used. And the leaf springs are not involved ... weight goes directly on the axle.

Yes.