Don't attach and pull on anything attached to your front bumper or the bumper mounting. It will crack your nose fiberglass.

Two straps over the a-arms like David recommend are good. Actually, you can get away with using just one.

No one is going to diamond shape a Corvette frame using a winch to pull it on a trailer unless it is chained to something in back. It rolls, so it isn't resisting enough to bend that frame.

If you really want something solid, loop around the front crossmember. Of course, the fan shroud can get in the way.

Bolt something like that pull tab to the crossmember.

 

OMG!!!.....A generic grade 8 bolt? Everyone knows that you just killed the value of your car. I think you should get rid of it (I can find a home for it in Camarillo, right next to my blue '71) and start over on a proper NCRS build.


On a more serious note, how are you securing the back end of the car when it's on the trailer? What point are hooking your straps to, or did you add dedicated tie downs?

Thanks,
Chris

PS - It's a good looking car. Nicely done.

 

I think I can find a replacement bolt without resorting to your rather drastic solution, Chris.

I will get to your question in a bit, but first let me kvetch about tilting trailers.

I have learned a hard truth about these trailers. You have to goose a 500 horsepower car up a steep incline until you stop just right without running over the edge and then wait for the damn thing to tilt down and level out. Basically I am destroying my clutch and scaring the hell out of myself. Further, the other interesting part of the loading operation is you are looking at the blue sky over a high rise hood while loading. I added some bicycle flags at the corners to help.

To load, I place a couple of 2x8’s where I want the front wheels to be but the motor is powerful enough to drive me over them easily. I made them higher but it is still a three pedal heel-and-toe operation which is pretty dicey and very hard on the clutch. You have to feel the car stopping when it hits the 2x8’s, get off the gas, push in the clutch and get on the brake soon enough so the car doesn’t roll back past the trailer balance point and have to roll all the way back down and start again. It’s an adventure!

I also have an air dam which would hit during loading and unloading, but I just need a little adjustment at the edge of the trailer in the form of a wooden wedge to avoid scraping. Still one more thing.

The slope on my trailer is (I think) about 18 degrees which is a pretty steep hill.

To answer your question about securing the car, you can see the yellow straps at each corner of the car in the trailer picture. The fronts are looped over my tubular front A-arms, the backs are looped over the half shafts. The car stays in neutral with the emergency brake on. So far I haven't seen any reason to change.

I'm looking into a solution but am not ready to post any details yet. Still hoping there are others that just haven't gotten around to noticing this thread yet.

The car is two years of 8 hour days and maybe $40K of odds and ends. Everything including paint was done in my garage except for the exhaust and powder coating. My wife thinks it is more but I refuse to get pinned down by adding up the receipts. Thank you for the compliment. I'm the second owner since 1972 and it was a daily driver until I retired.

Once the kids take the keys away it passes to my son.

 

Have you ever thought about putting in a spring loaded wedge which would pop up once your tires have passed over and stop your car from rolling back?

 

Kind of like those parking lot do-not-back-up teeth? That is a creative idea, but I'm going with the winch. And some day I will sell the trailer, that might be a feature, but maybe not.

 

I have my moments.

 

This may seem like a dumb idea but I'll throw it out there any way.

How about using the winch to pull the trailer bed down?

Drive the car on the trailer just so the rear wheels are on but not past over centering the bed and tilting it down. Once it's on using your hand held winch controller while you sit in the car pull the bed down to level and then drive the car forward as needed. Reverse the operation for unloading if needed.

I have no idea if that will stress your trailer bed.

Just a thought and nice car by the way.

 

That would certainly avoid the whole heel-and-toe dance at the top of the ramp. However the winch can't work that way. Let me add this picture to show the situation from the car's point of view. The winch bed is a little platform out past the front of the tilting bed. So it is pretty much restricted to pulling something up the bed.

I watched videos of people driving their cars up this thing before I bought it. It just looked so darn simple.

 

I can see the real issue you are pulling it with a Ford. No wonder the Corvette resists going on the trailer! What Corvette wants to be behind a Ford? Just kidding.

With a little rework could the winch pull downward on the bed? Adding pulleys to redirect the cable? Does the winch have cable or wireless control?

 

So after looking under my 71 that front cross brace has two round holes. God I hate grass hoppers this time of year.

With some creative engineering could a "hook" be designed to engage those holes without making it permanent?

 

Well somebody's "hooked", sounds like. I'm getting ahead of myself here, as I really had hoped somebody else had done this to our chrome bumper C3's. With nobody else's input, here's where I'm going....

There are four holes in my front cross member. The front bumper braces bolts to these holes and that area sits just behind the license plate. First picture shows what that looks like from above.



The second picture is some angle iron that the local scrap steel yard cut to order for me. I expect to drill 5 holes in it, four to match the existing crossmember attachment points and one more for some sort of tow "eye' that I haven't found yet. That eye would point forward for the winch hook. As you can see that drilling and finishing is yet to be done and will probably take a couple of days as I work off some other priorities.





Unknowns to be evaluated are whether this will put some stress on either my radiator or my fiberglass. The latter is most worrisome and I may try to incorporate a little bit of slack.

Also, I haven't settled on a winch yet so we're looking at some considerable down time before I ever do a test pull. And .. I'll also have to wire the Ford for power for the winch. More research still.

And sorry to say, pulling down the tilt section ain't going to happen.

 

Keep us updated... I was told off last time I went to the track for not having proper tow hooks.

 

Beautiful car ignatz. I used to do HPD events and the first time that the car had to be pulled off the track and trying to get a strap around the A-arm a new idea was needed. I build a bracket that is bolted at the very nose just behind the front bumper through the bumper support. Embarrassed to say, but got towed off the track to many times, also use this point for securing to trailer and for winching onto trailer. T

It's 'V' shaped.

 

You are braver than me. I've looked this area over pretty carefully and the saving grace is that the 'V' of the front bumper floats away from the fiberglass. Looks like all the stress eventually transfers to the crossmember. I would guess your attachment point, as high as it is, pulls down on the bumper and there is visually some displacement from normal when it's cinched down on the trailer. I know I can tug on my bumper and see it move vs. the fiberglass.

I calculate that the force needed to winch my car onto the trailer ramp is something like 600#'s, which is not all that bad.

Still working on my solution. Metalhead I will post pictures and a drawing with dimensions for anybody that wants them.

 

because of the low front spoiler, almost any method the cable will hit the car.
I winch on backwards, by attaching under the differential.
If you do this you must balance the weight distribution,
you do not want all the weight behind the axles.
on the trailer I strap down the front with tire straps, while keeping the winch snug in the back, on the differential.

 

[QUOTE=69Vett;159553341 I strap down the front with tire straps, while keeping the winch snug in the back, on the differential.[/QUOTE]

69Vett, not a good idea to use the winch to hold the car, hard braking, acceleration or swerving can overload the winch. just saying, rethink this.

I've towed cars and heavy equipment and always used three straps for security and peace of mind. I've seen equipment come off trailers because of poor rigging.

CJ

 

Here is an update on my tow hook solution. I installed it, as mentioned previously, under the horseshoe collar that supports the front bumper. Have not tried it out yet as I still have some wiring to do on the trailer and truck. If anybody wants to make one of their own I've included dimensions for what fits on my early 69's crossmember. It's probably overkill structurally but everything fit so nicely there seemed to be no point (except maybe saving some weight) in trying to minimize it. The little square thing above the OMP tow ring is a magnet that I hope will keep the ring from flopping about. We'll see.

With the grill in place, only the yellow ring shows up and if I re-install the license plate everything is quite invisible.

 

Hello Ignatz,
That is a pretty clean and sturdy solution for the tow hook Problem... Please Keep posting as it is finished with the grill back in, and the licence plate in place! Perfect

 

very interesting . looks sturdy enough , so if you attach a line from the ring and out the front how much down angle can you get ?

just thinking your winch may have to be mounted up a bit .

 

I just use two of these.

Put them around your lower a-arm and hook to the winch. Easy peasy. Been doing this for some time now.
David