We bought a enclosed car hauler. We were wondering the best way to tie down a 1993 C-4. I hear so many different ways and would like to here from others who haul vettes. Thanks.

 

I didn't use an enclosed car hauler. But the open one had wheel tie down straps on the front tires
and a safety chain that hooks to the rear.

 

Wheel straps, straps through the wheel if your wheel design allows it, or T-hooks in the tie down holes inboard of all four wheels in the frame.

 

I use an open trailer and the tiedowns inboard are really nice and convienent.

 

Anyone got a picture of where these holes are?

I've been using "thru the wheels" sice I got my open trailer and occasionally have to redo it after a hundred miles or so.

 

I would just super glue the tires to the trailer....... or just shut the darn doors.....

Olcrusty said that

 

This is how I've been strapping mine down for years.

 

Thanks Richs, everything helps. I am going to try some different things and see what happens. Thanks to everyone that responed to me.

 

I use the 4 tie down holes on the frame like Rich did in the front . Two more in the back .
I have tied it down through the batwng , but I like the Factory tie down holes in the rear better . 10 events this year , no problems

 

You didn't say what the floor material is on your trailer, but consider installing E-Track on the deck. The track is positioned so that the centerline of the tire tread is over the center of the E-Track. Use an over-the-tire strap for the front tires and then ratchet straps for the back (remember to cross them!!)

With a C4, it's easy to raise the clamshell to get these type of straps around the front tires. Takes just a couple minutes to do.

I don't like to use the rear factory tie-down rings because they are above the suspension components. You really don't want to have the webbing rub on anything as that will fray the material and weaken the strength of the strap. You may want to look around the frame rails to find any open areas and have some sort of ring installed (bolted or welded in) that will be in the open and allow the strap hook to attach.

In any event, make sure you use straps with a 3300-lb. working load limit or WLL. A WLL is 1/3 the rating of the strap. So get 10,000-lb rated straps. A 5000-lb strap has a WLL of 1600-lbs.

 

I looped around the punkin like Rich did but dont cross back over. It just depends on your exhaust and where the tie downs on the trailer are. I made sure the strap didnt contact anything. As for the front, I used a hook on the suspension crossmember I guess it is but its a solid piece of metal running across under the engine. All this was done on an open trailer, the enclosed will bring in all kinda access problems for you. The wheel straps will probly be your best bet with the E Track as suggested or custom choose locations to install a Dring style loop.

Oh, or get about 10 tubes of superglue as Crusty suggests. Might wanna consider side openings so you can show your car, lol.

 

Sold my Vette and new owner's hauler used through the wheel tie down and damaged the finish on all 4 A-Molds.

 

Two theories.
1. Tie down from the frame
2. Tie down at the tires

I prefer the the frame because the suspension is not working during transit.
By crossing the tie downs, shifting during transit is reduced. The factory tie points are strong and will hold up to years of use.

The tire ties allow the car to "ride" on its suspension during transit. So you have two suspensions riding behind the tow vehicle.

Some times factory tie points are not easy to access, but using the batwing or other suspension members are stressing components the are not designed for that kind of loading.

Something to think about...

 

We had to move from Florida to North Carolina and my perfect condition C4 w/ less than 15k miles that has always been garage stored needed protection but we couldn't use an enclosed hauler.

So with a U-Haul truck hauling our home contents, we had a U-Haul auto transport hooked up. You need to use 2x8's to raise the ramps. The front wheel wraps that come with trailer work well, then got tie down straps that hooked into the back supports. I followed one of the links on one of the forum pages here for J-hook straps but they were too big for my '87. The j-hook had 2 teeth formed together that made it impossible to fit in the slot. We had to run out to AutoZone and get a smaller strap.

Next I used my outdoor car cover. Then my load/unload crew wrapped the front half of the car with furniture pads and then covered the whole car with U-haul self stick 20' wide shrink wrap. It's $21 a roll. this would have worked very well except it had rained during the wrapping so a lot of the shrink wrap unwrapped in our first few miles. So we had to pull over on the highway and used box tape to seal it down. that worked out well for the rest of the trip. I'm so glad I did this. I had a postal Semi-tractor trailer do a back tire blow out 500 feet in front of at 70 mph - shreds of tire everywhere. My vette made it through that and all of the I-95 nightmares just fine.

 

Reviving some of these old threads can be interesting seeing your own comments but a bit painful sometimes when you see comments from members lost.

Here's to you Crusty!!!

 

This thread sure helped me get started, and then we took it to the next level with the shrink wrap.

Didn't know about Crusty. Funny, it's someting I hear on a frequent basis, my wife's nickname for one of her cats...lol

A tip of the hat to Crusty...both of them in the same place, finding peace