How do you guys tie your cars down?

[Viper X]

For those of you who trailer your Vipers, how do you tie them down? What hardware do you attach to the car (R-hooks plus?) What straps do you use? Do you cross strap or straight strap? Any suggestions would be helpful. I'm trailering my car to the Western Zone Rendezvous for the first time and would like it to arrive safely.

 

[Skip White]

Most of us tie down at the frame holes. If your using four straps, it doesn't matter about how you do your straps. The problem is tieing the car down at the frame i WRONG. The proper way is to tie the car down at the wheels. Thank God for the very strong rigid chasiss on the car. Every time I tied down my car from the frame, and went on a long trip, the car would drive terrible till the chasiss regained it's shape. This torques the frame to death. You are eliminating the suspension when you do this. It's as if the front end is seriosly out of alignment when you drive from the trailer. I'll never do this again.

It's a bit more trouble to tie down at the wheels, but it's absolutly better!

All four wheels.

Skip White

 

[Fred(DrivingSchool)Kinder]

I use the frame slots(in the frame, a little in on the leading edge of the front tire, rear is on the frame a little past the rear of the rear tire) with J-Hooks(Made to fit the frame slots), STD tie down straps with hooks at both ends one for the J-Hook, the other for the trailer D-ring! Have tied down with traps crossed front and rear also crossed rear and straight in the front. Have not noticed any difference. Critical is tongue weight and trailer brakes and controller. I use an open Featherlite trailer which is light and very easy to tow.

 

[Steve 00RT/10]

I don't trailer........ but our car had to be trailered last year when I mysteriously blew an oil cooler line just before an autocross event. Had to be towed 120 miles to the dealer. When the tow truck got there, I mentioned about the frame tie down points and they said the wheel tie downs were the way to go for the same reasons mentioned above. As a matter of fact, they strongly recommended against frame tie down points. They slipped basket slings over the wheels and tied each wheel at 2 points.

Steve

 

[Vipera Russelli]

What would Gary Almond recommend? Mmmm...

-----Original Message-----
From: Gary Almond
Sent: Friday, September 24, 2004 12:42 AM
To: Russell
Subject: RE: Straps, etc.

Russ,

Good to hear from you! I went through and found the following items:

R-Hooks (buy 4):
http://www.awdirect.com/awdirect/catalog.cfm?dest=itempg&itemid=8978&secid=89&linkon=subsection&linkid=395

Straps (buy 4). I recommend part number 555-80121. The only thing you
need to make sure of is whether 8' is long enough for your trailer. On
my trailer, I use the 8 footers on the back and it works fine.
http://www.jegs.com/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/ProductDisplay?prrfnbr=3276&prmenbr=361

You also might want to get a couple of the axle straps. They aren't
really needed, but sometimes they come in handy.

I hope this helps!

Regards,
Gary