Nosewheel Tow Bar

[mhcrowder]

Looking for suggestions on a Towbar for a nose gear Highlander. The bolt head is 15/16" Flat to Flat and the nose gear fork width is about 7-1/4". I've included the picture from the Build Manual. I've got an old Cessna tow bar that I'm looking to modify. Thought I could use some plastic Electrical Tee Sleeve Washers, but finding a matching tube to weld to the old towbar seems to not available or way too expensive.

What have other nose wheel jockeys done for a towbar?

[Tralika]

I came across these photos of a simple tow bar made from shovel some time ago. I thought it was interesting but never got around to making one. If you do a search here on the forum for "tow bar" you'll find a thread to a tail wheel Highlander owner that made a tow bar from a pair of aluminum crutches bought at a thrift store. It looks like a pretty good design. I think you would have to rotate your nosewheel 180 degrees to attach that type of tow bar. I'm not familiar with the Highlander nose wheel but I assume it's free castering. Good luck

[mhcrowder]

That's an interesting design. Fairly simple. Here's an actual picture of the nose gear on my Highlander. Since I have an old Cessna Towbar to play with, I'm designing some plugs that will go into the large holes in front of the axle. 3D Printed some prototypes and hope to prove the design later today. Gotta clean up the Cessna towbar first as it's fairly rusty.

[Tralika]

That looks like it will work fine. The tow bars with the spring type of attachment work OK as long as you're moving the plane a little before trying to turn/steer the wheel. The clamp type attachment is better but heavier and more complicated so it's a trade off. I'm guessing it will take more torque to turn your nose wheel since the point of rotation is in front of the axle rather than directly over it like on a Cessna nose wheel. The torque might change based on the direction, forward or backward. I bet it will still work as long as the wheel is rolling a bit when steering.

[mhcrowder]

Our final solution was to buy a Bogart tow bar for a Kitfox and then modify the axle end to fit our bolt/nut size. We found a nice steel tube at McMaster that worked great. A little welding and paint and me are extremely happy with the outcome.

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Michael

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