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Self recovery with one person, one pickup, and one M939- how to do it?

LCA078

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Here's the scenario:

Pick your flavor of M939 series truck with a NHC250 is located 200 miles away. Seller says truck runs, tires are good, and license tags just ran out last month. The only issue is it's hard to start and dies at idle if you don't keep the rpms up (sounds like air leaks in the fuel supply system to me). I'd like to drive my 1-ton pickup truck with all my tools out to the M939 and see if I can get it running better and then do a self recovery. But how do I tow my 1-ton pu back on the trip?

Yes I know the easy answer is to get Soldier B to drive my truck back as a follow truck or just hire it out as a transport, but I'm sure the one-person limitation has been tackled many times by others. Trying to understand the "good ideas" on how they did it.
 

LCA078

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I never thought about using a military tow bar to flat tow my truck as I was stuck on using a trailer or such instead. But that is a good idea. I'll have to think a bit on how to attach my tow bar to my 1-ton Ford with a Ranch Hand replacement front bumper but I think I can make something work.

Hmmm....
 

98G

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I never thought about using a military tow bar to flat tow my truck as I was stuck on using a trailer or such instead. But that is a good idea. I'll have to think a bit on how to attach my tow bar to my 1-ton Ford with a Ranch Hand replacement front bumper but I think I can make something work.

Hmmm....
You should have two recessed flat plates on your RH bumper. Fab a bracket for your towbar to grab and bolt it here.

I've got a couple I fabbed. I'll post pics when I get home this evening
 

LCA078

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Those are nice brackets. Simple yet effective. Unfortunately I don't think I have such a simple fix for my front bumper. I do have two tow hooks (loops) I could shackle up to the tow bar but they are at odd angles and will have a lot of slop in them. While using shackles will be effective, I'm concerned the slop will be noisy but also beat up my tow bar a bit. I prefer a more rigid connection so will have to think about it some more.
 

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Valor

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Those are nice brackets. Simple yet effective. Unfortunately I don't think I have such a simple fix for my front bumper. I do have two tow hooks (loops) I could shackle up to the tow bar but they are at odd angles and will have a lot of slop in them. While using shackles will be effective, I'm concerned the slop will be noisy but also beat up my tow bar a bit. I prefer a more rigid connection so will have to think about it some more.
Could you change out your front bumper?
 

LCA078

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Could you change out your front bumper?
Not really an option. My bumper is welded to the frame but it's also cost prohibitive to change it out. After thinking about it last night, I might be able to borrow 98G's design but I won't know for sure until I get home next week from my travel. Will let all know what I find out.
 

98G

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The two rectangular holes in the pipe on your bumper could be filled with a 1/2" steel flat plate to provide mounting surface for 5ton type tow bar attachment points. That's how I'd do it if I were using your bumper.

Here's a pic of the redtruck's rear bumper, made to be compatible with military equipment. -
 

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LCA078

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First- thanks to everyone for the great ideas. You've given me some great things to consider and opened up a bunch of options.


The two rectangular holes in the pipe on your bumper could be filled with a 1/2" steel flat plate to provide mounting surface for 5ton type tow bar attachment points. That's how I'd do it if I were using your bumper.

Here's a pic of the redtruck's rear bumper, made to be compatible with military equipment. -
Interestingly, I have no clue what the real purpose of those two rectangular holes are for but they work great with our forklift when I need to jack up the front end for something. Rumor has it those two holes were purpose added by Ranch Hand to appease the installers and allow them to simply use a forklift to hold the new bumper in place while it was fitted (bolted or welded) by one person. Either way, I prefer to keep those holes as so I can continue to use our fork.

How wide is the flange (between yellow arrows)on the front of your push bar? If your tow-bar feet will straddle it, maybe build up both sides of the web with plate (in red) then drill a hole for the pins?
The flange is 1 1/2" wide. I don't know if the medium tow bar I have will straddle it. I don't have access to my tow bar at this moment so I can't be sure but that is a good idea.


Or add a protruding, heavy tab on one side or preferably in the center of the upright.
Yes, another good idea but I prefer not to weld something if I can prevent it. I do like 98G's original idea of bolting on tow tabs....

Or, a snug fitting tube going through both of your existing tow eyes, with tow-bar axle clamps on the outside of the eyes?
That sounds like a really good idea but I'll need to buy a set of axle clamps. I need them anyway so I do like it. Additionally, this gave me the idea of using the axle clamps on the lower round pipe that's already welded in place in between the tow eyes. That pipe is 2 1/2" in diameter and looks stout enough to be used for towing as long as the axle clamps are kept as close as possible to the uprights as possible. From eyeballing my grill, the axle clamps should have enough clearance to fit. Does anyone know the axle size limitations on the tow clamps? Do you think they will get a good enough grab on a 2 1/2" pipe to be safe?

Also, before we get you excited and hacking up your bumper, make certain your pickup is flat towable!
Haha- yes. I agree. I have a 2001 Ford F350 Powerstroke 4x4 with the ESOF (electronic shift on the fly) transfer case. I'd only tow my truck if I disconnected the driveshaft at the differential and ensured my front hubs were disengaged (those are manual). I think this is okay but I'm open to anyone else with other caution.

The other idea I thought of came from using 98G's idea of using the bolt-on tow tabs. There are a bunch of bolt on tow tabs on ebay for reasonable pricing (see pic) and I would use u-bolts to attach them to that same lower pipe near the uprights. This would be fairly easy and simple to add/remove but I may go with just buying set of the axle clamps if they will fit the pipe in question.

So, thanks to everyone for the great ideas. Hopefully someone will have input on the axle clamps.
 

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