'70-'73 Firebird / Trans Am Towing Solution

[mklinger]

If you have ever stared at the front of a '70 - '73 Trans Am (like I have) you might come to the conclusion that if you ever had to pull the car up on a flat bed or tow it at the track, the solution would be a bit elusive if you did not want to damage anything (bumpers, spoilers, flares, suspension, yadda yadda) in the process.

Well after some (a lot) of hours thinking about how to do it I arrived at an elegant solution I thought I would share with the forum since the forum has given me great ideas in the past.

So here goes.

This is the tow hook I wanted to use, It's from Rennline, it's stainless, designed for Porsche and other Euro cars and it's not made of Chinesium. This is Rennline's 'Universal' tow hook with a thread pitch is 5/8-11



The ideal location to attach any tow hook is the frame of the car. On the 2nd gen F-Body this equates to the front subframe. Interestingly the very front of the subframe has 2 unused holes. They are almost 7/8 in diameter.
I can't use a bolt that big. 1/2" is ideal to mount a tow bracket so I fabbed a reducing spacer by drilling out a standard 5/16" washer to 1/2" to take up the slack.



They fit in there perfectly. Now I need to fabricate a bracket to get me from the frame rail to the only open area on the front of the vehicle, the 1 1/8" tall slot between the bumper and the valance.
Here's what I came up with after a bit of trial and error.



The bracket is 1/4" steel with a 5/8-11 coupling nut welded to it. The 2 holes are threaded to 1/2-13. This bracket slides into the frame rail and is bolted from the top with 2 bolts and some double thick washers.



I previously had a ground strap bolted there. I didn't want to redrill/retap that location so that was a little tight to the washer but worked out fine.
After this was bolted in you can now see how 5/8-11 coupling nut through the slot below the bumper and above the valance.





I love when a plan comes together. Now, in the unlikely event of needing to be pulled onto a flatbed or pulled off a track, we just screw in our tow hook.



That solved the challenge of the front of the vehicle now onto the back. I have a Rideteck 4-Link and needed a solution for a tow from the back. Other than wrapping a strap around the axle I saw no good way to attach anything to the rear without buggering something up. Rennline just happens to have some tow hooks with a 16.5 mm hole that fits perfectly onto the trailing arm bolts. These could be used for towing as well as trailering.



Hope this is inspiration for someone. Enjoy.