s14 Tow bar for R33?

[jezzerrr]

hey all

A small while ago there was a thread (or part of one), where a guy here was fitting an s14 towbar on an r33. I think. I cant for love nor money find that thread now. Can someone tell me if this is right, the guy who was doing it said it was a straight fit, save having to extend the mounts a few inches for a hump in the back of the sedans, and another guys voiced his concerns about towing once the car had been modified a bit.

If anyone has done this, can they elaborate on how easy/hard it is? doesn't look like there's much room back there for a towbar...

Thanks in advance:)

Jeremy

[colgf]

Maaate - I Tried To Buy One Everywhere For A R33 Gts-t & Was Only Given Grief!!!! Ended Up Making One Myself Out Of An Old Hk Holden One!!!!!! I Lot Of Cutting & Welding But Ended Up Excellent Item!!!!! Only Cost Me $50 For A Metre Of Steam Pipe, Used The Hk Gooseneck & Mount As Original !!!!! Good Luck.....

[jezzerrr]

maaate sweet as! good old aussie ingenuity eh. I reckon if I cut and shutted and it required me to do ANY kind of welding it would end up looking like the titanic! but I'll keep it in mind! I've got a mate that's pretty good with fabbing stuff up, so I might be able to sort something out with him. It's only bit's and pieces of metal after all. So you got any photos of your set up? I'd be interested to see how it all fits in etc.

[skipppy]

any decent tow bar place can custom make one up

i had mine done for 400 including ball removable bar and inside boot plug took em like 4 hrs

too easy

[hungry6]

I read the same thread, as I remember, it was a nissan tow bar for a S14, which also cause a little bump in the rear bar. I wonder what the insurance co say about homemade towbar, untested to NATA standards. Just a though, not trying to be smart.

[jezzerrr]

yeah i actually read it as a bump in the bodywork preventing the tow bar to slot straight in... he said the 2 door might not have the bump... but then i do have a habit of skimming yeah not sure about the insurance... i guess it would only really come into play if it somehow contributed to the accident... I had 19's on my old car that i hadn't notified them about when i hit a roo... they weren't even mentioned.

guess I could just get the tow bar and try my luck... at worst I may be able to return it or sell it...

which mob did yours skippy? I didn't even know there were "tow bar places"

[skipppy]

usually they are the same places that fit roo bars to 4wd and lights and so on

[LiQuid IcE]

is it okay for the car to tow somthing on skylines???

like i know people tow with stageas so it should be the same thing yeh?

is it bad for the car?

[skipppy]

of course any extra weight added to car is gunna stress it out a bit more but crusing wise at 100k's mine goes fine. i tow a 400-500 kg jetski with petrol and sking gear no probs

[jezzerrr]

yeah i dont think you'd wanna tow a caravan or anything but for towin shit down the dump or bikes/jetskis etc i cant see it being a hassel. one concern that was raised is that you dont really want to be towing if you've got a car that's got a fair few mods and comes on boost strong, could do some damage if ur toing somethin a bit weighty!

[LiQuid IcE]

okie thanks for the info!

[colgf]

I read the same thread, as I remember, it was a nissan tow bar for a S14, which also cause a little bump in the rear bar. I wonder what the insurance co say about homemade towbar, untested to NATA standards. Just a though, not trying to be smart.

Re being an untested towbar--- come on maaate , I guarantee that 99% of towbars sold in this country are untested!!!!!!!! Thats a Fact!!!!!

[jezzerrr]

did some trawling an found this - for future reference. ordering mine today!

...I actually purchased a S14 tow bar from Nissan for $200 thinking it would fit. Most of the Nissan RWD / AWD platforms are essentially the same in the chassis rail, spare wheel well, beaver panel area. The S14 tow bar mounts slide inside the chassis rail 22 cm with a piece on angle plating on the outside of the LH rail and two bolts going through and uses the tow point bolts on the other side. I believe the S14 kit will fit S13, S14, S13, R32 2 and 4 door, R33 2 door and maybe R34 and Stagea. It would not fit on my R33 4 door because they have a bodge in the beaver panel that stops the bar from being pushed all the way into the chassis rails. The S14 bar is ratted at 900kg.

[jezzerrr]

well i'm half way through.... found a quick easy way to lose 10kg off the car if you're lookiong for weight reduction tho! you can run the bumper without the metal insert perfectly fine, save that the number plate lights attach to it. basically all it is is a shock absorber for the chassis - the skin is in no way attached to it. you'd be f&*ked in a rear ender without it...

Here's to praying it turns up, and fits without a hitch (pardon the pun, man i'm funny). Other wise I have to ride 600k's to bris on saturday! not my idea of fun...

[Greg]

I just looked into doing this and received some excellent information from "Turbo Tim" which I thought I'd post here to help anyone else out

Hey,

Yeah I did end up doing it. Use the bar quite often with no dramas.

The chassis rail bolts up straight up once you remove 2 bolt on the chassis side. Not a big drama with a cold chisel.

The beaver panel is the drama. If you look in the boot behind the trim you will see there is a bump that extends outwards toward the bumper. This gets in the way. You can see the bump in question when you look behind the number plate, its the one that the number plate bracket bolts too.

The solution i had done with mine (which i was too keen on) was to remove the a section of the beaver panel and weld in a flat piece of steel about 40cm by 20cm. You cant tell with the car back together, but its still a daunting thought. The other option some other people have done is to just belt the bump back in. At least this way I guess you might be able to keep the number plate mount.

My plate bracket is gone so the plate is just screwed into the plastic bumped.

The other dilemma is that the towbar replaces the reinforcing bar which runs along the back of the car. The problem with this is that the number plate lights mount to it. I just made a flat piece of plastic up from the towbar (which runs along behind the number plate)to mount them on. The other option which i think i might do soon is to source some lights from another car. The ones on the girlfriends honda integra look like them might do the trick is they are mounted straight onto the bumper above the plate.

Its all pretty tidy when its reassembled. All you can see from mine is a piece of 10x5x1cm plate sticking out at the bottom of the bumper. I got the wiring spliced up in a ribbon cable which lives in the boot when im not towing. That way there is no ugly plug as well.

My car is a 2 door btw.

What do you want to tow, bar recommended limit is 450kg unbraked, 900 braked I think. I just tow a 6x4 trailer with 2 65kg karts and about 50kg or tools and other rubbish.

See attached photo for finished result.

Tim.