SSDutch gets setup to tow behind Edna, our ‘96 Roadmaster Wagon with the LT-1 Chevy V8.

Wiring
There are a number of ways to setup a Jeep to be flat towed.  Some folks use an extra set of taillights either mounted temporarily on the Jeep, or attached permanently.  I don’t care for the looks of double tailights, and can’t see why you wouldn’t just the ones already there.

To use the tailights already on the Jeep you just need to figure out a way to keep the 12V from the tow vehicle from backfeeding into the Jeep’s wiring.

On our CJ5, this was accomplished in a simple fashion - the wiring going from the dash and pedals back to the rear of the Jeep was extended, and a loop put up the front driver’s side framerail.  At the front of the loop a male/female trailer plug was wired in.

When you wanted to tow the Jeep, you’d undo this connection, and connect the tow-vehicle lights up to side of the wiring that continued back to the tailights.  No backfeeding could happen because the side of the wires going back to the pedal and dash were left disconnected while towing.

On SSDutch, I decided I wanted a little nicer setup, with a socket flush-mounted into the front bumper:

I still want to be able to easily remove the bumper, though, so I added a flat-four connection on the backside:

I used an “extension harness” which let me run the flat-tow pigtail back to the area under the driver’s seat, where I opened up the Jeep’s wiring harness and cut the 3 wires inside.

Because using the bumper-mounted socket won’t break the connection in the Jeep’s wiring, I used some diodes (#276-1144 from Radio Shack), and soldered them at the ends of the wires coming from the Jeep’ pedal and dash:

A note on the Diodes - even with some electronics background I couldn’t tell from the info on the packaging if they’d be big enough to handle the current in this setting.  When I got them home I hotwired a spare tailight through one (both ways) and let it sit for 15-20 minutes.  The diode got warm but not overly hot, and didn’t burn out so I think these will work.  At $1.59 for 2 it’s a small risk.

I didn’t get the wiring right on the first try - somewhere between the station wagon and Jeep some wires got out of order, and I had to trace it down and re-do my “intervehicle wiring harness”.

Here’s the wiring plugged in:

Tow Bar
To use our Wagon as a tow rig, I run a 6” drop drawbar reversed to bring the ball up higher.  This puts the towbar pretty level, which is a good thing:

The towbar itself is a home-brew unit built by my dad ~25 years ago.  The main thing to note is the overall length, which is approximately 45”.  I’m a firm believer that flat-towing just works better with a longer towbar:

Towbar Shackles

At the Jeep end I use the Tomken towbar shackles.  I like these because they take those shin-killing brackets off the front bumper, and they lower the height of the towbar on the Jeep side.

I did have to cut a portion of the outside half of the driver’s shackle off, as the “anti-kickback” design of the shackles made them too deep, and it interfered with the Saginaw steering box.

Safety Cables
Rather than chains, which seem to get greasy/dirty and are heavy and loud, I run safety cables, available from most RV supply places.  They’re nice in that they are by nature springy, and don’t drag like chains.

All Hooked Up

The Mess

Why is it the simplest projects leave my garage looking like this?