2005 smart car cdi fortwo DIY trailer hitch info

[Willys 747]

OR maybe a snowmachine...lol....we're scheduled to get 15cms tonight.....augh...no I don't own one either, I broke my back on one in the early 90's, jumping drifts on the lake....yep young and strong like bull...yeh right!

 

[Toxophilite 29]

"In North Ontarioohhh" The closest I've been to where you are is Toronto and Georgian Bay, You'd be about halfway between them. I like snow but I'm happy we only get it for a few weeks or a month here. Humourously people start complaining bitterly after a few days and barely anyone can drive in it. I used to live up in the Okanagan for a year where it would get to be -20 and there would be snow for several months. What's a few weeks? , Speaking of slipping a cog I might just go pickup a free Flying junior as I want its good condition wooden mast boom and bronze fittings. It's actually a boat that could be easily pulled by a smart car. 210 lbs hull.

[Willys 747]

45 minutes ago, Toxophilite said:

"In North Ontarioohhh" The closest I've been to where you are is Toronto and Georgian Bay, You'd be about halfway between them. I like snow but I'm happy we only get it for a few weeks or a month here. Humourously people start complaining bitterly after a few days and barely anyone can drive in it. I used to live up in the Okanagan for a year where it would get to be -20 and there would be snow for several months. What's a few weeks? , Speaking of slipping a cog I might just go pickup a free Flying junior as I want its good condition wooden mast boom and bronze fittings. It's actually a boat that could be easily pulled by a smart car. 210 lbs hull.

I live 1000 yards from the shore of Lake Simcoe about 1 1/2 hours north of Toronto....all summer we hear what has been described as the leafblowers of the sea and then when winter sets in the M1 machine without wheels.....which speed back and forth across the ice trying to beat the speed of sound it seems.   We have so many ice fishermen that a small town sets up just off shore for months. It has street names, resturants,  and it's own transit system almost.  Rediculous...lol. I used to take my fully modified Cj5 onto the ice after a good dumping of snow just to sit and wait. Soon or later some idiot would think, yep, he has snow tires and speed beats depth of snow.   They hit the ice doing at least 60plus miles an hour by the length of the rooster tail they trail behind them. They slowly start making the arc to get back to safety when slowly they start slowing down and finally belly pan.  I give them 15 minutes of freezing to make it clear to them they require a tow to safety....I am locked front and rear and have 33" superswamper tires with over an inch of tread....and 200HP out of a 258 straight six....which is crazy for the day! So i stroll up ask if they require help and suggest my price....usually they jump at it, but you get the few who have learned a bucket of swear words and know how to use them...lol. I simply say, have fun and I'll be 100 or 200 yards away and when you start to turn white from frostbite come talk to me, the price will be double!    lol.  I don't do it any more, but for the  few months of the year was good hunting....lol.   
I'm too old and crusty now to wander out on the ice just to freeze to catch a fish...lol Or almost become a victim of high speed racing of sleds!
I hate the cold now.   Fall is my favorite time of the year, cool enough to work without a spongue to soap up the sweat and warm enough to make it comfortable. And fewer bugs.

Buying toys is a great hobby on it's own....lol. That is how i think of the Smart car....it replaces my motorcycle, it wasn't my first car for useage purposes. But after getting bit by the mileage bug, I sold the fleet!

 

[tolsen 630]

Do you have heating in your ice fishing outhouses too?

[Toxophilite 29]

Ye Gods I was in a similar predicament except my good Samaritans weren't so financially motivated.

Drove my Chev band van onto the beach in Oregon... hung out with girlfriend doing boyfriend and girlfriend things, Noticed tide was coming in, got in my van, the rear wheels spun and the  van sat down on the sand.... sacrificed books and all sorts of things cramming them under the drive wheel in an attempt to escape the incoming tide. Finally some young guys came up in a big dunebuggy thingy with a  giant rope. They didn't say anything, just hooked me up and pulled me out, waved and took off again. Whew! At least I wasn't blasting onto the ice and snow at 100kph Lesson learned though!

[Willys 747]

9 hours ago, tolsen said:

Do you have heating in your ice fishing outhouses too?

Yes, they are sometimes like small houses, heat, stoves, fridges for the colder drinks....it's crazy......they get really serious about sitting out waiting to catch a small fish or a bucket full...guys who do it sensibly catch the lake trout or white fish....worth the wait maybe?

[Willys 747]

7 hours ago, Toxophilite said:

Ye Gods I was in a similar predicament except my good Samaritans weren't so financially motivated.

Drove my Chev band van onto the beach in Oregon... hung out with girlfriend doing boyfriend and girlfriend things, Noticed tide was coming in, got in my van, the rear wheels spun and the  van sat down on the sand.... sacrificed books and all sorts of things cramming them under the drive wheel in an attempt to escape the incoming tide. Finally some young guys came up in a big dunebuggy thingy with a  giant rope. They didn't say anything, just hooked me up and pulled me out, waved and took off again. Whew! At least I wasn't blasting onto the ice and snow at 100kph Lesson learned though!

I didn't mean to sound like a great white sitting waiting for lunch, but, they do it constantly and a tow from a professional company is into the hundreds if not more. You fall in with the car it used to be $10K a day every day until your vehicle is recovered!!  Sensible folks don't do this sort of stuff...it's just the rednecks and kids who refuse to pay attention to common sense. Think about it, they need to get up to speed on the city streets before hitting the lake at 100mph  then launch to clear the drifts that gather closer to shore. The speed limit in town is 30mph....lol.  It used to be a cottage town with kids all over the place.  I'm not saying I was any better, I just didn't need to start at those speeds I could crawl onto the ice and drive anywhere I wished. I also used to pull in ice huts the weekend they were forced to pull them in or get fined.  Guys with massive HP'd snow machines used to sit , well they never had time to sit,  they would be busy from day break to end of day pulling in ice huts and at $100 a pop, they would be very pleased with the days work. Everyone knew the cut off date but they seemed to always wait till the last minute thinking that single fish would float past their hole. Then get caught with their pants down, begging fo a tow in. The fine  for having a hut on the ice after this date wasn't fun either. The furthest I drove out was 7 miles and pulled in a 12X12 hut! You could feel the ice flexing under you as you drove back in....that one was the last one for me! IF you went in at those distances from shore you wouldn't be coming back home. I used to get calls to go help people get their cars off the ice at all times of the night. One guy went through in an area where everyone knew never take a vehicle as the undercurrents made the ice very thin. He was there. His full sized pick up truck had fallen through and the front wheels were on the sand bar and the rear bumper was on the ice.......He offered me well over a $1000 to get him back on the ice..I said sure, but as I walked around his vehicle I was just about to step across an ice crack, just a simple crack, not an opening, he grabbed my shoulder as my foot hit the ice it went through! You look at the ice before you put your foot down always to see how far those cracks travel down into the ice to know how deep the ice is. This crack went down at least 18" but on the one side the ice was only 1/2" deep!!!   If I had driven my Jeep across that crack as he had done, I'd be in with him. I said very sorry but I'm not bringing my machine this close to this area and gave him the tow companies number to call who could pull him in from shore. That was thousands of dollars and that nasty fine to go with it.  I never drove on the lake again after that! I only walk on it now.  BUT thousands do it and many many go through every year and a few die every year also, cars trucks and sleds...they all go to the bottom. We have a very sucessfull diving comp here also who retreives things during the summer from the past winter's fools.   My small charge was peanuts compared to the others. And it greatly depended upon the attitude of the driver and his drunken passengers.  There is a smart car around here somewhere that has tracks on it in the rear like an ATV conversion has...it's on youtube.....it'll be a great lake machine, but it doesn't have the HP required imho for deep snow etc....so just a toy trial..I did think about a smart gutted simply to play on the lake with, but always remember that one truck and how I couldn't tell the depth of the ice.....so I'll stick to summer adventures.

[Toxophilite 29]

Wow sounds crazy! I wasn't disparaging you charging a fee, I was just relating a similar experience.

Sadly i was one of those out there in need of assistance. Happily I wasn't that far from solid ground, but certainly far enough with the tide coming in.

 

[Willys 747]

No worries...it was also entertainment..lol
plus I wasn't the only one...

 

Sorry to travel from orginal topic....now where were we....something to do with trailer hitches if i recall correctly....lol

 

[Toxophilite 29]

Trailer hitch?? What??

Hitch basically sorted. I appreciate all the input and advice. I was thinking of finding a little utility trailer.

[Willys 747]

Hmmmm.....?

You know someone who could whip you up one in an afternoon I bet...lol.  And it'd out last the car possibly. Mine is 20 plus years old now and still better than most you can buy. Although not suitable for the Smart Car but almost strong enough for it to hold the Smart.  You could design it and build it from lighter weight materials and be multi functional. Can he weld alluminium? I'm not set up for it at home, personally. I just don't have the calling for it here. But that is the way to go if you were to make one. and think torsion suspension from Princess Auto. They come on sale every now and then also. Not cheap but far better allowing the trailer to sit far closer to the ground, similar to the car...lol.  Just a suggestion....

 

[Leadwing 565]

I have one here you can have for free, but it's a long hike to get a tiny tilt box trailer

[Willys 747]

1 hour ago, Leadwing said:

I have one here you can have for free, but it's a long hike to get a tiny tilt box trailer

But what an adventure!   I'd almost say worth it...lol. IF I wasn't towing my own trailer out west I'd deliver it for you.....you pay half the fuel and it's yours....what would that be.....$50...lol

 

[Toxophilite 29]

bahaha Actually my brother primarily welds and designs in Aluminium

 

http://undergroundcircus.ca/portfolio-items/david/

 

 

http://undergroundcircus.ca/what-we-build/

[Willys 747]

Sarcastically......I don't think he's capable of making that tow hitch strong enough or with any type of profesionalism....lol

Seriously....he made that eagle I'm taking it or a crow...that flies so to speak....Hmmmm......yeh, I'd question is abilities!...Damn fantastic.....lol

WOW...!

 

 

Can't imagine what the trailer will look like or be able to do when he makes it for you....!....lol

[smartnhappy 218]

This idea might have shown up earlier, but it looks good for slow-speed towing.

Maybe a larger, swivelling wheel&tire would work for general use.

 

[LooseLugNuts 557]

no

 

 

just no

[tolsen 630]

We discussed swivel trailers a year ago. They are dangerous contraptions in my humble opinion. 

[darren 192]

That is 100% unsafe and illegal.

 

What is that, a plastic caster? That will last about a minute on the road before disintegrating. 

[MikeT 744]

Bad joke.  Why is it that some smart owners think that it's cool to make the car do things it's clearly not suited for?

[smartnhappy 218]

Sorry for the increase in blood pressures all around.

Didn’t know this idea had been chewed over and spit out long ago.

 

[Willys 747]

I'll let you all know.....I got my garden tractor stuck in my ditch a month ago.....simply belly panned in mud......I thought lets see.....IF....and i thought it was a simplish thing considering the weight difference between the two vehicles, IF the Smart would be able to pull it out......Hmmmmmm...........Lets just say...I seriously worried about the clutch system in the Smart as it was trying to free the tractor. Yes it did in the end but it proved to me.....Smarts are NOT designed to tow any type of weight realistically!  These boat pics etc are just that...fakes pics asking to be criticized and debated...IMHO.

[tolsen 630]

A Smart 450 Cdi is perfect for towing. Some years ago I used my Smart to transport 50 tonnes of top soil a distance of 35 km and from 50 m above sea level to 800 m above sea level. 

The initial plan was to haul using a Suzuki Ignis all wheel drive but found the Ignis could not haul the one tonne load up the steep hills. No problem for the Smart. Hauled up the steepest inclines in 2nd gear.  Made a total of 50 trips. 

[LooseLugNuts 557]

2 hours ago, Willys said:

I'll let you all know.....I got my garden tractor stuck in my ditch a month ago.....simply belly panned in mud......I thought lets see.....IF....and i thought it was a simplish thing considering the weight difference between the two vehicles, IF the Smart would be able to pull it out......Hmmmmmm...........Lets just say...I seriously worried about the clutch system in the Smart as it was trying to free the tractor. Yes it did in the end but it proved to me.....Smarts are NOT designed to tow any type of weight realistically!  These boat pics etc are just that...fakes pics asking to be criticized and debated...IMHO.

 

 

there is a huge difference between dead loads and rolling loads though

 

that being said...whenever i was towing anything i would plan ahead to avoid all possible hill stops....

 

 

best safe way for any vehicle to yank out dead loads is to use a stretch strap and let the kinetic energy do the work instead of the clutch

 

[Leadwing 565]

If I had to tow a trailer, I have my "big" car ('89 Honda Civic) or my ancient motorcycle ('75 Honda Gold Wing)