Thanks for the idea. I will wait until I get my trailer and decide how to proceed based on the line up. As for the weekend of May 17th, I do plan to go to the track but I will be at my home in Montgomery Alabama.

 

BlackSRT6 your hitch looks fine. I bet the receivers almost disappear on your black car when you remove the hitch.
I noticed that you said the trailer had a "low tongue weight", that was my only concern with installing a trailer hitch on the XF (besides how it looked) since we only have a 450lb. capacity.
My idea for a XF hitch was to install a spring loaded license plate frame that would drop down like a trap door. Cut a hole for a removable receiver behind the plate. Mount another license plate for your car on the trailers tongue.

 

That would be slick.

Just the thought of seeing the crossfire tow its own drag radials to the track is great. Now that is a race car that can tow its own stuff there and back!

 

Yes we are limited in loading the crossfire to 450lbs. The tounge weight of my unloaded trailer is 11lbs and loaded will be less the 30lbs. My tires and tools are 250lbs and the trailer goes 180lbs empty. Total thats 430lbs but the weight is supported by the trailer tires and suspension, not the car. Towing the weight is much easier on the car then hulling 430lbs in the trunk. I have no concerns with this set-up for this use.
Your trailer design would likely look better then mine being totally hidden when not in use. Though theres not much meat to bolt to in the area you are talking about and it would cause your mount to be quite high. Good luck with you project.

 

Oh it's not a project, I just thought it might be just another way to install a hitch.
I totally agree your tongue weight should work well with the Crossfires load capacity restrictions, and of course "towing weight" is much easier on the car than loading everything in the trunk for sure.
I've never actually looked up under the bumper to see what kind of room there is to work with (behind the plate), but I am curious just exactly how (and where) your hitch fastens to the chassis.
As for the hitch itself being rather high (sort of a mini 5th wheel style), I figured I could probably have the removable part of the hitch "shaped" to fit the contours of the rear bumper, just to get the ball at the right hight.
Again this all hinges on what amount of space there is to work with behind the plate.

 

Theres only about 6" between the bumper cover and the trunk pans. I was able to complete the work with out removing the bumper cover but I earned a few nice scratches doing it. I would recommend removing the bumper cover for anyone else, it will make for a better project.

I removed the trunk molded interior to do the inside work. Then bolted the hitches to each of the trunk pans using oversized 1/4" steal internal backing plates on both the horizontal and verticle tie points to distribute the load. I JB welded the backing plates in place to ensure that there would never be an issue of anything coming loose, shifting or rattling.

It's way over done for the load that I will be pulling, but that's just the way I am. The SLK 32 uses the same set up but only 1 centered hitch to carry the same load.

 

Do you have the part number of the hitches that you used? What about the fab for the "bridge" that the ball goes on, Any drawings?

 

I did use (2) SLK 32 hitches to start with, got them off ebay. But they are nothing like what they started out as, I cut them apart and flipped the horizontal bars. I also added 5" to the removable tow bar sections and drilled new pin holes so that they would clear the bumper. If I was going to do it raw a second time I would nock it up out of cardboard and have a machine shop make the parts. I would allow someone with the computer technical ability to measure mine and do up a set of prints, as long as the finished prints would be free to everyone else. The bridge is just a piece of 1/2" stock with (3) 3/4" holes to bolt the hitches together and attach the ball. I'm using a 1 7/8" ball and will try to post some finished product photos tomorrow.

 

It sounds as though it's all "over built" and that's the way to go (just for the peace of mind factor).
You probably wouldn't have any problems hauling a "Jet Ski" or motorcycle trailer if the need should ever come up.
Great Job.

 

This is what I want to get:

http://www.bushtec.com/

With the color matching and all of the bells and whistles they are almost $4k

 

It's good that you have all your weights sussed out, but don't be surprised if it handles poorly on the hiway. There are several reasons:

The tongue weight should be a minimum of 10% of the trailer weight.

If the ball is too high and the trailer does not sit level, this throws the center of gravity rearward and possible behind the axle, especially when going over humps in the road or bumpy conditions that cause unstability.

The crossfire has a very short wheelbase and will not resist trailer sway resulting from imbalances or maneuvers. I lived with this problem while towing a 17' enclosed trailer with a compact pickup. A trip down the highway would literally wear me out with stress. Had to trade up to a full sized truck.

The trailer appears to be very short from the ball to the C/G and will sway at a faster rate than a long trailer. Imagine a dog with a cropped tail... it wags furiously while the golden retriever wags lazily.

If all this isn't enough, remember that without trailer brakes the trailer will be pushing hard during a sudden stop. This increases the chance of swapping ends if the road is rough or traction is degraded for other reasons.

Please take care, give it some road tests, and front load it with some heavy items if you can.

 

Good point about the teil wagging the dog here. my friend's prowler trailer has a really long yoke, and that may tend to dampen some of that effect. The Yoke was so long that at a car show the other day, a lady tried to between what she thought were 2 cars, turns out there was a trailer hitch in between. She went down like a sake of bricks, she was OK though. I think all of the beer softened her landing - LOL

 

I always understood the "ideal" tongue weight for any trailer is around 125lbs.
I use to tow a 19ft. and later a much heavier 21ft. boat behind a 1974 intermediate sized car. I adjusted the tongue weight of both of those trailers to 125lbs, and they tracked just fine up to about 70mph. Only the 21 footer had tandem axels and "surge" brakes.
The longer tongue would help control the "wag" significantly. Trailer hitch hight, to keep the trailer level is a good point.

 

Not my first time with a trailer. I was part of a Miata team that towed race tire trailers all over SOCAL to compete. Actually, the Miata tow set up was very comfortable and it's a smaller lighter car towing about the same load and that was even a shorter trailer then what I have this time. I have towed something behind my cars and trucks most of my life and have a pretty good idea of how to distribute the weight for a safe tow. All it takes is a bathroom scale and a little time.

fastforfun2 - There are many reasons why your tail wagging the dog trailer incident may have occured. None of which I believe will be a problem for the very light set-up I have compared to the weight of the car. Very few light weight trailers (like a jet ski) have brakes and this is not normally a tail pushing the dog issue until you get over 25% of the weight of the tow vehicle, but with the loose rear end that the Crossfire is known for it's worth paying attention to; thats for certain.

Towing is not a scary event if you drive like you have the sence God gave you, avoid putting yourself in emergency stop situations, keep your lane changes smooth and stay with-in the limits of the tow vehicle and towing set-up/rig that you have.

If you have recieved a ticket for 20mph over while pulling your 40' home, you might be a red-neck.

I will let you all know if I have any issues.

 

I'm glad you have experience with different towing setups. It should work out just fine for you. And by the way, nice job on that hitch setup. I admire people who can take an idea to reality and do a good job of it. This forum is loaded with inventive and productive people.

 

Looks great. I've been following this for quite some time. My intrest is to do the two receiver boxes but also modify a dirtbike hitch holder. The ones that hold the bike perpendicular with the trunk. The two hitches would give it better stability from tipping from the standard straight single hitch.

So I am going to cut off the single hitch from the center of the dirtbike rack and put two on either side to line up with the two receivers. Can't we use two universal boxes that just have re mounting plate welded on top rather than the traditional tubular brace that's car-specific? Would you mind taking a few angles of pictures of your receivers mounted to the frame underside of the car? It would be much appreciated!!

 

Here is the final product. The trailer is on a slight upward tilt, so a drop to the hitch may be in the future. I made a 12 hour tow with the trailer without issue. The empty trailer was bouncy around town on bad raods but towed great on the highway. It holds two drag radials laid down with the lid closed or four autocross tires standing up with the lid removed.

 

Lookin good bud!! Mind taking some different views pictures of the receivers mounted to your frame?

 

Very nice! A 1¼" receiver would have worked perfect for adjustment.

James

 

Receivers are mounted to the trunk pans, there is no real frame in our cars. This is the same way the SLK receiver is mounted and I used re-enforcement plates in the trunk to distribute the load. You have to pull most of the interior trunk panels to be able to remove the foam molded pieces that hold the jack and air pack. I used the drain plug hole forward in each trunk as the horizontal mounting points and aligned everything from there to the back. I have already re-installed the lower plastic covers so photos will be tough. I will be inspecting my tie points this weekend checking bolt tightness after the long drive. I will do what I can to get you better photos.