I'm looking for a bolt-on class III tow hitch for my 1973 Ford LTD Country Squire. I've searched extensively and (not surprisingly) nobody makes them anymore. I've searched junkyards high and low, made several inquiries to online auto recyclers, and have found nothing as of yet. I'm thinking about finding something that is close to it and modifying it to fit. I have welding and fabricating experience. Before I go about doing this, does anyone happen to have one for sale? I know it's a long shot, but I would prefer to have a perfect bolt on and avoid the hassle. Seeing as how the CS is basically a truck frame, would an old F150 hitch be close in terms of size and fit? Any advice would be appreciated.
Another question. This one is regarding the wiring. It seems that with the F series, even as early as the 60s, there was a very easy, round plug included in the stock wiring harness for hooking up the trailer signal lights. This adapter can easily be found in stores. My Country Squire does not seem to have this. There is absolutely no mention of trailer wiring anywhere in my 1973 5 volume Ford Shop Manual. How did they install trailer wiring for the wagons back then? Were they all manually spliced, unlike the trucks which were just a simple plug in to the wiring harness? A lot of Country Squires came with tow packages and I would assume that ford would have designed an easy plug in. Maybe I'm wrong...
Even if you did find a used one, it's probably pretty rusted out by now anyway. I'd just build my own, or modify one for an existing application, like a truck. Being able to weld and fab is a real bonus. Hitches aren't rocket science. You might as well just make it to fit to start with. You can make it better than stock. And then you'll know it's safe and in good condition. Being limited in ground clearance in the back as it is, you'll want to keep the drawbar as close to the bottom of the bumper as you can. What I would do is find a class 3 hitch with a good solid cross tube that is not rusted out, and is at least as long as the distance between your frame rails. Cut the rest of the hitch off the cross tube. If you can't find a good cheap one, then just buy the drawbar slot from a trailer shop and buy a new cross tube from a steel shop. Locate where you want the cross tube to be, and locate where you want the hitch to tie into the frame. The more distance you can span from front to back, the more solid it will be, like probably at least 18 inches. You might even be able to use existing holes. You want that extra distance so you can use a weight distributing hitch if needed. Then make cardboard templates to go from the frame tie points to the cross tube (or draw it up in CAD if you have it). If you can't bend steel, then just use angle iron to attach to the frame, and make your template tie the cross tube to the angle iron. Then weld it all together and I'd put some gussets from the cross tube to the tie plates you made. There's a lot of torque on that tube, especially when using weight distribution. Trucks especially back then were made to do work, hence the availability of the tow harness. There were probably a lot of cars fitted with hitches, but probably still only a small percentage of all the ones made. I'd be skeptical if there was an actual harness made. If you don't want to cut into your factory wiring, then I would try locating one of these cars at a junkyard. If you can find one, cut out the plug connection for the rear lights wiring, leaving at least a few inches on both ends. The yard probably wouldn't charge much for it at all. Join the matching wires, along with your trailer plug wires, solder and heat shrink, and you've just made yourself a professional wiring adapter.
I'm starting to fab up a tow hitch for my '58 Chevy wagon. I found an old heavy duty hitch from another project. The cross rail isn't quite long enough so I'll have to add some inches to it and weld it all up so it fits to the sides of the frame rails. It's true.. hitches are pretty basic.. you just want to make sure you have the weight distributed properly for towing. Unfortunately whoever had my wagon in the past just welded a hitch to the middle of the cross brace that runs between the frame rails. It's not really thick enough for this and you can see where they bowed the brace from towing more than what it was setup for. I noticed there are kits where you cut the cross bar to fit the width of your car. It would be an easy install if you have basic welding skills and a good welder. Good luck!
Dude. It's road trip time. Go to Tempe, AZ to the main U-Haul facility and they will make a custom hitch for you for no fabrication charges. No charge. Not even the metal. GO FORTH and get them to make a hitch for every 73-78 Ford wagon ever made. U-Haul: 1973 Ford Country Sedan Wagon Rear Wheel Drive trailer hitch components Your vehicle requires a custom-built hitch If U-Haul doesn't have a hitch for your vehicle, nobody does! Your vehicle requires a custom-built hitch which we will gladly fabricate for you. If you are able to bring your vehicle to our Tempe, AZ Research & Development facility we'll provide you with a free U-Haul custom trailer hitch, including free installation, and a lifetime unlimited warranty in exchange for the use of your vehicle to fabricate the trailer hitch. We'll need the vehicle for two to three days. If you are interested in this offer please complete the form below and we'll contact you to schedule your appointment. This offer is only valid until one customer per vehicle can fulfill our requirements. Need a trailer hitch, but can't come to Tempe, AZ for a fabrication? Please complete the form below, we'll contact you with trailer hitch options for your vehicle. form is here: http://www.uhaul.com/Locations/Trailer-hitches/740068 Your cost is getting to Tempe and 2-3 days waiting on it. I will do this for my Torino when I get the chance. It'll be good for all 2-door and 4-door 72-76 Torino/Gran Torino/Montego/Elite and 74-76 Cougar and probably the 77-79 intermediates as well.
That's awesome that Uhaul does that, thanks for the heads up. Unfortunately, I live 500 miles away from Tempe. So I don't think it would be very worthwhile for me to drive my huge gas guzzling wagon on a 1000 mile trip. I think the car would make it no problem, but it would probably cost me at least $250 in gas. Anyways, I sent them an email. I'm waiting to hear back.
I contacted Uhaul and this is the response I got from them: Thank you for your inquiry. Our vendors do not have any hitches designed for the 1973 Ford LTD. U-Haul does offer custom designed hitches. The hitch will be customly built for your vehicle through AMFORM in Phoenix, Arizona. Due to Ford being a domestic make, The cost will be a $750.00 down payment, not including the cost of installation. If interested, please contact your local U-Haul dealer. To find the location nearest to you, please refer to our location finder at www.uhaul.com. You may also email me back your zip code, and I will search the closest Hitch Installation center. If you have any further questions, please feel free to email me directly at, bryan_marsh@uhaul.com Bryan Marsh U-Haul Hitch Central Bryan Marsh U-Haul Hitch Central Tel# 1-800-234-8869 Ext# 861548 Apparently they want $750 to make a hitch for me! Pretty outrageous if you ask me.
What difference should that make??? If anything it'd usually be easier to put a hitch on old American iron. Wonder how much they'd want for an import? Sounds like what the salesmen do where I work when someone comes in with a project that they really don't want to do. They'll shoot them a price so outrageous that they figure nobody will buy. That backfired on us once and they gladly paid it anyway. We had a monster headache of a project that we still reference to this day. But geez, this is only a hitch. Full frame car, probably one of the easiest custom jobs they could do.
You would think they'd still have blueprints from the thousands of hitches they made and sold 20-30 years ago. At this point I'd start measuring the width, depth, height, and reach of hitches on various pickup trucks and Suburbans and Econoline vans in junkyards to see what's close. Maybe you'll find something just right on an 80's Dodge Ramcharger or something.
Hey, been a while since I posted. I put the project off for a while, but I finally located a tow hitch that apparently came off a 61 mercury, with the intent on putting it on my '63 Galaxie 500. Just out of curiosity, I checked to see if it would fit on my '73 Country Squire and it is an exact fit! Perfect, because the Wagon is much more suited to towing with it's 460, C6 trans, and front disc brakes, as opposed to the Galaxie, which has drum brakes, cruise-o-matic, and only has a measly 352 cubic inch V8 8) Plus the wagon is cooler for road trips while the sedan is more of an around town grocery getter car. Anyways, I'm now in the process of remounting the end of the exhaust pipe so I can mount the tow hitch. It just has to be cut back about 18" so that it exits a little behind the rear wheel instead of all the way at the back of the car. I'm still searching for the wiring harness. I know they have to exist somewhere. I know that tow hitches were not popular on most cars, but I'm pretty sure a decent portion of the full size wagons had them factory or dealer installed. With all of Ford's advertising of the "Country Squire's Towing Power" here's no way they didn't design a factory tow wiring harness for this car.
You may have more trouble with the factory trailer wiring than you plan. Ford often used a completely different wiring harness to the rear of the car. The trailer lights did not draw off the cars lights at all. There was a 6 gauge wire leading to the back, and the lights were fed off that, triggered by relays in the left rear quarter, behind the trim. In a tow package car, you will actually hear them every time you put the signals or brakes on. The also came with all seven leads pre-run, including the control wire for the trailer brakes. There was a connector for the actual leads to the trailer, and from the factory, this did not have the plug end on it, all the wired were capped. Tow package cars also had a pre-drilled, and plugged hole in the floor pan extension, and the trailer wiring harness had a grommet on it to fit that particular hole, to allow for permanent routing of the line. Painless Wiring, or some other specialty wiring shop should be able to fab one up for you, or you could run all the wires yourself. I don't know when it was introduced, but towards the end of the run of those big wagons, 4 wheel disc brakes were available as an option with the tow package. I MAY have the schematic for the trailer wiring at home. I just bought the complete 78 Ford factory service manuals, so it should be there. I'll check in the morning when I get home. If it is, I'll find a way to scan it, and then send it to you.
