Dixon Bate tow hitch for Land Rover Discovery 2

Wednesday, February 29th, 2012 at 9:27 pm

I have been wanting one of these for ages and decided to bite the bullet. The Land Rover Discovery series 2 comes with a standard tow ball which is great if you tow trailers and caravans. I don’t do either. What I do want is a super strong recovery point. A lot of people think it is OK to use the two eyelets which attach to the tow bar fixings. They are not recovery points!! They are lashing points to secure the vehicle in transit. I’m sure they would be OK to tow a car along the road with but anything more taxing and your asking for trouble.

I also know a lot of people wrap a tow rope around the standard tow ball. This is really dangerous as it is not un common for the tow ball to snap when under heavy strain. You really wouldn’t want to be in the path of that thing when it’s coming at you at speed!

So One cheap and easy way to gain a really strong and secure recovery point is with a tow jaw like the one I have just purchased. A solid proven bit of kit For heavy duty recovery and all for under £40! bargain.

It is a really easy conversion too.

Top pic shows original tow ball that is going to be removed. It is simply two nuts and bolts that need loosened. So to make it a little easier I sprayed them with WD40 about an hour before I started the job.

Now you can see the tow ball removed.

Next you simply offer up the new tow jaw and using the same nuts, bolts and spacer you just tighten them up to 220 N·m using a torque wrench.

And that is it fitted Simples.

What I have found though is my heavy duty tow strap Is to big to fit straight on. It is supposed to be a quick fit shackle but the tow jaw is to wide to allow it to quickly fit around it. As you can see in the first picture.

No problem though, it just means using it as a normal shackle, so pull the heavy duty cir-clip out (pic 2 and 3)