John, I will give you my personal experience and then watch all the other
people cringe.
I towed my spitfire from LA to Bothell (you live in seattle, you know where
Bothell is) with a standard dolly (the two wheel kind) that I rented from
AA rentals. It worked very well but here is my advice:
Disconnect the drive shaft from the transmission to the rear differential.
I would actually go one step further and take the drive shaft out. This
will stop excess wear on the transmission.
Check the car EVERY 100 MILES!!! and I mean this. The car shifts a lot on
those little dollies especially on I-5. The wheel base on the spitfires is
so small that the car needed to be exactly centered on the dolly for both
wheels to make it up the ramp. The front wheels are locked down on the
dolly by straps that go over the tires. It is these straps that you will
want to check on a very regular basis.
Take your time, I know from experience that you can make San Francisco from
Seattle in about 13-14 hrs, don't do it. Take a couple of days and don't
exceed 60 or so with the car attached, it'll be really unstable.
There is one really big drawback with the dolly and that is that if there
is a catastrophic failure with the rear differential (locking up or
something) you will not notice and you can blow the rear tires which will
blow your rear end...
I didn't have a problem and I doubt that you will either.
However, all that being said:
If a trailer is a possibility for you, I would per sue that option.
(safest for you and safest for the car)
At 09:22 PM 12/27/98 -0800, John Weale wrote:
> OK, so there really is only one question, what is the best way to
>tow a spitfire? I'm looking at the two rear wheels up in a dolly (the
>cheap option), all four wheels up on a trailer (expensive, but seems the
>safest) or sticking her fully into a 15' truck (technically illegal and
>I'd have to improvise some ramps). Any bits of advice?
>
> For background, she runs great, except for needing some minor carb
>work to help starting and lower gas consumption (quit snickering -- I'm
>sure it's just a minor adjustment somewheres!). The towing is due to the
>need to move significant quanties of stuff, including a couch, 900 miles.
>I just got married on Dec. 19th, and am moving myself and my wife down to
>Berkeley, CA (she's a professional student down there and I'm just
>attracted to warmer weather for my Spit). As a somewhat humorous
>sidenote, my wife looked over my credit card statement and asked what all
>the charges to Victoria Brit, TRF and Moss were for. I told her they were
>gifts for the other woman. She knew exactly what I meant, and repeated
>her charming statement that she won't drive more than 100 miles in that
>car until I get AAA...
>
> Little side note: Spitfires do not do terribly well on sheet ice.
>I didn't get into any trouble, but we did end up (after some fun sliding
>about) parking my spit and spending a few hours waiting for a chained bus
>on the way to the honeymoon. Anyone else in the Seattle area foolish
>enough to be wandering about on that night (the 19th) with their Spitfire?
>
> Anyhow, I'm rambling, so I'll just end with a perhaps useful
>suggestion about how to remove pitch without hurting the paint. Maybe
>it's obvious, but it took me a while to figure out that boiling water and
>elbow grease does the job without visions of rubbing holes in the paint
>with turpentine (I actually did put holes in the paint of my old car, a
>Tempo, using Turps).
>
> Any suggestions appreciated,
>
> John Weale
> 1980 "British Racing Orange" Spitfire
>
>---======================== John Weale(jweale@u.washington.edu) ========---
>The world does revolve around engineers... they pick the coordinate system.
>
>
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