Discovery 4 and Tvan

[Cinan]

Hi all,  what towbar and tongue setup have people used for towing a tvan with a discovery 4?  Is it possible to have it setup so the bottom tailgate will still fully open ?

[Cinan]

I ended up with a Mister Hitches adjustable hitch which still allows me to open the tailgate.  Does have limitations though with the length of the chain,  if I use that in an overlap fashion it is tight and gets caught on the bottom point of the hatch.  The Evan chains are quite short,  has anyone extended them ?

[iannicki]

Apologies for the delayed reply, but I look at the forum less often than the FB page.

On a 2012 D4 with the standard LR hitch, we use a Hayman Reese tongue. It is a 'fixed' mount. I forget the exact offset, but maybe 120mm from centre of tongue (where the locking pin goes through) to top of horizontal plate. Importantly, the locking pin hole was in a good spot so the rear of the tongue doesn't hit the spare tyre. Plenty of clearance for the tailgate

With the D4 suspension in normal height, the Tvan sits slightly nose down per the level bubble on the drawbar and in off-road height, slightly nose up. It looks level to the naked eye.

Unless both the D4 and Tvan gods are on my side, the sun is in the north, the wind is from the west and the temperature is 18.2 degrees, I will usually need to raise to off-road height when connecting/disconnecting with the standard jockey wheel so it can rotate freely.

Good luck with your hunt for a good solution.

Ian

[Dunc]

Old thread, but thought I'd contribute for anyone who is searching for ideas.

We used a Mitch Hitch (from Mitchell Bros) combined with a Hayman Reece removable tongue/ ball mount (fixed height). The Mitch Hitch greatly improved ground clearance and departure angle. The lower tailgate could open fully with no issues - we may have gone for a slightly longer tongue for the tailgate to clear the DO35 pin (no longer have the vehicle so can't check sorry!)