Cost of materials was only $250.00. Engineering certification to obtain a compliance plate was $150.00 - shown at right above. You also need a destruction certificate for the wire rope. You can get this for free simply by requesting one from the rope manufacturer. When submitting your design you need an engineers report and a series of detail photographs as shown on this page. Don showed us the photos he used and they were very similar to ours.

For those of you new to A-Framing the system works like this. Insert the pins on the front bumper and padlock. Have a helper roughly position the vehicle. Drop on coupling and lock. Plug in both ends of 12 volt supply. Attach all safety gear. Being a light car you can easily "jiggle" it to easily line up. Being under 750 kgs you DO NOT need extra braking. In operation the front wheels steer themselves. Don has made a major modification to this set up. In NSW he ran over a pig and it easily cleared the motorhome. However the towed vehicle being much lower acted like a knife and sliced it in halfs. This damaged the attachment pivot pins. After a rethink these were increased in size to 3/4" and had heads and padlocks. This mod has worked well with no further problems.

The photo above shows the wire rope safety chains. Don found that different states have different regulations. Some require chains whilst others want wire rope. He covered all the bases by using a double system - wire rope and chain. The rope used was 10mm, and breaking strength 44.00 Kn (AS3569-1989). A few little traps for the unwary! In Tasmania Don can tow his car using ANY tow vehicle. In NSW the certification is for a matched rig - i.e. you can ONLY tow with the vehicle used when obtaining certification. It is ESSENTIAL to carry all this documentation with you at all times to avoid legal problems. Further info by emailing Don Mackrill .