Flat tow equipment needed to flat tow the 2021 Bronco?

[Tilzbow]

I’ve seen it mentioned several times in this thread that some are grinding Blue Ox adapters so they’ll fit the modular bumper. I think I mentioned it earlier but LOD Offroad makes adapters that’ll fit the Blue Ox tow bars. See link below. If you’re using Roadmaster tow bars, their 035-1 adapters fit without modification or LOD makes some for those, too. See bottom of the page after you open the link.

LOD also make frame tie in brackets which provide a place to hook you’re safety cables.

https://lodoffroad.com/category/bronco-front-bumpers

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[GunninGopher]

I’ve seen it mentioned several times in this thread that some are grinding Blue Ox adapters so they’ll fit the modular bumper. I think I mentioned it earlier but LOD Offroad makes adapters that’ll fit the Blue Ox tow bars.

I saw a post a month or two ago about it (presumably yours) and emailed LOD with the dimensions on the Bronco's recovery point. They said theirs would only work on their own bumpers so I didn't pursue it. I could have easily gotten something wrong or gotten the wrong person so I'm not doubting you, just sharing my experience. I hope they work because they are way cheaper and blue ox should not be charging their customers like this. My guess is that they saw a combo of "RVer and Off Roader" and couldn't resist the temptation to charge 3x the reasonable cost of a product that has pretty basic machining.

As it was, I already had the overpriced ones I bought off of etrailer so I just kept going down that path instead of asking for clarification to try to use the ones you recommend.

 

[grtharris]

I agree this isn't just a 2022 problem and that Curt is still claiming to be unaware of the scope of the issue.

We have a 2021 Outer Banks and installed the Curt 58992 in February. I didn't finish wiring it up because I was waiting on my RVi system to come in and wanted to finish the wiring all at once. Once I heard about this problem I tested it out and sure enough, the wrong lights are being activated. I e-mailed them 2 weeks ago with the concern and they never got back to me. I called early last week but I it was after hours. I called again yesterday (Friday) and the Tech Support guy was saying that this sounds exactly like the problem they have when being connected to incandescent lights. I said I have LED's because that is what the Outer Banks has. He said he won't proceed until I take the tail light apart and verify that it is LED. I'm like, dude, I paid extra for these upgraded tail lights, they're LED. Ford literature says they are LED, Outer Banks has upgraded LED lights standard and I'm pretty sure most people would say incandescent is a down-grade anyways. He wouldn't budge.

So last night I went out there to shoot a video (attached) and you can see the typical LED flicker with them. This morning I went to see how they come apart and I just can't tell. I really don't want to try to dis-assemble this tail-light assembly just because Curt won't believe the obvious. These things aren't cheap and I have a warranty to respect. I have wired TOADs with diode's before. I know I can do that for about $40. I paid $130 for this because I didn't want to risk my warranty and it is my wife's dream car, so I want to make sure she sees that I'm doing everything I can to make it stay nice.

I've sent the video and I expect them to provide a fix to me without having to go any further.

I don't mind at this point modifying the harness, because that is the least pain in the ass way to get this on the road in 8 days. I just expect the manufacturer to own up to it. This issue was documented months ago in this and other forums. There is a whole lot of IRL testing being done that they are ignoring. They should know by now that this is happening to LED's too without making me jump through hoops. To their (hopeful) credit, the tech support guy said they'd send out a fix once they confirm it is happening with LEDs.

On another issue, I have a Blue Ox and ended up just grinding the tabs myself. It took about 1 hour, 4 disks and about 12ah on my DeWalt 4 1/2" 20v angle grinder. I widened it out to 30-30.5mm and there is plenty of clearance. Primed and painted and they look fine. You will need a caliper to do this properly. I went to 1 machine shop because I figured I could maybe get them milled for a 12 pack, but they were saying that it was going to cost too much to be worth it. I'm glad I did it myself.

I just ordered some nylon washers to fit in between the loop and the tabs since I have some extra play. I ended up having to order 100 washers so if anyone wants them, DM me and as long as I have the right thing delivered to me, I'll mail 4 of them out to anyone that asks for the price of good karma.

Great job on the Blue Ox adapters, if I didn't have a machine shop in the family that's what I would have done. Don't know what Curt's problem but they need to get with it. Sent a PM

 

[Tilzbow]

I saw a post a month or two ago about it (presumably yours) and emailed LOD with the dimensions on the Bronco's recovery point. They said theirs would only work on their own bumpers so I didn't pursue it. I could have easily gotten something wrong or gotten the wrong person so I'm not doubting you, just sharing my experience. I hope they wish because they are way cheaper and blue ox should not be charging their customers like this. My guess is that they saw a combo of "RVer and Off Roader" and couldn't resist the temptation to charge 3x the reasonable cost of a product that has pretty basic machining.

As it was, I already had the overpriced ones I bought off of etrailer so I just kept going down that path instead of asking for clarification to try to use the ones you recommend.

Funny, I called or emailed them (can’t remember which) and was told they’d work with their bumpers and similar bumpers with similar 1” recovery points. Looking at their install instructions I firmly believe they’ll work with most 1” wide recovery points since their recovery points are similar to others. Sounds like I had a tech respond while you had a salesperson trying to sell a bumper respond to your inquiry….

In any case, I ended up going with a JCR Offroad bumper and will use Roadmaster 035 adapters with that. But since I’m headed out for 5 weeks at the end of April and won’t have the JCR bumper in time I’m going to need a set of the 034-1 adapters for the stock modular bumper for my first trip.

I did order and receive then LOD frame tie in brackets and will install those before hitting the road so I have a secondary attachment point for the safety cables. I’ll update once I get the Bronco and get everything installed.

 

[rsmag9]

I’d like to purchase the stuff I need to flat tow but I’m a little confused on what to get. Anyone that’s knowledgeable on it mind recommendeding a setup? I have a 2.7 with mod bumper, and my motorhome is a class a 99 Hurricane. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[grtharris]

Funny, I called or emailed them (can’t remember which) and was told they’d work with their bumpers and similar bumpers with similar 1” recovery points. Looking at their install instructions I firmly believe they’ll work with most 1” wide recovery points since their recovery points are similar to others. Sounds like I had a tech respond while you had a salesperson trying to sell a bumper respond to your inquiry….

In any case, I ended up going with a JCR Offroad bumper and will use Roadmaster 035 adapters with that. But since I’m headed out for 5 weeks at the end of April and won’t have the JCR bumper in time I’m going to need a set of the 034-1 adapters for the stock modular bumper for my first trip.

I did order and receive then LOD frame tie in brackets and will install those before hitting the road so I have a secondary attachment point for the safety cables. I’ll update once I get the Bronco and get everything installed.

Do you have the Modular Bumper. I keep looking at my OBX with Modular Bumper and it looks like for sure I will have to notch the front skid plate to clear the attachment point?

 

[Tilzbow]

Do you have the Modular Bumper. I keep looking at my OBX with Modular Bumper and it looks like for sure I will have to notch the front skid plate to clear the attachment point?

Long term I’ll be using the JCR Off-road Vanguard bumper and routing safety cable extensions from the LOD frame mounted brackets through the triangular shaped high lift jacking points on the front of the bumper then connecting the safety cables to the extensions. I think you might be able to use a similar approach with the OEM modular and route the extensions through the opening in the center of the bumper or up and over the top then connect the towing safety cables to those.

 

[GunninGopher]

Funny, I called or emailed them (can’t remember which) and was told they’d work with their bumpers and similar bumpers with similar 1” recovery points...

Yeah but the Bronco recovery points are 1 1/8" width, so if theirs are 1" (like a lot of others) they will need to be widened. They may still be the right choice because they are less expensive than the Blue Ox ones. Even the Towmaster ones are less expensive. In a few months someone will come up with a decent priced out of the box solution.

 

[GunninGopher]

I’d like to purchase the stuff I need to flat tow but I’m a little confused on what to get. Anyone that’s knowledgeable on it mind recommending a setup? I have a 2.7 with mod bumper, and my motorhome is a class a 99 Hurricane. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I'll brain dump my experience. This info is worth every penny you'll pay. I have a 2001 motorhome on a #20500 GVW F53 chassis. Flat towing a mid size SUV is easy on this and a P30 (Chevy/Workhorse) chassis.

If you buy used and do the work yourself, you'll pay around $1500 - $2000 to set it up if you are looking around for deals. Unless you have money to burn, I'd buy at least some of this stuff used. Installation of the wiring and braking system I'm going to guess will be about $1000, but I've never paid for it so I don't know. If you are handy the lighting is easy.

Below are the basics:

Tow Bar:
A 4dr Bronco is less than #5000, so you'll want at least a mid-level tow bar. I had a #6000 Falcon 2 and I wanted to get a little better one so I got a used Blue Ox Avante with #7500 rating ($300). Towmaster and Blue Ox are the big names as far as I know.

Some of the scuttlebutt you see here is about the recovery loops width. Tow bar bumper adapters seem to usually be set up for 1" and the Bronco's Modular bumpers are 1 1/8" (29mm), with a 7/8" pin. There may be a ready-purchase solution out there, but I bought a pair to replace the Blue Ox "3 prong" connector to a Off Road bumper connector for about $230 and ground the gap to about 30mm. Was an easy hack.

Base Plate:
(you don't need one) We have a OB with modular bumper. The reason we got the bumper was for the tow attachments. A base plate on a TOAD for a tow attachment costs usually around $500 and can take all day to install yourself, so it is nice to have a tow hookup bumper. I installed the base plate on our old TOAD, so don't know what it costs to get one installed, but it has to be way over $1000, based on just the general over-pricing of anything to do with RV service.

"Trailer" Lights:
The cleanest way to get the lights going are to use the Bronco's brake and parking lights in the rear. You could go the easy route use some magnetic ones for like $30 and run wire externally. If you don't mind the look it is a fine way to go, but I don't mind spending a little extra early to save years of hassle and my wife would go ape shit if one of them fell and dented/scratched her new ride. She doesn't even like to drive near bushes when we're wheelin' now. To use any TOAD's tail lights, you have to have diodes in to prevent the motorhome from back-feeding power into the Bronco's system. 4 diodes costs between $20 and $40 and the wire is like $10 for a DIY solution. I've done it and it isn't hard.

I didn't want to mess around with these probably very expensive and currently under warranty LED tail light assemblies on the OBX, so I purchased the Curt harness, which is around $100 now. A lot of the scuttlebutt you've seen in this thread is how those are not currently working properly. Looks like there is a fix which I'll be trying this weekend. I don't know what Curt is doing about it because they haven't gotten back to me. I'm pretty must assuming I'm going to have to fix it myself.

Ideally you'll keep the battery on the Bronco charged from the motorhome, but this isn't too critical if you keep an eye on things, aren't multi-day towing and aren't braking a lot. I did this on our old one, but for the Bronco I added a DC to DC charger (with wireless monitoring)

Supplemental Braking system:
I rolled for a long time without brakes on a TOAD, and that is just because I was young (read dumb), was (am?) cheap and I always was going to 'do it next time'. Aside from being irresponsible to others on the road, there is no way I'm going to tow this $50000 Bronco without a supplemental system.

There are a lot of options out there. There is a surge brake one, but I don't know how it works. There are built in systems, that I think usually involve an air pump, wires and pulley's. There are also portable ones that just use power from the TOAD.

Plan to spend at least $1000 new, at least $500 used. Probably double if it needs to be installed by someone else. I prefer a portable system because they are all I know and I don't want a bunch of pulleys, cables and stuff in the TOAD. I just purchased the RVi full package including the portable braking system, battery charger, wireless break-away and tire monitors. It was expensive but my old tire monitors took a crap last year so I justified it that way and needed the battery charger, too.

Since you have the 2.7 there is also a lot of scuttlebutt about that in this thread, too. Apparently the braking booster times out when you don't have the key on, changing the TOAD braking performance. There are some work-arounds posted here and I'd expect there to be a hack or firmware solution to come out at some point. We have the 4 Cyl. so I won't have this issue.

You also need a trailer electrical cable to connect the lights and safety chains.

To find used parts:
On Facebook there is a group for flat tow stuff. Here are 2 I follow:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/887849704574901
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1086137578488314

Join those (and maybe other) groups and keep your eyes open. Someone just listed the whole RVi Big Brake package for maybe $1200, which was a steal. I just paid $2300 for that. If you live in Florida you'll see a lot of deals which might be within reach. Arizona is another hot spot for used TOAD stuff. If you purchase used, inspect any seals, check to see if it moves smoothly, look for rust and see if it has been regularly serviced. If possible, get them to throw in the wire and cables, too.

 

[Tilzbow]

Yeah but the Bronco recovery points are 1 1/8" width, so if theirs are 1" (like a lot of others) they will need to be widened. They may still be the right choice because they are less expensive than the Blue Ox ones. Even the Towmaster ones are less expensive. In a few months someone will come up with a decent priced out of the box solution.

I won’t argue with you on the width measurement since I don’t have my Bronco in hand and I can’t walk outside to measure so you could be right there.

That said see Post 62 in this thread for picture proof the Roadmaster 035-1 adapters fit the modular bumper. The shop I’m having install my auxiliary brake system has done two Bronco installs with modular bumpers and used the 035-1 adapters and Roadmaster tow bars for both.

 

[GunninGopher]

That said see Post 62 in this thread for picture proof the Roadmaster 035-1 adapters fit the modular bumper. The shop I’m having install my auxiliary brake system has done two Bronco installs with modular bumpers and used the 035-1 adapters and Roadmaster tow bars for both.

That's good news for Roadmaster folks, then. I sold my Falcon 2 and picked up a Blue Ox that had a higher weight rating. That's something to consider for anyone that doesn't yet have a tow bar. Roadmaster ends don't require modification.

 

[Happy]

For safety cable hook up, I would like to use something like the LOD Black OPS Bumper Frame tie in bracket.

Crawling around yesterday, I also think that on the Modular bumper and factory front skid plate that it will require notching for the bracket to hang down through the skid plate.

If any of you (Tilzbow?) have tried it, is the hanging down part long enough to extend past the front skid plate?

 

[Tilzbow]

For safety cable hook up, I would like to use something like the LOD Black OPS Bumper Frame tie in bracket.

Crawling around yesterday, I also think that on the Modular bumper and factory front skid plate that it will require notching for the bracket to hang down through the skid plate.

If any of you (Tilzbow?) have tried it, is the hanging down part long enough to extend past the front skid plate?

I can’t answer since I don’t have my Bronco yet, it’s due in two weeks. Everything I’m doing is based on research and the 10 minutes I spent looking at a Bronco at the NV Off Rodeo event in October 2021. I do, however, have the LOD brackets in hand and I can provide some pictures and measurements of the bracket dimensions that would enable someone to create a template and check fit. If anyone is up for that let me know.

Also, if you look at the pictures of the LOD install instructions below you’ll be able to determine that the tie-in point is a little ways back from the front of the frame so unless the skid is tucked up really tight then you should be able to have enough clearance for the skid plate. Assuming it fits I plan to route a safety cable extension from the bracket through or around the bumper. Long term I’ll be installing a JCR Vanguard winch bumper and they‘ve confirmed I can use their Hi-Lift jack point openings to feed a safety cable but since I might have to use the OEM Modular bumper for my first 5 weeks trip my plan might go up in smoke once I get the Bronco but time will tell.

 

[Happy]

Would you mind posting the measurement of the existing red circled hole to the center of the drop loop home...that will receive the safety hook? And the measurement from the outer frame face back to the existing hole? That would be very useful.

Thank you for the postings you have previously made for flat towing.

 

[Tilzbow]

Would you mind posting the measurement of the existing red circled hole to the center of the drop loop home...that will receive the safety hook? And the measurement from the outer frame face back to the existing hole? That would be very useful.

Thank you for the postings you have previously made for flat towing.

Here you go. I’ll admit the brackets look a little bit different in hand than they do in the drawing above.

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