{"id":52,"date":"2009-10-08T19:51:07","date_gmt":"2009-10-08T17:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.retroanaconda.com\/landrover\/?p=52"},"modified":"2009-10-24T15:18:26","modified_gmt":"2009-10-24T13:18:26","slug":"nato-hitch-rear-recovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.retroanaconda.com\/landrover\/2009\/10\/nato-hitch-rear-recovery\/","title":{"rendered":"NATO Hitch Rear Recovery"},"content":{"rendered":"

For a rear recovery point (well all recovery points really) you want a very strong <\/strong><\/em>mount, as the pulling forces when you’re in thick mud up to the axles can be rather hefty, and chunks of metal flying at high velocity are never a good thing. The NATO hitch is a good idea for use as a recovery point for a number of reasons, the primary one being that it’s bloody strong. Defenders also handily have the correct bolt pattern in the rear cross-member already, making mounting very easy.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately one cannot just bolt the hitch onto the crossmember and be done with it. It would probably be okay for on-road towing, but off-road recovery can generate high shock forces which will simply rip the bolts through your chassis. The answer is a spreader plate in front and behind like this:<\/p>\n

\"Hitch<\/a>

Hitch on rear crossmember, with external spreader plate shown<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Spreader<\/a>

Spreader plate behind the crossmember<\/p><\/div>\n

Why another spreader plate on the outside I hear you ask? Well it’s purpose is to spread any sideways forces generated by anything other than a perfectly straight pull. Without it you would find the hitch would distort the relatively thin material of the crossmember’s outer face.<\/p>\n

For reference, the plate dimensions are as follows:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Outer plate is 195mm x 120mm x 8mm<\/li>\n
  • Inner plate is 195mm x 85mm x 12mm<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    For a rear recovery point (well all recovery points really) you want a very strong mount, as the pulling forces when you’re in thick mud up to the axles can be rather hefty, and chunks of metal flying at high velocity are never a good thing. The NATO hitch is a good idea for use […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.retroanaconda.com\/landrover\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.retroanaconda.com\/landrover\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.retroanaconda.com\/landrover\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.retroanaconda.com\/landrover\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.retroanaconda.com\/landrover\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.retroanaconda.com\/landrover\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":96,"href":"http:\/\/www.retroanaconda.com\/landrover\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions\/96"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.retroanaconda.com\/landrover\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.retroanaconda.com\/landrover\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.retroanaconda.com\/landrover\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}