First, you need a Civic.



Then you need an idea.

I bought an '81 Prelude which was was a few hours from me and I needed a way to get it home.

So I did what any self-respecting man would do and I bought a hitch for my Civic. It's a Draw-Tite hitch. Very nice! Uhaul wanted $188 installed for this beeyatch but I found it for $86 and I installed it myself.

Then, I rented a tow dolley from U-Haul. I knew they wouldn't rent to me if I was towing a car, so I told them I was just picking up a set of tires and wheels. Yes, I lied. Upon return of the dolley I was informed that the guy who rented to me was a moron and Uhaul does NOT rent tow dolleys for compact cars regardless of the reason. I guess I really lucked out!

650lbs of man hitched to the back of my Civic. Notice the rear end sagging down. 100% stock suspension! The hitch is rated for 2,000lbs with a 200lb tongue weight. The dolley weighs 650lbs and the car being towed weighs 2100lbs. I have less than 100lb ft of tq. Will it work? Am I a moron?



80 miles into the drive there, my car sputters and dies while going 70mph. Timing belt? Nope. Still in tact. Maybe it skipped a tooth? Car starts on one of the tries but is running VERY badly, sputters, and dies again.

Turns out to be the distributor rotor. It has pretty much fallen off. Rigged it back into place with a screw stolen from another section of the engine bay. Back on the road! An hour has been lost, but I'm going to make a day of this yet!

Finally arrive to get the car. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea! We load the Prelude onto the dolley and I've got 1mm of clearance between my tires and the fenders in the rear. Nobody is in the car yet! What in the world am I going to do?

Cram everybody into the car and I only seem to be rubbing when I hit a bump or am in a turn.

With a 5,530lb total load on my D15 I average 22mpg at 70mph for the duration of my trip back home.

Horrible pictures of the Prelude and Dolley hitched to the back of my Civic. I wish I had a better picture because it truly was a sight to be seen. People were in shock when they saw me on the highway. I'm surprised I didn't rip the rear end off of my car. It's all still intact, and there's actually zero sign of stress!



The prize, in daylight. It was worth it.

 

something that i have thought about doing many times.

what wrong with the prelude and how much was it?

 

Some rust, bad engine...and other than that nothing really. I got it for $150

 

ahaha, thats awesome!

 

That prelude and dolley probably weighed more than your car
What are you going to do with the lude?

your car pulls hard

 

Dolley + Prelude = 2750

My car = ~2200-2300 empty. But I had a full car, so it was significantly heavier than that.

I'm going to 'restore' the Prelude. I say it like that because it sounds funny to say I'm going to restore a Honda car made in the '80s. LOL.

 

BTW guys....if you're thinking about doing this, you may want to upgrade your brakes. I would have liked to have my 11" on for this trip, but I did it with the stock brakes.

You're going to need a LOT of room to stop from speed and you've got to really work the brakes to make sure they don't overheat. It's not fun

 

OMG that is the coolest adventure I have ever heard of.

An Inspiration to all!!

 

thanks for sharing! great story

 

haha, that's awesome! Glad it made it back home

definitely worth it

 

You're pretty lucky they rented it to you they never do that. The best way to get a uhaul dolly for your civ is to rent the pickup and dolly then go home and put the dolly on your car and park the truck.

 

OK OK well i got you beat. this is back when i had my blue Std hatch well the clutch went out on it, so i called my best friend to see if he could help me he drive a S2000. well he gets one of his bright ideas so we get out my toe rope and we try to toe my civic with a S2000 we were laughing the whole way. but we got'r done

 

lol, yeah I've had to do that before...it's not fun pulling a car with a tow strap.

Putting one on a dolley and a hitch puts a LOT more load on the car, though.

 

but with an S2000 it was funny as hell

 

I reckon so.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by White90SiHatch &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">OK OK well i got you beat. this is back when i had my blue Std hatch well the clutch went out on it, so i called my best friend to see if he could help me he drive a S2000. well he gets one of his bright ideas so we get out my toe rope and we try to toe my civic with a S2000 we were laughing the whole way. but we got'r done </TD></TR></TABLE>

^^^ that is freakin hilarious

 

Your friend is a good man. I know I wouldn't tow something with a strap behind my s2k 9if I had one). One mess-up and he would have had a nice blue STD bumper imprint on his rear bumper!

 

ahaha, that was the ad at the bottom of this thread

Wow, you crazy, I'd just find someone I knew well to let me use their truck.

Anywho, the lude is acutally attractive in parts of the car.

 

Well, I could either rent a truck, or borrow a friends dads truck....I didn't want to be liable for a truck that I didn't own and that wasn't even my friends but, rather, his fathers.

And that truck gets like 10 mpg. And I still would have had to rent a dolley or a trailer.

So even with buying my hitch I still came out slightly cheaper than I would have had I borrowed a truck and paid for gas in it

Hondas are t3h win!

 

Thats some serious *****, hell, I won't even throw a motor in the back of my sedan when it needs to be moved...I cheat and use a van

 

We had an Insight in the shop one time with a tow hitch on it, we stood around trying to figure out wtf you could tow with one.

That prelude is ******* BADASS!! Make it perfect, and all stock, and it will be the ****. on a great project.

 

ROFLMAO! omg thatd be so halarious to see an old civic dragging another car of its size down at 70mph! thats pretty funny that you got better mpg than alot of cars do still.