Catastrophic Ibis Tek tow bar failure; snapped like a twig.

[73m819]

How about some pictures of these, Heavy V Tow Bar (SHORT), Heavy V Hollybone Tow bar. HEAVY VEHICLE - TANK in the WRECKER thread, Thanks.

I agree with EVERYTHING you have said, If there is even a maybe thought the NO.

 

[dmetalmiki]

I will take pictures when we move the vehicles, perhaps this weekend, as the wrecker (typical) is right at at he back of "Que" right now. And Allthough pronounced "hollybone" the correct spelling for the British Tank Bars is, HOLLEBONE , After Colonel Hollebone who invented them.

 

[Coffey1]

The 44000lb bar worked great and feet fit just fine for two LMTVs I've pulled. Zero issues

 

[dmetalmiki]

Loads of "things" work fine. UNTIL!
Still NOT made or recommended for an LMTV....IS IT worth the risk?.

 

[acme66]

I think the issues stem from experience with three different bars, the light duty one with the failures, the light duty replacement and the medium duty bar that looks like both if them. Ibis made it clear that their medium duty, 44,000 bar is still safe and in use in off road military recovery situations but they disavow liability in civilian operations. A gentleman is going to ask a current recovery service relative for specific current realtime info on the medium bar. I am trying hard to get away from anecdotal information from either for or against so that actual conclusions can be made. I would like anyone with a vested interest to include part numbers of the bars they are referencing so we can make educated choices. Fear them all is no more helpful than use them all when it comes to things like this. So far I have info from two confirmed medium duty users who report reliable use. I have ibis who says it is super strong in military off road use and a picture of what looks like a medium bar with catastrophic failure. If people without personal experience could "keep of the radio" we can put together enough information for all of us to make safe choices.

Ken

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk

 

[Andyrv6av8r]

Here is the bar that Coffey1 and I have used to pull multiple 923's and LMTV's flawlessly. I personally pulled a 923 through the mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina without the first problem. I'm using a Hunter 1" foot bushed down to the smaller 7/8" pin on the IBIS for both the 923's and LMTV's.

 

[jasonjc]

I had feet...they are still on the truck, we pulled the pins to drop the dragging bar ends. I am not sure I would even be able to turn 3 degrees without a joint at the bumper clevis attachments.

Hypothetically, lets say the whole bar was mounted statically with no joints on either end....even then, it should not fail at half the rated load. The "joints" simply make the turning transition smoother, the forces at those failed joints would not change much. A single leg of a 44,000 pound *rated* bar should be able to take the entire pulling load of a 20,000 pound truck and still have an ample amount of "factor of safety" left over.

I'm late to this , I know.

I'm not understanding this about the joint at the bumper?
" I am not sure I would even be able to turn 3 degrees without a joint at the bumper clevis attachments." "lets say the whole bar was mounted statically with no joints on either end"

The bar should not turn or move side to side at the bumper only up and down. Its should be solid like a trailer. Or am I just reading this wrong or not understanding some thing??


And Ibis saying they are for off road only , think about that. Off road means dirt. The front end of a truck would slide a lot more easily on dirt than pavement. Thus there will be a lot less stress on the tow bar. Just saying this to get people thinking. Just tossing some other points of view out there.


I've got an old pre MWO med tow that I've used to tow 5-ton's 200-300 miles work perfect. Cranetruck borrowed it to pull his 8x8 and broke both end off testing it in a field because the adapters were on upside down. He had the end welded back on and it's work fine for many tows. I now have some of the new med Hunter with the MWO.

 

[rakhav]

It looks like he didn't use feet and somehow had the towbar ends go right to the bumper shackles and missing the "foot joint" caused the failure.

yes your supposed to use feet with the hook up .

 

[rakhav]

Where I live its illegal to flat tow ANY vehicle without a driver in the towed vehicle. And I personally think the material thickness in that telescopic tube is rather thin and flimsy, from what I can see on the pictures posted. I am equially impressed that Ibis-Tek simply sent you an matching towbar with no real modifications etc, but I guess that might be why the US military decided to scrap them all and perhaps find another supplier....

i saw a humvee getting towed by an h1 using the ibek tow bar. the humvee had a driver in it turning the steering wheel as the h1 made turns.

 

[M813rc]

yes your supposed to use feet with the hook up .

Read on, in a later post he stated he was using the feet.
They were still attached to the truck when he took the tow bar photos.

Cheers

 

[Tracer]

OOPS...no I didn't!

 

[Csm Davis]

Have used and broken both hunters and ibis tec I personally will never use an ibis tec to haul anything bigger than a one ton anymore.

 

[BEASTMASTER]

from the looks of those things , I wouldn't tow more than a c j 5 jeep.