Bent towbar - what to do?

Throw it away & get a stronger one. They are not that expensive in the scale of things & if you don't upgrade it will only bend again.
Cheers Craig.........

Hi If the tongue is welded to the towbar then I would be replacing the complete towbar. If the towing tongue bent with pushbikes on it then any heating up and straightening would probably make the tongue weaker.

Cheers Teza

If you bent a towbar carrying 3 pushbikes ( I presume it was pushies ) I would be very wary towing any sort of trailer with the same towbar......

I have a mate who worked in a tow bar fitting workshop.

He would never carry push-bikes on a tow bar mounted rack. He said that most of the damaged tow bars he took off vehicles had only ever carried bikes.

Imagine bolting a 1.5 metre long bar onto your towbar sticking strait out the back. Then mount three push-bikes and drive along any of the main roads in Australia. That is exactly what you do with a bike rack. It is a looooong lever. The continuous bouncing as the vehicle travels along the road and that is lot of potential damage.

The other thing he said was that a significant number of towbars are not mounted properly. No matter what the brand if it is not mounted properly that will compound any problems associated with load.

Personally I think there are better ways to carry your bike. And I have had my head under the back of my car to make sure all the bolts are in and tight.

Duncs

What type of car to you drive. I'm using a bike rake rack that attaches to the spare wheel.

I don't have any association with this company, I just know that they make strong bike carriers, some of which are designed for downhill mountain bikes that can weight 20kg each or so (mind you so can standard KMart bikes!).
Anyway just thought I'd post the link in case you did end up looking for new types of bike carrier options...
GripSport

I am going through the thought processes of trying to work out how to carry 1 push bike when towing (the tyre cover on a NS Pajero protrudes too far to fit the bike rack I used on 4 previous cars)

My current plan is to fit a length of C channel the length of wheel base of the bike to the A frame of the van as close as possible to the van behind the gas bottle. The wheels can be held in place in the channel by straps; the bike held up by more C channel supporting the crank and pedal arm and the whole thing held in place by a web of tensioned straps. There is just enough room for this to work

Any better ideas or constructive criticism?

Bikes are a pain.

There are a numer of ooptions for carrying bikes. The best is to leave them at home.

Ok so accepting that the preffered option is not going to happen, here are a couple of others.

If you don't have a tailgate mounted spare there are carriers available that hook to the tailgate and can carry 4 bikes.

If you have a spare on the rear of the car, carriers are available that mount to the spare wheel.

Put them on the trailer is another option.

I made a a carrier that would mount on the spare. The beauty of this for me is that the spare on the camper is mounted on the front of the trailer and is exceptionally strong. I could carry the bikes on either the car or the trailer.

I was never keen on carrying the bikes on the car because the door hinges were carrying enough.

Now the kids have grown they just want to drive the car, the bikes stay home, problem solved.

Duncs