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Anyone DIY manual locking hubs on FWD 07 vibe

Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2009 7:07 am
by CoastVibe
Hi, New to the forum, Looks like the place to ask this question. I want to flat tow my 07 fwd automatic Vibe. I am guessing i shouldnt flat tow the Vibe with out some modifications. One idea came to me about converting the Front axles to Manual locking hubs. Has anyone done this?? If the locking hub thing is a bust, is there anything i can do to avaoid buying a dolly or car hauler to tow it

Re: Anyone DIY manual locking hubs on FWD 07 vibe (CoastVibe)

Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2009 7:25 am
by keithvibe
I haven't heard anyone who is flat towing it. My parents use a car dolly to tow their matrix.I think it's the only way to do it but only if you have a 2wd.

Re: Anyone DIY manual locking hubs on FWD 07 vibe (CoastVibe)

Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2009 11:04 am
by joatmon
welcome to genvibe.S you said, you shouldn't flat tow the automatics.I think that converting to locking hubs wouldn't be worth it. THe car is mostly Toyota corolla, I don't think Toyota has any models with locking hubs compatible with the corolla, so it's not like you can go to a junkyard and pull the parts off something else, you;d have to do some serious custom work. It's important parts, critical to safety, so you'd need to do a really good job. And there's no telling what the dealer would no longer fix under warranty when you are done. I think you'd find that by the time you were done, just buying a dolly would have saved you a lot of money and time. You could remove the front drive axles. The thing is to not turn the tranny, and the drive axles just drive, don't affect supsension or steering. It's not that hard,but I can't remember what you have to loosen to be able to get them out of the hubs. You'd have a non-trivial amount of under the car each time you wanted to set up to tow and each time you wanted to restore it to drive mode. You wouldn't want to take them out on the tranny side, because then all the juice would spill out. I wouldn't do it if it were me. Seems like a lot of trouble to go through. I'd just get a dolly. I don't know how often you want to tow the Vibe, why or with what. A dolly is another thing to deal with, store, keep from getting stolen, etc, but it has the advantage of being something you can resell if you decide to stop towing the Vibe. If it's only for a few times, you can probably rent one, if you do it alot then buying one might be the most cost effective. If you're interested, there was a thread about setting up the VIbe as a toad - http://forums.genvibe.com/zerothread?id=32373 but the pictures seem to have gone off somewhere

Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2009 6:57 am
by djb383