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Old 11-10-2015, 03:30 PM   #41
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I have a hard time believing that little kar is towing a 1000#'s behind it light but when has load even harder time.
The Predom and Polski Fiat share the 126 number as they were matched to each other in their Communist heyday. By current British rules, they would be considered reasonable well-matched with the tow car's 595kg curb weight being about the same as the 550-600kg laden trailer weight.

But with 23hp from its 650cc motor, the Fiat would indeed be working hard. If you look at the photo below, you can see the Fiat's (rear) engine cover is mounted with a gap at the top - a tuner's trick on old rear-engined Fiats, to increase the engine cooling:
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Old 11-10-2015, 03:33 PM   #42
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:: I have a hard time believing that little kar is towing a 1000#'s behind it light but when has load even harder time.
Believe it or not but a Polski Fiat 126p is allowed to tow 600 kgs. The permissible gross weight of the n126 caravan that is sold in Poland is 650 kgs, and the maximum load for it is 120 kgs. If one doesn't load more then 70 kgs, then the caravan won't be heavier then 600 kgs. I also believe that the permissible gross weight of the n126 caravan that was sold earlier, before the fall of the iron-curtain, was less then today.

It might be a challenge to tow a 600 kgs caravan with a car that only got a 17 kW engine. The permissible gross weight of the Polski Fiat 126p is 920 kgs. Poland is pretty flat if one keeps away from the mountain in the south, so it was probably possible to use a Polski Fiat 126p for towing a light n126 caravan, in a time period when there was hardly no other towing vehicles available.
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Old 11-10-2015, 03:38 PM   #43
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Originally Posted by Andrew Gibbens View Post
The Predom and Polski Fiat share the 126 number as they were matched to each other in their Communist heyday. By current British rules, they would be considered reasonable well-matched with the tow car's 595kg curb weight being about the same as the 550-600kg laden trailer weight.

But with 23hp from its 650cc motor, the Fiat would indeed be working hard. If you look at the photo below, you can see the Fiat's (rear) engine cover is mounted with a gap at the top - a tuner's trick on old rear-engined Fiats, to increase the engine cooling:
You just managed to send your reply before me I like the "tuner's trick" of the 126p.
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Old 11-24-2015, 05:04 PM   #44
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Relocation of water containers

I've realized that I maybe should have placed all the modifications of my caravan in a separate thread, but since I've started to put them in this thread I guess I have to continue.

The two water containers have been relocated to the single seat base next to the door. Now it'll be much easier to fill them with water.



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Old 04-10-2016, 12:23 PM   #45
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I didn't plan to equip the caravan with solar-panels, but I changed my mind. The caravan as been parked since the fall at a parking where I've got no access to 230v. The battery needed to be topped up then an then and I it's a bit of a hazel to take it out for being charged. Therefore, I made a solar panel briefcase, which can be transported at the side of the box that contains the cat toilet.









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Old 04-10-2016, 05:29 PM   #46
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PerH, I vastly enjoyed reading about your caravan - especially about the small car pulling one, as I have tended to buy small cars which get excellent gas mileage, and in the American market they just say "towing is not recommended ". I like your portable cooler. We had a 12v Coleman portable refrigerator/cooler about that size and it gave us close to 10 years of good service- being used in the house as an auxiliary freezer- in between camping trips. It was drowned in a major rainstorm years back, never could find a repairman. (tent camping at the time). Thank you for the lovely pictures. I am hoping my 3 cats (maybe to become 4) become acclimatized to my caravan when I get it. They don't like to travel now unless it is from the city house to the retirement house, where they get to go outside and play.
http://www.amazon.com/Playpen-Exerci...s_3024135011_3 or http://www.amazon.com/PawHut-Outdoor...+popup+playpen are what I am looking at for them. I think if they can go outside they'll be more acceptable of traveling. I don't dare let them out on their own for fear they would run away or get eaten by coyotes, which are all thru the southern and eastern part of the US now.
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Old 04-11-2016, 05:55 AM   #47
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PerH, I vastly enjoyed reading about your caravan - especially about the small car pulling one, as I have tended to buy small cars which get excellent gas mileage, and in the American market they just say "towing is not recommended ".
I think it would have been fun to tow the caravan with the new Fiat 500C, which is a modern retro version of the old Fiat 500. It's allowed to tow 800 kgs, so a 750 kgs caravan is legal.





The Fiat 126 looks like a scaled down Fiat 127, but it got much of the same mechanical underpinnings and layout as Fiat 500, so the new Fiat 500 is as closest one can come, among modern cars, to the Polskie Fiat 126 that the caravan was originally developed to be towed by.
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Old 04-11-2016, 06:17 AM   #48
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Wow, when I was in Budapest in the early-to mid-Nineties, my 14 year old niece and I were fascinated by the number of "Polish Fiats" on the road there. They were about like VW Beetles in the US circa 1970. I have to admit though, that I don't recall ever seeing one with the trailer hitch. Caravans (or campers) were just starting to catch on there, it seemed, with more folks still depending on tents for camping, or perhaps the occasional pull-behind "pop-up" tent caravan/camper hybrid.

Just for my own information, did the small car/caravan combos of the day use the same hook-type hitch on the vehicle and eye (or loop) on the hitch of the trailer like I saw on the little utility trailers being commonly pulled about the countryside back then? It sure made them easy to hook up!

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Old 04-11-2016, 06:37 AM   #49
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Well, I just went back through this thread and looked at the pricing shown on the website for this little caravan. Even with importation and transportation costs, that is a competitive little trailer. I wish somebody would set up a US dealership for them. That could really shake up the market here!

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Old 04-11-2016, 07:15 AM   #50
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did the small car/caravan combos of the day use the same hook-type hitch on the vehicle and eye (or loop) on the hitch of the trailer like I saw on the little utility trailers being commonly pulled about the countryside back then?
I'm not sure I've understood you right. It uses the same (50 mm ball) kind of hitch that has been around for many decades in Europe. This is what it looks like:



The black "horseshoe" lookalike thing is just an auxiliary lock, which is the only one that is approved by my Swedish insurance.
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Old 04-11-2016, 10:07 AM   #51
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Yep, that's it. Having the ball on the end of that long loop type thing instead of on a flat or square bar like we use her in the US was what confused me. Here in the US we also use a trailer hitch system that has a big loop on the end of the trailer tongue and a hook with a catch on the tow vehicle. These are used mainly with big equipment, but not with little camper/caravan type trailers. I mistakenly mixed up which system was being used and how.

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Old 06-06-2020, 02:27 PM   #52
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Oooo so THIS is what I've salvaged

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