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[LFF64]

I had a week off last week and decided to take the caravan down to Bournemouth area and had a good time down there .
I have a question though I use a bulldog stabilizer and on the way down there was a horrible creaking from the back of the car at low speed and while turning .
Question is should I have put any grease on the shoe that the stabillizer slides on I did this coming back up and the noise dissappeared, I have never put grease on before .Any suggestions please 

[Andy B]

I had a week off last week and decided to take the caravan down to Bournemouth area and had a good time down there .
I have a question though I use a bulldog stabilizer and on the way down there was a horrible creaking from the back of the car at low speed and while turning .
Question is should I have put any grease on the shoe that the stabillizer slides on I did this coming back up and the noise dissappeared, I have never put grease on before .Any suggestions please 

Short answer is .... NO! 
While your stabiliser was creaking & groaning it was doing it's job!  By greasing it, it's now not doing its job.    You now need another pad & clean up the rest of it with thinners/etc

You need another one of these
http://www.caravanparts.co.uk/product_popup.php?cPath=69_163&products_id=1536

[LFF64]

Hi Andy I have not greased the friction pads ! I put the grease on the shoe that the arm fits on to on the caravan the green plastic shoe 

[Andy B]

Hi Andy I have not greased the friction pads ! I put the grease on the shoe that the arm fits on to on the caravan the green plastic shoe 

Ah! Sorry! Mis-understood which bit you greased. You'll be OK greasing that bit! I use an Al-ko hitch type, and that tends to creak & groan at slow speed, normally OK with the windows up & the radio turned up a bit more. 

[Lazydocker]

They do have a habit of groaning at low speed.... As Andy said... Turn the radio up

[LFF64]

Its just that I had never heard it before and was more concerned it may have been the car suspension giving up .Other than that the car behaved very well I had to slow down a couple of times , the only part it slightly struggled with was going up Birdlip Hill  (glos) but that is a big hill  I have towed this same caravan with three 4x4s and now three Omegas and I must say the Omegas are the best I have towed it with 

[Andy B]

.....
 the only part it slightly struggled with was going up Birdlip Hill  (glos) but that is a big hill    .....

I've up & down that hill many times, mostly when I was going back & forward from home to Pompey in my Mk III Cortina .... now that struggled up there with out a caravan.
I've seen some bad crashes there too. You used to be able to use the middle lane to go down hill, now there's double white lines.

[Entwood]

If the blade type stabiliser is old then a fair amount of dust can collect at the pads, cleaning this out can reduce the  groaning noises. One way of doing this is with a high pressure washer,  after which I always used to leave it to dry for a while before using.

You can also check the setting on the friction clamp bolt, these do need adjusting from time to time, it is done with a bathroom scale !!!!

Very easy and worth doing - but I'm glad I now have the new hitch type stabiliser !!!

http://www.bulldogsecure.com/shopdata/files/3-6.pdf

HTH

[gsdtrainer]

Its just that I had never heard it before and was more concerned it may have been the car suspension giving up .Other than that the car behaved very well I had to slow down a couple of times , the only part it slightly struggled with was going up Birdlip Hill  (glos) but that is a big hill  I have towed this same caravan with three 4x4s and now three Omegas and I must say the Omegas are the best I have towed it with 

Why do you need 3 omegas to tow your caravan,I only ever use 1 to tow mine

[Martin_1962]

.....
 the only part it slightly struggled with was going up Birdlip Hill  (glos) but that is a big hill    .....

I've up & down that hill many times, mostly when I was going back & forward from home to Pompey in my Mk III Cortina .... now that struggled up there with out a caravan.
I've seen some bad crashes there too. You used to be able to use the middle lane to go down hill, now there's double white lines.

I have been up it faster than down and I had wheel spin on Diesel at speed on a bike

[Seth]

Noise is probably the nylon shoe that the blade slides along when turning. It might have it's countersunk pivot bolt siezed - the nylon shoe should be able to swivel.

Best get an Alko AKS-type stabilised coupling - it'll be money well spent, believe me!

[Vamps]

Its just that I had never heard it before and was more concerned it may have been the car suspension giving up .Other than that the car behaved very well I had to slow down a couple of times , the only part it slightly struggled with was going up Birdlip Hill  (glos) but that is a big hill  I have towed this same caravan with three 4x4s and now three Omegas and I must say the Omegas are the best I have towed it with 

[/highlight]

What have I missed something obvious I know
First trip out with the caravan, but you have towed it with 3 4x4 and 3 Omegas?

Petrol and a swanvesta will cure you noise though....

[LFF64]

Should have said first trip out of the year then  .
I have towed it with a 2.2 fronterra ,a 2.0l omega a 2.5 lwb pajero a2.8 swb pajero a 2.5 manual omega and currently a 2.5 auto omega which seems to be the best of all of them . The caravan is a compass 490/4L rallye GTE if that means anything to anyone out there  I have had the caravan for the last eight years and owened and all of the above cars in  that time   

[Steve Brookman]

Hello,
I've towed with two Omega estates (2.5 auto and 3.0 auto) and a 4.6 Range Rover over the last eight years. The Omegas are much more stable than the Range Rover and the 3.0 can almost (90%) match it for pulling up hills. I can also get the bikes on the roof with the Omega (I need a step ladder with the Rangie). I'm off to France with the caravan in the summer and will be using the Elite estate-the Range Rover can stay at home. I still get a buzz driving the Range Rover however.

All the best

Steve