Thanks for the photo's Herb, now I can see what you are talking about, you are on the right track, and I agree about the weight comment, it's needs to be easily handled by one person.

Hello Neil, yes, those tow frames are still used here on occasion, but I don't see them as often as I used to, no doubt the Cops and insurance companies are less inclined to turn a blind eye to these home made set ups!
Regards
Mike

Hi Team,
another adaption I think I saw on the A frame type was that the swinging arm was length adjustable so you could off set the tow points some.
Something like a piece of pipe with lock pin holes spaced every so often and a inner sliding rod lock pin holed accordingly---picture a link rod on a Motor Grader blade lift assembly--but a bit lighter as those things attract fair amount of gravity.
Cheers,
Eddie B.

That would work Eddie, what ever is used, it needs to be robust, those dead Cats can be hard to change direction on as you know, OK if it's a straight push backwards.
Regards
Mike

I just dragged some scrap steel out of the pile, I'm sure I'll be able to create something adequate, you will get a idea of what I was talking about with my "T" shaped bar, obviously that is not a finished product.

And for "Neil" a photo of a frame made by my best buddy Gwyn 50 years ago, he had a draw frame mounted on the front of his old Series 1 Landrover when I was driving it as a 10 year old with no functioning brakes or clutch, but the V frame in the photo he used when nutting bull calves in the cattle yards, to spread their back legs.

I'm sure Gwyn would get a good chuckle watching me from above recreate something suitable for moving dead Cats out of that bull frame, because when I first bought this home farm 20 years ago he asked me if there was any scrap steel laying about and I replied no, there wasn't even a rusty nail to puncture a tire, "I'll bring you some lad, you have to have some scrap steel laying around for repairing farm equipment".

And he did, he drove his old Nissan pickup 400 miles over to our place with about 2 tons of scrap steel in the back from his farm, to get me started, and now with all my dead Cats sitting around I've probably grown that 2 tons to over 100 tons of scrap steel, if you ask Anna the Saint!! LOL

Several old time families have sold off their land here and every scrap of anything has been cleaned. As Mike said not a bent nail left. Makes me very sad. Takes all the life out of a old farmstead to me anyway. A bare house left, could be planted on any lot in town. Doesn't even help to be the one that hauled most of it home.(I still want emojis back)

just throwing another tidbit in the mix....don't forget the strength of a triangle...probably the best bang for buck when it comes to strength,weight, and simplicity....look at Nascar/ NHRA roll cages...a mess of triangles for the most part....

ya what happened to the emojis??

Emoji's are in the mail, USPS were given the responsibility of delivering them......... LOL

Yes, triangles are strong, though must keep in mind the twisting forces involved shunting a dead Cat sideways, even a small one, it would be a shame to bust the drawbar brackets getting a little too excited, just like so many radiator support brackets broken trying to drag start a dead Cat.

I think after all the discussion and my shade tree engineering, I am just going to use 2 pieces of pipe with heavy flat tabs welded on with a hole in it. The adjustable type was to make up for a off angle between the loader and Cat. Now I believe as long as I can get a pull on the Cat,get it straight, then I can put the a-frame tow bar on. Can build in some slop to help aligning the pins.
Thank you everyone for your knowledge,

Herb