Behind the rear bumper

My towbar has been squeeking lately from the chassis whenever it is under load, today that squeek became a sickening creak/cracking noise so I decided to have a good look.

This is what i thought was causing the problem and looks outwardly quite nasty!

The best course of action was going to be dropping the towbar off so I could clean the area up and see how badly it was cracked.

unfortunatly I found that all of my towbar bolts were lose, several spun when I tried to undo them and without any way to get my fingers inside the chassis I decided to pull the entire rear bumper bar off, hoping that the ends of the chassis rails were open.

I've pulled bars off modern cars before and ALL were held on with a combination of screws and brittle use-once style snap on plastic clips that break into a million pieces as soon as you try and pull them apart.

The Io bar is held on with a handfull of screws, a few plastic press-in screws, the rear mudflaps and the row of 10mm bolts across inside the rear door opening. I undid all these and was waiting for the sound of plastic retainers shattering but the bar dropped off clean! Woooo! win for me!

While the bar was off I had a look at the rear tow point - WOW, if anyone ever tells you that it isn't safe to use as it isn't rated they can go jump! it is held in with three seat-belt grade bolts through both thicknessess of the chassis and has about 8 inches of weld around it, this would be as solid or stronger than the red recovery hooks held on with two bolts that you see on the fronts of larger 4wd's
 

I will be drilling another hole to mount a fourth bolt near the front as there is a flat for it, and a hole in the rail but no hole in the tow hook, will also secure the towbar a bit more securely as it was mounted with only one large bolt on that side.

I realised by this time that my towbar had been installed missing several spring washers and that it was probably just loose, the initial crack I had seen turned out to be a false alarm as the "U" piece sticking out of the shassis turns and runs along inside the chassis in both directions with an inch of weld both sides, both ends. it's not going anywhere!

While the bumper was off it made me realise that with a custom steel rear bar the Io has a fantastic overhang and would be a real weapon in a trials situation - project for another day I think.