The motor assembly looks like a windscreen wiper motor and gearbox.
There are firms that repair motors e.g. this firm which I have used many times but they will often just suggest a chinese off the shelf replacement, because any motor rewind will be 100 quid as a starting point. I noticed a fascinating motor repair shop in the old market in Sarajevo 
I saw this yesterday. Really impressive – used to tow a bizjet. If the signal goes out of range it just stops. A nice feature is that the nose wheel isn’t rotated as the tug turns and the tug can be turned through 360 degrees under the aircraft. It also doubles up as a 24V GPU for engine starting etc.
I’ll add my voice to the “avoid Aero-Pac” crowd. I bought both their APT3000 tow and a lithium battery-powered portable start unit. The tow shipped with parts missing, and the adapter for my nosewheel was just the wrong size for my plane, it would not “clip in”. I wanted to return the whole unit, they counter-offered to custom-make a new adapter. I explained to them that the modification they were planning would keep the system from having a good grip on the tire, they disagreed. With the new adapter, the tow failed to move the plane. Pushing to try to have better contact and grip just broke a weld (!) on the adapter.
The lithium start unit stopped working after a few months, the charger was saying the cell was damaged beyond charging possibility. As I paid for the extra optional volt-meter, I know I didn’t deep-discharge it, but it broke anyway.
I ended up getting the Sidewinder to replace the tow (it actually works, if a bit awkwardly… I had to remove some padding for it to fit the gear… going straight with it take some training, it will tend to take the aircraft left) and a redbox aviation lithium battery-powered portable start unit in replacement of the Aero-Pac one.
The Sidewinder doesn’t have enough energy to move the plane all the way from the hangar to the fuelling station (about 450m, which would save me a cycle on the engine… it quits a bit before 200m). Plus it doesn’t get it over the bump of the hangar door rails without a bit of momentum (that is, from a standstill), which is a bit scary with the tight fit in the hangar.
The towbot shown by Peter is what i had. It’s not cheap (8k or so), but worked well. Especially when your aircraft is parked tightly, it’s very handy to move yourself around the aircraft and be at the ‘hot-spots’. It takes a bit of practice, like it would to fly a remote-model aircraft, leaving out the pitch of course 
The remote control is a standard model-aircraft controller, so support is not an issue. I found it handy to put in a re-chargeable battery pack in the controller.
The batteries inside the cart are standard. The unit comes with a trickle charge battery charger used in marine applications, so just leave them on 120 V power when not in use. With full batteries you can drive circles around the airport.
All in all pretty trouble free operation for years. I let others in the hangar use it, so it has made some miles..
Anybody has experience with the SchleppMAXXE 3 (AKA TugMAXXE 3-series)? Dunno what it costs, but looks powerful and robust, too.
Can anyone recommend a tug which is readily available in the UK and which would be OK for fairly heavy use at an airfield with a hard surface?
A lot of tugs exist on the US market and are very expensive to ship.
After a lot of searching I ended up with one of these:
http://www.powertow.com/40-EZ-Aircraft-Tug_p_14.html
Yes, you do have to pay shipping and tax, but they do the job well and run on fuel samples :-)
Available from Germany, so shipping should be a lot less than from the US: http://www.schleppmaxxe.de
Here’s a few clips from my AC Air Tech T1.5 remote tug pulling the Commander. I like this little tug. It’s super powerful and very handy for me when I’m alone. To be able to see from every angle as you try to fit it in the tight hangar is a godsend. I don’t think I could have done it at all if it wasn’t a remote tug – I would have needed someone to help me each time. Also notice how easily it scoops up the front wheel.
Sorry for the blown out highlights and overexposure on the night stuff – the iPhone sucks at night.
That looks great, Adam.
However, I wonder how durable these tugs are. They probably work great for a private owner but used by an airport crew they would get 100x more use, as well as occassional excursions onto grass which is likely to bung up the tracks.
