Towing with our trucks

[Ronw435]

Thanks everyone for the great information. I will definitely look into brakes.

Thanks again.

[Ronw435]

Well just got back from towing a 3500 lb travel trailer with the truck. The trailer had electric brakes and with the controller I installed it worked awesome. Felt like the truck was just stopping itself. No hard pedal pressure or anything. The only problem I encountered was taking off on a hill which the truck did not like......lol. I was wondering if installing 3.55s would make a big difference? Also can they be installed on the same carrier? Towing home with it traveling around 60-65 we got 9.98 mpg which seemed pretty good with the 3.08 gears. I just dont know it it would make it up steep grades in the Mountains, which is where we want to camp? The 283 did a decent job!!

[jbgroby]

I plan on pulling a 13' canned ham trailer. I have the 305 V-6 - torque isn't a problem. I'm mated to a 4 sd. hydra-matic.

[Mackie]

Recently I drove my `63 from dark to dark, 15 hours and 675 miles with about 12-1400 lbs.in the bed, pulling a 5' X 10' trailer loaded with another 1500lbs. Some mountain sections, too where I had to drop into 3rd gear for one climb over the Appalachians. Never used 5th gear in the T-5, ran 55-60 and got 14 MPG from the 305. Glad I had upgraded to front disc brakes before. Brakes on the trailer would have been nice and I wouldn't have had to plan ahead as much.

[TJ's Chevy]

Originally Posted by jbgroby

I plan on pulling a 13' canned ham trailer. I have the 305 V-6 - torque isn't a problem. I'm mated to a 4 sd. hydra-matic.

X2 with that. I pulled a hill at 55 with a load of manure no problem.

[hkopp]

I had shared this on another post...but for 2 decades we used my 60 k10 4x4 to pull a Donahue 48' quad axle trailer that was loaded with either grain drills or a 36' drill harrow from field to field. In addition to the trailer weight, the truck had a 250 gallon diesel tank and lots of tools and grease guns filling the bed. Not one field next to another...one field in the desert mountains of Idaho 30 miles to another 1700 ft higher in elevation on windy narrow roads. No trailer brakes...but we were not tooling down the interstate at 70mph either. It had the smaller 16.5 narrow tires and 4.56 posi front and rear. My point in sharing this is the truck would tow just about anything, but it was in excellent mechanical condition.

Obviously for any towing today you need great brakes, pref disc, trailer brakes, and ensure the tongue weight is spot on so the tail isnt wagging the dog. I never tow anything without AAA and a roadside kit with flares and reflector triangles in the event of an issue.

(This is what a Donahue trailer is, this is only a 24 dbl axle, ours was a 48' quad axle with 8 lug axles. Once loaded a LARGE tractor had to push it back up onto the axles, even with the low gears and in 4wd it could not push that weight):

[Dans1960SWB]

If you look at the trailer axles of most any camper they have the flange for the backing plate. You can order a kit from Northern Hydraulics...It gives you backing plates,drums and everything else you need. It all just bolts on...

[Ronw435]

Wow Mackie, that is some great mileage. I was going to be happy with 10! I want to do some more tuning and maybe get it sniffed to see where the fuel ratio is. The carb and intake I put on the 283 is off a 67 327. Rochester Qjet. So maybe I can tune that in a little better and maybe get 11......
I do think I could go to 3.55 rear gears and still get the same mileage towing. Does anyone know if the carrier with the 3.08s will accept the 3.55 gears?

[vince1]

That info was just here on the forum but I couldn't find it. From what I remember the cut off for changing the carrier was 3.42 or 3.46. And from what I know 3.07 is the ratio for pick ups while 3.08 is for cars.

[Grizz1963]

Just because I miss my truck...... (I still have it, but in bits)

My Teardrop that I built has a braked chassis.

The truck has boosted drums all round.

I have not had any problems with it. Always drive defensively though.

[Mackie]

Originally Posted by Ronw435

Wow Mackie, that is some great mileage. I was going to be happy with 10! I want to do some more tuning and maybe get it sniffed to see where the fuel ratio is. The carb and intake I put on the 283 is off a 67 327. Rochester Qjet. So maybe I can tune that in a little better and maybe get 11......

I was happy to see 14. I had done some final tweaking to the Eddy 500 before the trip using a narrow band A/F gauge.

They say Q-jets can return great MPG but are fussy to set up.

My trailer was "wagging the dog" (as hkopp calls it) at higher speeds. Even though I made an effort to load weight in the front it's a tilt bed which puts the axle too much in the center. That and the T5's 5th being the high .63 ratio forced me into slower cruising.

[Ronw435]

Yeah Mackie I had a little problem with the trailer wagging the dog at times. The electric brakes were nice for that as I could just reach over and touch the trailer brakes and stop it. But I am also going to add a sway control bar on the trailer. From what I read it takes some of the white knuckle out of driving. We had a very large Motor home pass us while we were doing about 45 once and he must of been doing 75 and came within about what seemed like a foot from us and darn near pushed us off the road. Had one wheel in the grass. They really do push a ton of air. More actually than the semi's that passed us.
I was hoping I could go to at least 3.55's. May have to look into an alternative carrier. Thanks

[63burban]

If your trailer is swaying or wig wagging you probably don't have enough tongue weight.
Should have 10-15% of the gross weight on the tongue and you won't have that problem.
If your trailer weighs over 4000 pounds or is longer than 20' you should use a stabilizer set up.

[Mackie]

There were times on my trip when semis passing me would start my trailer wagging. Not having trailer brakes to blip and stop the swaying, I gave it just a little gas for a second.

I tried to get sufficient weight forward when I loaded the trailer but not enough, I guess. I might have stopped to redistribute the weight but my torch-lowered rear springs were already compromised with the combined load so I jus kep on truckin.