How much weight can it tow?

[dubds10]

OK, I've done enough searching of this site and from what I've read, not many of you have towed anything with your blazer.

Besides the obvious, short wheel base and weight restrictions on a blazer vs a truck, I may be left to use my blazer this week to tow my new toy back home if I can't get my buddy's 3/4T Chev.

I'll have an 18ft car hauler trailer/wooden deck - 2000lbs approximately I'm guessing. And I'm picking up a '68 Suburban with extra seats and wheels so I'm looking at around 5000lbs for it.

7000lbs and I have to tow it 120miles one way back home. For the Washington guys, I'm thinking about taking #9 vs the I5 since I figure the 9 will have less traffic and I can do my 40mph without bothering people. I'm throwing in extra leafs in the truck this week so it doesn't sag with the extra weight and testing it out with the trailer and vehicles to see what I can pull safely.


So what's the most anybody's towed with their blazer? Anybody actually haul 6000+lbs with their blazer??? Mine's all stock besides the extra leafs I'll be putting in.


Thanks,
Nate

[72gmguy]

I have towed a 20 ft boat about that distance with the saggy rear springs. I also backed it down the ramp in the morning and pulled the boat back out at a pretty steep ramp with no problems in the afternoon. Oh yeah, I also had the top off while doing this and all was fine.

[Erik V]

Dad used to pull a ~1500 lb trailer, with a 68 SWB 4X4 inside a home made camper shell (imagine a square toy hauler before toy haulers existed). I cant imagine that load being much less than 6K. Used to go all over, OR/WA/ID like that racing in the 70's. Just take it easy, dont let idiots cut you off, and you'll be fine.

Erik

[Cap'n Hook]

I'd say that's a little overloaded, BUT, if you have good brakes on the blazer AND you have trailer brakes with a brake controller, I'd say you would be on the fence of being OK!

Make sure you don't get too much tongue weight on the Blazer, but don't have the Suburban too far back on the trailer or you WILL get sway! And sway in this short wheelbase Blazer will NOT be fun!

[Critter]

I agree with Capnhook, I would be more concerned with the brakes. The weight on the springs is also an issue, but not my first concern. Is there a "back road" path you could take that would keep you off the interstates?

[dubds10]

Well the 9 is the only way back up to BC from where I'm picking it up..It's smaller than than I5, so should be a lot safer. The brakes on my blazer are great and with the extra springs I'm putting in, I wont be too worried about sagging or weight and I have extra parts in the rear of the burb to distribute the weight more evenly across the trailer.

It will be overloaded by I'd say 2000lbs or so but this will be one of the lighter loads I tow around lol I'm used to towing 25000+lbs with a 3/4T. An exhaust brake is priceless when towing for any of you guys who tow heavy loads

[coyote72]

I tow a 25' travel trailer about 6600#. I agree with the above posts, a trailer brake controller (for electric brakes) or a hydraulic arangement is a must. I have 3/4t springs in the rear and a 14 bolt with disks. Also some form of load distributing hitch and sway control helps a ton. The blazers really don't like a swaying trailer, as long as your aware of bigger trucks passing you and take it easy you'll be good.

[Wildstreak]

Isnt it illegal to tow a bigger object with a smaller one? My dad got ticketed long time ago for towing a station wagon in his ram charger. They made him unhook and come back with a bigger truck. If not get the burb back here lol

ps on another note, nice to see another sub guy in BC. I have two, a 68 and a 71. As well I grew up in walnut grove, langley. I hope to have the 68 ready for summer cruising and my latest deadline is for the good times cruise in.

[dubds10]

Well the Blazer is good for 5600lbs legally plus my extra suspension I'm putting in, so maybe I'll be able to raise it's towing capacity enough so it doesn't sag and look out of place lol

It's only illegal when you get caught right?

You went from Grove to Salmo...there's a change lol Been through a few times while travelling for my work. Lots of old iron on the way to AB going through the mountains.

[BIGBLU 72]

throw it on there and go is my sugestion but we have always towed stuff thats way over what we should. for example we went to get my Jimmy roughly 6000 lbs with all the crap that was in it plus a 2500 lbs trailer and a BBC/th400 all on the same trailer with my 97 Tahoe (God rest its soul) 75 Miles on the interstate w/ no problems! P.S. no trailer brakes! just make sure YOUR TRUCK has got GOOD BRAKES!!

[Erik V]

I believe legality lies on the state level. My Subaru has a factory tow rating of 2000, but I've easily pulled 2200-2500 total weight with a couple quads and camping gear on my flatbed. Looks funny, but works great-but I have fully upgraded brakes and swaybars. I'm sure I could be ticketed if they could prove my weight was over the 2000 rating.

I've seen full bodied air cooled VW bugs being pulled by regular nothing special air cooled VW buses. Now thats scary.

I say just be careful, you'll be fine. Just dont make a habit out of it.

Erik

[71swb4x4]

Trailer brakes are an absolute must.

A weight distribution hitch would help too.

[old man jimmy]

As a tow truck, they stink. You could tow a house. But safely is another story. A big heavy trailer will drive the truck. So if you must us it, I agree, take it very easy load your load right, and trailer brakes are a must. If you have to go down some mountains, be ready to grab the trailer brake controler. They want to get swaying, if that happens us the trailer brakes only to straighten you back out. Talking from experiance.

[pumpkin]

If you don't have trailer brakes you can legaly tow about 2500 lbs. in BC. If you do have trailer brakes, then its basicaly whatever the truck can pull. I have hauled 9500lbs with my Blazer, on my car trailer (with brakes). With the trailer properly loaded and balanced it works well, providing you don't find yourself in a quick manovering situation where the trailer will take over.

[dubds10]

Well it's looking like I may be hauling almost 10,000lbs. My one trailer is between 4-5000lbs dry weight plus the suburban with is another 4-5000lbs with all the extra parts. Figured out I need to put a different hitch on the blazer and rewire everything, so I'll be cutting out the current hitch and welding in a new one out back with new hook ups.

I guess we'll see how it goes for towing 9,000+lbs for 100miles. Original TH350 tranny and 3:73 rearend with a 350 crate motor with around 50,000 miles. If only I had my toy hauler built already lol Make life so much simpler...oh well.

[kilomanjaro]

I would say that is too big of a load with a Blazer. You may have power to get it moving and trailer brakes to help you stop but I think you will likely pick up some swaying due to the short wheel base. I pulled a 4k pound pickup bed trailer from Kansas to Alaska with my blazer. It was sketchy at times going through the mountains. You'll really need to balance the tounge weight just right with how far forward or back you put the vehicle. Too much or too little and you will pick up a bad sway. Suburbans are heavy, I pull a car trailer with my F350 powerstroke and 10k pounds is a good load even for it. Hope it goes well.

John

[Wildstreak]

IMO I would think thats too much as well, but its only for a hundred miles, dont you have any buddies with a bigger truck that could help you?

[alwaysbroken]

my dad toed his mini excavator around for a while with his 86, it had a small block in it. but the excavator and trailer wayed around 14,000 it didn't last long tho. shot gears out the pumpkin

[4pilgrim4]

Hope you don't intend to weld your hitch to the Blazer frame.

I did years ago and it broke off on a busy interstate near Miami, Fla. Fortunately the safety chains held and it ground to a stop on the equalizer bars.
Was pulling a 21 ft Streamline camper trailer and was able to hitch it onto a bumper ball.

At a local weld shop they added tangs to my hitch and bolted it to the frame. Said there was some law against welding to the frame. Could be a local Florida state law, or maybe other states -- don't know for sure up here in Washington, but any hitches I've seen have been bolted.

You might want to check it out.

I presently tow a 26 ft Avion with a diesel Jimmy. It would run between 5K and 6K lbs loaded. It was a handful until I installed a Pull Rite hitch. Now the sway tendency is gone. I understand there is another hitch that will work also called a Kensley.

[dubds10]

Never heard of any laws against welding a hitch to a frame. I see it quite often up here actually. My buddy's a master fabricator when it comes to metal work/welding etc, so he'll be welding everything up. The hitch setup with be a custom fab setup to get around the rear suspension/gas tank/bumper mounts. I've never seen a weld fail unless the welder didn't know what they were doing of course. I've seen surrounding metal break before a weld has.

[Erik V]

Not that it really matters, but AFAIK *any* welding done to an actual frame deems that frame unable to tow legally. My ex's dad got rearended in his Astro van years ago-he used it primarily to pull their Reinell boat. The insurance company quoted him a new bumper and rear doors, but wouldnt do a hitch because there was a bend in the frame behind the leaf springs. They said if he ever got in an accident for whatever reason, he'd be at fault if there was a trailer attached. So he got to choose small money+van back, or bigger money=total the van out. He ended up with a Jeep instead.

I've heard it multiple places-so maybe its our US Gov't making bogus rules.

Erik

[dubds10]

Hmmm...not sure, but I'm pretty sure our inspection facilities pass welded hitches here. Any frame modification can be passed as long as it's tested out and deemed safe by 'them' lol

I got rearend by an '70s 'maro doing 60. I was stopped when he hit me almost full speed. Raining out and hit brakes...didn't help. I had no rear bumper because I had a rollpan welded in, as well as a rear cross member welded at the furthest point on my frame (so no rear frame horns). The car hit me and went under my truck because of the extra cross member I had. It actually saved my frame but cracked his frontend up. Insurance company said nothing about it or the other modification I had. Truck was airbagged with enough frame modifications to get into trouble depending on where you live.

[Fesser]

10,000 lbs with a Blazer. Try not to think of it as towing. Try to think of it as sitting in front of a load that is going to try to kill you the first time you need to stop in a hurry. It's not worth it even if a thousand people did it before and lived. My two cents. Frank

[pumpkin]

Originally Posted by dubds10

Never heard of any laws against welding a hitch to a frame. I see it quite often up here actually. My buddy's a master fabricator when it comes to metal work/welding etc, so he'll be welding everything up. The hitch setup with be a custom fab setup to get around the rear suspension/gas tank/bumper mounts. I've never seen a weld fail unless the welder didn't know what they were doing of course. I've seen surrounding metal break before a weld has.

It is not legal to weld a hitch to the frame in BC. I am a motor vehicle inspector, and that would fail.

[old man jimmy]

Originally Posted by Fesser

10,000 lbs with a Blazer. Try not to think of it as towing. Try to think of it as sitting in front of a load that is going to try to kill you the first time you need to stop in a hurry. It's not worth it even if a thousand people did it before and lived. My two cents. Frank

I totally agree..