....Towing a big trailer down too my buddies property...

OLDBULL8

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The reason I asked about tongue weight is that it the truck is balanced weight wise, you will have a much better chance at keeping the whole works straight.

That certainly is a good thing to consider. Backup to the trailer tongue, measure from the ground up to a point on the front bumper, hookup the trailer, measure the front again, how high has the hookup lifted the front, a couple of inches won't matter, but more than that you will loose steering ability. The rear shouldn't sink more than about 3 inches. After hooking up, turn the wheels, how light of steering does it feel.
 

Old Blue

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If there are any sharp turns you could "miss" due to an overspeed or trailer push mishap, I would walk away personally. Rear axle slideout is one of the the biggest risks on a slow speed downhill turn with a bumper pull. If it was me, and my "dead reckoning" said it was possible, I would do two things:

Run as slow as humanly possible without skidding or sliding tires on the tow rig. If, and once, your rig begins to be pushed over your desired speed by the trailer, if you attempt to slow it by locking tires on your rig, especially rear, you are at high risk. It is better to limit the acceleration of the combo as best as possible down the hill and focus instead on maintaining directional control, rather than make hard braking efforts to slow something heavier than your truck - if any axle starts to move latterally (sideways) during this decent you are at very high risk for a bad, bad day.

Air down axles on the truck and trailer both. This increases rolling resistance which will give you more natural 'braking' force, it also helps prevent lateral movement of the tires on soft non-compacted surfaces. Aired down tires will also have less propensity to slide and/or continue sliding due to over braking on the tow rig.

Plan it out in your head first, all your turns and moves in advance, some people seem to switch off their brains when performing risky manuevers when they should be doing the opposite. Trailers want to go in the direction the tongue is pointing, no matter where the tow rig is pointing - especially down hill. If the pull looks too risky, you can supplement a straight tow down a mountain side with a rear mounted cable attachment to the trailer and a shackle mounted to a tree or another sturdy object on the pass. Another vehicle, travelling on a level roadway above the pass and at an oblique angle, can then pay out the cable in a controlled manner to the downhill apparatus. The upper vehicle should weigh as much or more than the downhill rig combo, it can be ballasted if necessary - this increases safety. I would not ballast (add weight) to a downhill pull rig in any way. You can use a smaller vehicle with a longer run of cable and a block and tackle between the solid object and the downhill rig, to increase your mechanical advantage. a large winch can perform the same basic task. Put on your thinking cap and work outside the box as necessary. Even the best laid plans can, and have, failed catastrophically against all predicted odds. Remember the Titanic.
 

firehawk

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The biggest questions are the grade and traction. What you are pulling is possible, no question. You need to figure out if you can do it safely. Let us know how it turns out, and bring a camera.
 

firehawk

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You are correct, Trailer has been here, and in process of hooking up. Thursday, After the town gave me the ok last week, they gave me the "un-ok". Someone with no ID came by Thursday while I was on a parts run and yelled at my lube tech told him we had to have trailer out by this Saturday (tomorrow!) or I would begin getting fines. Now I have to go move it, no clue where! And no one knows who was at my business! Zoning/construction office says wasn't them, borough office has no idea.

Love this town!!!!!!!!!!!!

I would love to use crew cab to tow it, but the hitch on it is 5k limit. I don't want to use the Bronco, since the trans on it likes to overheat (put coolers and bigger lines on it but have not towed since), but looks like Bronco is it.

I wouldn't worry about some guy complaining. No paperwork = no complaint.
 

RLDSL

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About this down hill tow trip.. Honestly without actually being there and seeing it my feeling are not to do it. I am trying to "see" everything about this short trip down hill but what and where will you end up if thing go badly. Just because a 3 ton rig got it there does not mean you need that much to get it down hill. But remember this too. The guy that got it there hopefully does this for a living and knows his limits. If he was not willing to get it down the hill with his bigger heavier rig.. why are you thinking your smaller lighter rig will do ok. Once again I can't see whats going on there so my thoughts are to not do it. So my guess is there is enough posts telling you how much they have towed on the rods.. Well that means nothing compared to what your attempting to do... Go down hill in soft dirt with no triler brakes. A straight soft rods is one thing but now throw in some cliffs and turns. If there are any tells me to pass it up. I may feel differant if I actually saw this hill and load but not seeing it... My thoughts are pass it up and save your truck... Maybe even your life. Now if and when you do this you know everyone here wants to see a viedo...

I'm inclined to agree with Gary on this one . If the Guy with the toter who delivered teh thing in the first place is declining to move it down that stretch, then you have no business messing with it. Tell your friend to Call someone out with a Cat to crawl the thing down there. It'll cost him a few hundred bucks for someone to drag it down with a crawler, but it WILL get down in one piece and nobody will get hurt. A crawler will have enough weight and traction to slog through soft silty dirt pushing on a downgrade without ending up with the tail wagging the dog.
There is a very good reason that the original driver walked away from it and it's not because he's chicken. You do this kind of thing long enough and you see some VERY bad things happen.

Ask yourself, Are you REALLY ready to bale out of your truck as it is getting away from you and watch it go rolling over the side of a mountain ?
Ive hauled all kinds of insanely oversized and overweight loads professionally and many times wondered who the moron was who issued the permit because they were things that just shouldnt be happening and I've walked away from a few that were just too insane .I know they had no trouble finding some mouth breather with a death wish to do it, more than one thing I refused wound up witha driver in a serious accident, one with a driver at the bottom of a ravine dead as a doornail. I'm sure his wife and kids appreciated his bravado.
 

berniesouthunt

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I will be heading North tonight, I will look at it alott closer tomarro when it gets light. If its just too risky then theres no way I will do it. I think the guy with the big truck just didn't want to chance not making it back up the Hill. I always want to be safe, and my job requires me to see the dumb things people do on a regular basis, Paramedic Firefighter, I don't want to end up in the back of a short white bus or in the back bed of a caddy (Hurst). I think we can get backhoe if we have too or maybe hook the chevy to the back for some extra braking power, maybe even rig up a 3 to 1 system with cable and pulleys. Have lotts of cable from a buddy whom used to work at an elevator repair place. I won't do anything that would hurt bystanders or myself. I will get some pics and possibly a video either way. Thanks again guys, Your all the best.
 

NTOLERANCE

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I would be inclined to use a hitch on the front of the truck possibly and go trailer first.

8,000 behind a 7,000 truck is alot of momentum potential.
 

justinray

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This is not a test of the engine. It wil pull it up. The problem will be the brakes and terrain. If the brakes stop it and the tires grab you'll be fine, but I pulled an 82 6.2 Chebby from arkansas and broke a caliper in half coming down Mt. Nebo. On pavement. Bad experience.
 

chvycmnslvr68

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I would like to add my two cents worth ... I once was hauling moss rock out of the mountains and was spending too much time hauling pallets two at a time on the bed of my truck ... 47 miles out of the mountains .. so i borrowed a 35' goose neck trailer from a friend and put six pallets on it .. I was thinking that the pallets would weigh around 1500- 2000 lbs and would be well within the safe range of the engine holding it back coming down the hill ... WRONG ... the pallets ended up averaging 4700lbs and i was driving a 82 3/4 ton chevy, 6.2 and had no trailr brakes hooked up(28000 lbs of rocks 7000 lb trailer and 6700lb p/u) ... I made it the first couple miles no problem .. was pretty flat .. then I started down the first downgrade and before the trailer axles started off the hill I knew that I was in trouble ... I had the p/u in 4 low and was standing on the brake pedal as hard as i could and couldnt stop it .. It was over two miles to the next level spot and I was "sh*****g bricks" ... I put the tranny in reverse and held the throttle at full and with the full reverse and the full brakes plus putting it up on the bank I was able to get it stopped ...
I will never pull another heavy trailerdown a steep grade w/o good brakes ...

if your going to do this I woulld reccomend hooking up a wire to the trailers brakes ... even if you just put a toggle switch on it to go directly to full brake ... and then pull it on flat ground and see if you can stop it really good ..
be careful
 

89greendiesel

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I would like to add my two cents worth ... I once was hauling moss rock out of the mountains and was spending too much time hauling pallets two at a time on the bed of my truck ... 47 miles out of the mountains .. so i borrowed a 35' goose neck trailer from a friend and put six pallets on it .. I was thinking that the pallets would weigh around 1500- 2000 lbs and would be well within the safe range of the engine holding it back coming down the hill ... WRONG ... the pallets ended up averaging 4700lbs and i was driving a 82 3/4 ton chevy, 6.2 and had no trailr brakes hooked up(28000 lbs of rocks 7000 lb trailer and 6700lb p/u) ... I made it the first couple miles no problem .. was pretty flat .. then I started down the first downgrade and before the trailer axles started off the hill I knew that I was in trouble ... I had the p/u in 4 low and was standing on the brake pedal as hard as i could and couldnt stop it .. It was over two miles to the next level spot and I was "sh*****g bricks" ... I put the tranny in reverse and held the throttle at full and with the full reverse and the full brakes plus putting it up on the bank I was able to get it stopped ...
I will never pull another heavy trailerdown a steep grade w/o good brakes ...

if your going to do this I woulld reccomend hooking up a wire to the trailers brakes ... even if you just put a toggle switch on it to go directly to full brake ... and then pull it on flat ground and see if you can stop it really good ..
be careful

if you took 15 tons out if this analogy, it would be a pretty good one. :D



just messing with you......


I think the best advice ive seen yet is take it slow, plan, and air down the tires a bit. All this cable hooking up, and putting a vehicle behind the trailer seems to just introduce more problems than they solve.
 

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