Automatic or manual for towing

[engdept]

That may be good advise for off-road but I can't think of how that relates to towing. I guess if someone was trying to destroy a transmission while towing, that advice could be useful.

There are a lot of shock loads on your transmission when towing, especially when taking off from a stop.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

My dream transmission would be a stick shift with a torque converter in first gear.

My dad has a tractor like that, but the TC is in all 8 gears. Start off in Case-O-Matic and get the load moving, then pull a lever for 100% lockup. Also works great for when pulling a implement and you hit a tough spot, you can unlock the converter and chug on thru it.

Sweet idea, they ended up selling it to CAT, I dunno what they made of it after that though.

 

[gw33gp]

There are a lot of shock loads on your transmission when towing, especially when taking off from a stop.

Maybe yours but not mine. When taking off the clutch takes care of the shock loads unless you floor the accelerator pedal and dump the clutch. I hope no one is ignorant enough to do that.

 

[Hahnsb2]

Maybe yours but not mine. When taking off the clutch takes care of the shock loads unless you floor the accelerator pedal and dump the clutch. I hope no one is ignorant enough to do that.

Except people do dump the clutch and abuse them, hence why shock loads are taken into consideration when coming up with towing specs...

 

[Evan]

I would want a manual with good gearing as my towing setup.

 

[AllanD]

Another consideration they take is that the manuals don't absorb shock loads like autos do so it's more likely to break something.

Actually once you are rolling the difference is insignificant.

a conventional "hydraulic computer" automatic carries the seeds
of it's own self-immolation in it's design.

The later automatic transmissions are entirely solenoid controlled
and have essentially NO shift overlap.
So I'd trust a 5R55E further than I'd trust an A4LD, but if I was
asked to tow a trailer from PA to WY (Or vice Versa) in a truck
with an auto trans I'd suggest that the person asking me had
been dropped on their head as a child.

And ask if they'd like to be dropped on their head AGAIN.

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[Will]

If I were paid to tow a trailer from PA to WY with my automatic equipped truck I would do it without blinking an eye. The TH475 in my truck is as reliable as gravity.

 

[wahlstrom1]

I prefer a manual in pretty much anything, but the only auto tranny's I've ever liked are chev's. I'd take a TH350/400 or 4L60E/4L80E over any other non planetary auto. Manually shifting a C6 is merely a suggestion as I've found out, my parents motorhome doesn't shift worth a crap manually....it just lugs way down then winds all the way out, good ole 460ci gettin 7mpg....

-andrew

 

[Will]

You are driving that motorhome too fast for it's power and limited gearing. You have more torque than you need in second, but not enough in 3rd on a hill. You need to slow down, or get a gear splitter.

Going 65 (3300rpm), running into a hill, running out of engine and pulling it down at 60 would send the motor up to 4400.

Better to drive at 55 (2800 in 3rd) so if you have to downshift on a hill you might wait to 50 and go up the hill at 3500 in 2nd. That's more what they had in mind for it.

A Gear Vendors is great because you can go down or up half a step from the 3rd you have right now. You would be driving 65 at 2600 which a 460 has the torque to do much of the time. And instead of having to buzz the motor 4400rpm to maintain 60 on a hill, you would have a gear that would turn 3400rpm at 60. That gear would give 16% more torque at that speed which is probably all you need.

I put a Gear Vendors in my truck and it's really worth it. I would definately put one in a motorhome that I used to go very far in. Considering what they cost, a gas motorhome should come equipped with one.

 

[rickcdewitt]

My dream transmission would be a stick shift with a torque converter in first gear.

reminds me of the auto in my brothers 53 new yorker.an auto tranny with a clutch pedal.torque converter and a clutch in the same bellhousing.
seriously though, i've used a few big kubota's that were pretty much a torque converter in front of a manual

 

[wahlstrom1]

You need to slow down, or get a gear splitter.

A Gear Vendors is great...

I put a Gear Vendors in my truck and it's really worth it. I would definately put one in a motorhome that I used to go very far in. Considering what they cost, a gas motorhome should come equipped with one.

Working on it actually, trying to show my dad it's worth it.....But his new job may afford him the luxury of a new(er) diesel heavy truck chassis style motorhome. I would love to either install a gear vendors OD or pull the engine and build a stroker out of it.....a semi built 514ci aughta pull it pretty good.

-andrew

 

[AllanD]

On a vehicle with few gears (a C6 equipped motor home?) an "outboard"
overdrive unit is priceless.

I simply prefer manual transmissions because they almost never fail
without a very long warning period.

an auto often simply stops working with very little warning.
on three occasions in my life with no warning at all.

I once had one that drove perfectly rut up to a stop sign, I stopped
and the car simply wouldn't go.... AT ALL.

a one way cluch inside the trans broke and that was that.

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[Pete D]

I don't know if you guys noticed, but not too long ago Ford rated the automatic and manual transmissions essentially the same, then one year they changed it all. I talked to the truck manager at my local Ford Store and he said they lowered the capacity of the manual mainly because of driver error; they were tired of hassles from customers who had trashed clutches which puts Ford in a difficult place with the customer.

I know from driving a Dodge 1/2 ton with a light manual trans and pulling an RV right at the weight limits, I had a lot of premature clutch damage -- Some where from trying to get started on a hill in stop and go traffic, but most were from trying to back into difficult spots over bad terrain -- Would have been a lot better of course if I had had 4WD with a granny first and reverse!

One thing not mentioned about manual having a great advantage is when one is towing a load down the backside of the mountain one just climbed -- The manual trans lets one take full advantage of engine braking to keep the brakes in cool reserve.

A less obvious point is that a manual's radiatior has more cooling power to use for engine cooling because it has no transmission cooler putting an extra load on it.

 

[Will]

An auto also allows downshifting. There's no difference there. An auto has gears inside just like a manual. A benefit of the auto is that if it is electronically controlled, it won't let you overspeed the motor. There's a very limited amount of braking available from the engine. The pistons bounce off the air so not much energy is lost internally--it's lost at the throttle plate. On a semi getting as much power out of the engine brake as the engine can make is an achievment--and that has a device that compresses the air and then blows off the air so the pistons don't bounce and regain the energy.

Consider that a 2009 Porsche 911 Turbo accelerates to 100mph in 9.4 seconds and stops from 100mph in 4.3 seconds. It has 480hp from the engine and I'm willing to bet the wheel brakes can develop 8X that amount of power to haul it to a stop in half the time. Just saying, engine braking with an engine brakes isn't amazing--without, it's nearly nothing and risky if you don't have experience with where the engine rpm is going to be when you unleash the speeding vehicle on it by downshifting.

I believe though, that the new HD pickups have a transmission brake built into them where they can use opposing clutches to brake the vehicle with the transmission. That has the benefit of having a cooling system available on a braking system.

The radiator is sized for what it has to cool.

 

[Wicked_Sludge]

while i agree that engine braking with a gasoline engine is more of a suggestion to slow down, it does work if the operator knows how to do it properly.

ideally, you keep the vehicle speed in a range where the decent can be almost entirely controlled with engine braking. plan ahead to avoid needing to slow down suddenly. RPMs need to be above 1500 on EEC-IV vehicles in order for the PCM to kill the injectors (you dont draw much of a vacuum at those speeds anyway), and braking in direct and overdrive gives the tires too much mechanical advantage on the engine to do much. i slow the vehicle to 65MPH or so (you dont want all that extra inertia moving any faster than that on a hill anyway), downshift into 3rd (thats about 4,000RPM with my gearing), and only use the service brakes to maintain engine speed if necissary.

i drove like this without trailer brakes through the canadian rockies with about 3,000lbs behind the ranger and i was rarely on the brakes. when towing my little 1,200lb boat, i almost never use the brakes.