Can I pull it?

Heres the deal.....

After i sold my airstream, to get something a little lighter and bigger, I found a really nice 5th wheel camper, its an older one, its a 84 Model, buts its nice in side, all the amenites work, got a good sized bathroom, etc etc.

Giy wants 3500 for it, its got a resealed roof, new carpet, new fridge, new awning, etc.

My question is......I dont know if my truck will handle it or not....I know the dually will, but i dont really wanna drive that all the way up north and back at the cost of 800 bucks.

The thing weighs 6500lbs, my truck is a 96 F150, 300 straight 6, 4wd, auto, 3.55 gears. The guy that has it said he pulled it with a 1\2ton Dodge with a 4.7L, and im assuming that 4.7L dont have as much "grunt" as my 300. He said that he pulled his old one which was 5800lbs all over the country with a 86 F250 with a 300.

Im not so much worried bout the motor and trans as the suspension.....what should i do in regards to that? Air shocks? Add a LEafs, coil helpers? Or all of them?

I know ill need electric trailer brakes.

Helpful advice please.

later,
Dustin

I know my old 300 would tow anything I hooked it up to, but not necessarily at highway speeds, its the 96 in your sig right? with an auto? use a trans cooler, airbags, and possibly overload shocks, I assume you will be using a full compliument of gauges, so be sure to keep an eye on your tranny temp. It should be okay.

The 300 is no match for the 4.7. And a 2008 4.7 is 290hp and 320ft# I think.

The 4.7l definitely isn't a slacker of an engine, Mercedes built.

well obviously it would be a good idea to check your entire suspension over, shackles and hangers is what I'd be looking the closest at.

Helper springs are definitely a good idea.

Look into a set of these also: http://www.timbren.com/ses-kits.htm

Swap in F250 springs they bolt right in.

As for "Grunt"

After helping my brother and Ed (a buddy) assemble an F-250 from
left-over pieces from my brothers project truck I wound up
driving that truck to Wyoming.

The F-250 4.9 5sp (ZF) was very capable on the flat but not too happy
on the hills.

Before we left I had the oppertunity for several test drives of varying length.
Ed was concerned enough about the 1800 miles trip without dealing with me getting royally ticked off at the vehicle I was supposed to be driving for him, so he wanted ME to believe it was "right", because I had to pilot it out there...

One thing I found on the first drive was that the 3.55 gears simply weren't going to cut it (with narrow 33" tires), which was pure luck because the truck felt like it was "dragging"
and as it turned out it was "crunchy" pinion bearings, so Ed and I headed
off to the junkyard where we picked a 4.10 geared Sterling 10.25 axle
that looked like someone had worked on it recently, yup new brakes, wheel cylinders
pinion seal etc... Yup this is it.... and we took the Dana 50 front chunk as well...

As a last minute impulse we installed a Limited slip in place of the open diff
(What the hell...) mainly because I had a new 10.25 TracLok just laying around
and it was doing me no good....


But back to the towing story..., It had my friends "iron parachute" (His BIG MAC toolchest) in the front of the bed and another 2500lbs of equipment
(Welders, a generator, etc...) stacked in the bed.
Bouncing along behind this F-250 was my JUST ressurected Ranger...

Pause for another digression...

My Ranger had a whopping 78.2 miles of test driving on a 4.0 conversion
and a freshly assembled 5sp, a COMPLETELY cobbled together dual tank
fuel system, installed cruise control, and a 4x4 conversion... and oddly
(to some people) I was pretty confident that when I was cut loose,
1800-odd miles from home, that I'd make it home.

Anyway, my Ranger wasalso packed to volume capacity with NO regard towards weight... (in addition to the 141gallons of fuel onboard)
On a homebuilt RV style tow bar, connected to a commercial
towbar bracket that is rather firmly attached to my Ranger's frame...
(also "new")

Mind you my ranger itself weighs 4880 with the bed more or less empty
and I've loaded it another 1700lbs above that.

Yet that 4.9 liter chugged along most of the way across country
on cruise control.

Yeah, your camper is lighter but it has more frontal area.
Hills won't be as much of a problem as high speed and wind will be.

But also bear in mind that your 1996 F-150 with a 4.9 is a good 1200lbs
lighter than the F-250 I was driving. That F-250 scaled out at 6100lbs
with nothing in it other than a couple of dead leaves and a few escaped
fasteners.

My personal recommendation for a 5sp 4.9 F-150 is 3.55's
4.10's are a little "much" for stock sized (235/75-15 tires)
and SFAIK nobody makes reverse rotation 3.73's for a dana 44.

So if you already have 3.55's you'll be fine.

DO be sure to hook up the brakes

AD

Well.....

I took your advice, and im taking the gamble. I asked my dad, he said his horsetrailer was about 7300lbs fully loaded and his 300 with an auto and 3.55's handled it just fine, even with the air on. But it was a 3\4ton....but i got the same gears and what not.

I bought some of the coil overs for the shocks, and some bolt on leafs, I orded a set of air shocks for it.

Also coming is the trans cooler. I got one of those removable 5th wheel hitches.

I guess worse case scenario is i pull it around with the dually. Thats what i pulled it home with....that old pig didnt even know it was back there.

Dont worry, ill hook brakes up. I wont be pulling it much, maybe 4 or 5 times a year.

My question is....will that puny 8.8 rear hold up?

later,
Dustin

rusty ol ranger said:

My question is....will that puny 8.8 rear hold up?

Click to expand...

I don't see why it wouldn't, especially if you're only hauling 4-5 times a year. For almost 5 years my friend pulled his 27 ft 5th wheel AND his 19 ft Stingray boat together with his 91 F150, 284 miles round trip almost every weekend in the summer months. He finally moved up to a diesel powered, 1 ton rig. But he never had an issue with the rear diff in those 5 years. He did however, change his diff fluid every spring.

What did he have in his F150 for a Engine?

I got a pretty strong drivetrain, a 300 and a E40D.....but im definatly getitng a trans cooler.

later,
Dustin

He had a 5.8 & E4OD. After the first summer of towing that train, he had me rebuild his engine. I upped the compression a tad, ported the heads, installed a mild bumpstick, then he had a chip burned for his application. It turned out pretty good. Before engine work, the fastest he could go on Laveta Pass on a long uphill grade was 28 mph. Afterwards, he got 44 mph up that same hill. Also, he had me change from his 3.55 gear ratio to 4.10, his speedo was off after that but he said he felt it did even better up that hill.

He ran a 21,000 gvw trans cooler & didn't have an issue with the transmission.

Based off of his half ton & the amount of times he towed with in the Rocky Mountains, I don't see where you'd have a problem if everything's in good working order at the present time. If something is starting to go south right now, towing that weight will probably induce a failure.

Yeah, that scared the hell out of me when I discovered out west it's legal to tow trailers in tandem.

The first time you see a full size towing a goosneck camper and behind that towing some small vehicle on a tow bar....

AD

It's legal up here in Canada too.

You see it all the time in the summer months and most rigs are diesel powered.

its legal everywhere in US if you have a doubles/triples endorsment, as long as the front trailer is a 5th wheel.

It isn't uncommon to see two fully loaded gravity flow wagons bouncing behind a tractor their way to town this time of year. Neat thing is trailer brakes or breakaway chains are not required.

Every once in awhile someone will loose a wheel (wheel bearing or spindle goes out) and the whole thing will dump over in the ditch.

back in the day dad would pull a 24 ft travel trailer behind a full-size '89 bronco with a 302 creeper 4-spd and 3.55 rear end. behind the camper would sometimes be a 16' starcraft boat.
________
TLR200

racsan said:

back in the day dad would pull a 24 ft travel trailer behind a full-size '89 bronco with a 302 creeper 4-spd and 3.55 rear end. behind the camper would sometimes be a 16' starcraft boat.

Click to expand...

You're the same age as me and you refer to an '89 as "back in the day"?


Back in the day we had a '71 Plymouth station wagon with wood contact paper decorating its flanks and a '66 Ford pickup with a "Twin I-Beam" emblem boldly displayed on the fender.