bought a trailer

[irishblessing]

so i bought a pop tent trailer its an 86 starcraft but its in really good shape i got it for a grand it weights about 2500 empty i was wondering it it would be easy for my truck to pull my truck is a 96 Ranger Ex cab 4.0 v6

 

[97RangerXLT]

I believe the towing capacity for your truck is close to 5000 pounds. should tow it pretty easily.

AJ

 

[irishblessing]

i just dont want to kill the truck i would think i could tow it but was wondering what kind of trailers ther people where towing with there trucks

 

[scotts90ranger]

auto or manual?

if yours has the A4LD, a trans cooler would keep you safe, otherwise it should be fine...

 

[irishblessing]

its an auto

 

[TwoWhels]

Tow in D3

Do not use the over drive

 

[irishblessing]

i dont have d3 lol and i dont have overdrive

 

[1ATony]

i dont have d3 lol and i dont have overdrive

LOL, you should be good to go then. As a rule of thumb on any vehicle,if your towing something don't use over drive as it tends to wear on the tranny.

 

[Will]

That's not my rule of thumb. My rule of thumb is tow in the highest gear it wants to tow it in. If it hunts, pull it down a gear. If it's not hunting, you aren't using enough torque to hurt it.

On a flat it will not hurt it a bit to leave it in OD. When you head up a hill and it downshifts, upshifts, downshfts, upshifts--that's when the heat begins to build up that will melt seals and burn up clutches. When it's in gear, the clutches aren't making heat, just the converter is. If you have the converter locking and unlocking, which is hunting too, pull it down a gear until it levels out. It would be better to have a switch that would leave the converter locked because that's the main contributor to heat.

But there no reason to not use the gear if it will pull it. These trannies don't break internal parts.

 

[1ATony]

Where I live there's allot of mountains and hills,it's almost impossible to use OD while towing.

 

[Jspafford]

i dont have d3 lol and i dont have overdrive

Is yours broken? A4LD's do have OD.

 

[tpking]

4.0s in 96 have the 4R55E trans

 

[dogboy]

It should still have overdrive though.
EDIT: here we go; "4R55E T 1995-2001 4.0L Rangers 4-Speed 2.47 / 1.47 / 1.00 / 0.75"
0.75 would be overdrive. This came from the tech library by the way.

I can't think of many cars at ALLL nowadays that don't have overdrive.


That being said, your Ranger will pull that trailer just fine.
If my dad's Suzuki XL-7 can pull my Ranger on a car trailer, then I'm sure your Ranger can pull this trailer (we also have a 02 Starcraft that wieghs in at 3100 loaded I think, and we pull that with our XL too). I've seen Rangers pulling some large loads just fine.
If it is rated at 5K lbs (I don't know, but that is just the number that has been said), then that is how much the company "says" you can pull, but for the most part you don't really want to exceed that even if you can get it moving, because it is stopping more weight than that, that is the problem. And parts tend to wear out faster if you don't know how to tow that much weight.

Also, I am going to have to agree with Will on the shifting issue, entirely. My tranny lived fine going over the Cascades (I go over them often) in 3rd gear, but once I left it in 4th (overdrive) and it started blowing smoke at the top. This was becuase in 3rd (D) it did not hunt for gears, but in OD, it had to hunt, which killed it.

 

[irishblessing]

no i do have overdrive it just doesnt work theres a short somewhere mu fuise keeps blowing for my overdrive

 

[Jspafford]

no i do have overdrive it just doesnt work theres a short somewhere mu fuise keeps blowing for my overdrive

Does it not work, or is the light just not coming on when you take it out of OD? If the light doesn't work, it is on the same fuse that blows when you have a short in your trailer hitch wiring.