Towing

[Rangerman87]

How much trouble would the 2 nine have pulling a 4000lb vehicle?This is why I was asking about the colt cams high torque cam along w/p&P.Trust me I'd love to swap in a 4.0,I'm fairly mechanicly inclined and could easily install it but just need the cash,damn bills and car payment.

 

[RyanL]

In my opinion, I wouldn't do it unless it was just for a short distance on flat ground. I would be very worried about the brakes most of all. Like I said before in the other thread, lower gearing would make the most difference. Another alternative which wouldn't cost too much, is to get another set of steel rims with a set of very small street tires and use those exclusively for towing (maybe something like 215/70 or even 215/60). I didn't think about it in the other thread but along with being a little bit pricey (bang for the buck), I think that you would have to fight to get a cam in with the motor in place. Maybe someone else could chime in, but it looks like that body reinforcement brace (or whatever the hell you want to call it) is directly in front of the motor and might get in the way of cam removal and installation.

 

[Rangerman87]

Right on,I was just wonderin' was all.As far as the cam install I'd do it the smart way and pull the engine,that way I could do a full service on it,pull the heads,swap'em out with the polished and upgraded heads etc and do the 4L clutch conversion,I'd also upgrade the brakes.If I were to do the cam install I'd see about the gear change also,as far as gears,would 4.10's be the way to go?I included a pic of the truck,it'd be a great lil tow rig.Sorry for the blurriness,the camera kinda sucks a bit.

 

[Dave90ranger]

depends on the tongue weight of the trailer. if its a trailer with only one axle or one wheel on each side then probably wouldn't be a good idea, but if it was a trailer with 2 axles or 4 tires then could probably get away with it and be fine. look in the tech library on towing if you havnt.

 

[Vanner1993]

My uncle towed a boat with my truck before I had it. It was setup for it. Has 373's, and ran 205 75 15. Definately had alot of power with the gears and small tires.

 

[gw33gp]

I used to tow my race car on a trailer all over the country with my 89 2.9L powered Ranger. The combined weight (trailer and car) was around 3500 lbs plus another 800 lbs on the bed. It did fine on level ground but had a good work out on inclines. I had to down shift to keep the rpm in the optimum power range. The good thing is the 2.9L engine revs just fine. I had almost 200,000 miles on it when I sold it and the engine ran as good or better than it did when it was new.

The 4.0 SOHC engine in my current Ranger does a much better job of towing the same package.