William, I agree with that, go by the recommendations of your Ford or GM
trailer manual and you won't have any problems. The "Sway Control"
device is an inexpensive item of tremendous value for improving control,
comfort, safety and convenience by almost totally preventing the trailer
wagging the tail of your pickup.
My '96 GMC 1500 pickup with 350 V8 and factory towing package has proven
ideal for pulling my 21' enclosed "Avenger" (what is it avenging?)
trailer with #124 inside and all my stuff, about 5500 lbs gross for the
trailer, and 4000 for the truck. The trailer has powerful electric
brakes on the four wheels with an adjustable controller in the cab for
varying loads. You adjust it so the trailer brakes just slightly lead
the truck brakes so the rig feels safe and natural in all braking
conditions. And the truck brakes seem not stressed at all. I load the
car and stuff so there is a slight bias to the front over the wheels
(tongue weight) and it works fine. The trailer rides dead level behind
the truck fully loaded.
The only thing you really have to watch out for is keeping plenty of
space in front of you because you can't stop on a dime. That 9500 lbs
will keep on going quite a while, ABS, no ABS, 8 locked-up wheels or no
locked-up wheels. So you have to watch out for dimwits pulling in front
of you then doing hard braking maneuvers on the Interstate, so they can
assist persons coming down on-ramps to merge from rest stop areas, etc.
The towing is easy from here to Maxton, about 300 miles, all flat land
on the Coastal Plain, half of it I-95. 60mph in third gear(2700 rpm) on
the automatic is no sweat, 65(2900 rpm) is okay if you want and 70(3100
rpm or so) would probably be harmless. The truck gets right at 10 mpg
towing at 60, more or less depending on headwind or no headwind. When
the air temp gets into the 90s the running temperature on the dash gauge
approaches the 210 center mark, but stays lower when the air temperature
is lower. GM tells you to check the engine oil every time you gas up,
but at 60K miles on this truck, the oil consumption is very low, maybe a
quart in 1000 miles towing. I see no reason for more towing speed than
you really need to keep to a schedule, it can only increase fuel
consumption, stress and wear in the whole rig.
They tell me towing in the mountains is the real problem, very easy to
overheat the gearbox and boil the oil out of it on long grades, and I
was told under adverse condtions to watch the engine temp gauge and just
slow down if it starts to go over 210, which will also keep the
transmission from overheating.
>From recent discussion on this List, I wouldn't be surprised by
transmission trouble, but if it appears, I don't care, will just get the
best available replacement. I assume this is just part of the cost of
towing. Manual gearboxes don't seem to be common in this class of
towing pickup, and I wouldn't want all that shifting anyway, with
everything else you have to do and watch out for all the time in
traffic. Cheers from Ardun Bill
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