Towing Question

.... and a 1/2 tank of fuel.

Mike --- I have towed 2 to 3 cords of wood and according to the season (wet wood or dried out a bit) the weight varies with time.

I am very sure that it is well over 6-7,000 lbs for the wood alone, plus the trailer adding another 1,000 lbs .... and have had no troubles with doing it almost every year.

Add in a couple of buddies (I can only lift 15lbs and if I have to exceed that limit, I have to remove the appropriate amount of clothing to compensate) so they do all the grunt stuff. Don't worry --- I feed them well.

Chainsaws, fuel, a survival pack (150lbs at least) and down the road we go --- safely and I feel with very good control.

Of course, I use electric b rakes because surge brakes are really not very good and they grab - or fail to grab -- and they are really miserable to back up with as they will apply unless you jump out of the seat and put the lockout pin (usually missing-lost on U-Haul stuff) in the actuator every time you need to go in reverse. A Royal pain in the a$$ if you ask me.

WARNING --- most chimpanzee/ex-burger-flippers working at U-Haul, cannot figure out the stock lighting on your TB and they can certainly screw it up by tapping into wires and bulbs with their limited intelligence.

I would never allow anyone by ME to add trailer wiring to my vehicle because the trailer lights have NOTHING TO DO WITH THE ACTUAL TAILLIGHTS OR BRAKE LIGHTS!
A big problem is that GM didn't comply with the RVIAA standards for trailer electrical wiring --- I think they went with the:
The Royal Canadian 'Electricity Is Ethereal; Is Omnipotetent' Wiring Society standards ... or better known as ---> 'EIEIO' standard.

Sadly, you cannot convert the RV (hah-ha!) connector on the back of your TB (a pox on GM engineers for this) to the RVIAA wiring positions and you will need to either replace the car-side connex with a real trailer wiring receptical or find some sortta convertor.

The GM Pins vary in size (of course they do!) and current carrying capacity (natch!) and if you tried for a conversion, positionally, all the grounds woiuld go through the smallest connector on the vehicle-side ... and that's a no-no.

On the convertor --- I don't think such a thing exists --- not as far south from Canada as I am anyway.

Oh yeah --- ya gotta connect the red mystery wire - under the hood, driver's side, next to the fuse/relay box.

I'll be back after Physical Therapy ....
.

Let's bring that pix around here again first ....



OK .........

A DEAD WEIGHT load without any load-shifting assistance, is limited to 400lbs on a MAXIMUM GROSS WEIGHT 4,000lb trailer. That's 10% of the trailer is dead weight on the ball --- just like a 400lb fat lady standing on it and dropping the rear of the car to the rubber baby buggy-bumper stops.

An Equalizer-style hitched trailer can have a MAXIMUM GROSS WEIGHT of 7,600lbs and have a tongue weight of 912lbs.

TYPICALLY - you want about 10-15% of the whole trailer weight as a dead weight on the hitch ball.

Here's the Lawyerland Worm Warning and Absolution Words on that placard:

At one point you are only pulling what you tow and carrying just a small percentage of it.

A weight distributing hitch assy will UP the value of what you tow, weight-wise, by transferring the ball load back onto the trailer and also at the same time sending part of that weight equally to all 4 wheels of the towing vehicle.

It's a complicated concept but I remember the Valley Hitch guy coming by my shop in the late 1960s with an Oldsmobile Toronado and one of their load-equalizing hitches --- and he had no rear wheels on the car.

ALL the weight was transferred to the front wheels - and although this was not recommended as a working model - it showed how the hitch worked by keeping the heavy dead weight off the ball and sent it to all the wheels including those of the trailer - back onto the ground.

If you keep the nose weight bias correct --- and that is usually 10-15% of the total trailer weight - on the ball as a way to keep the trailer from pushing the tow vehicle around, then --- theoretically - yes --- the towing weight is limited by the horsepower created by the towing vehicle - and the combined brakes of both the trailer and the vehicle.

Pulling of rolling weight isn't too much of a problem --- up to a point ---- it's bearing/carrying that weight, accelerating and stopping it well and of course: steering with it in tow.

FTR ---> locomotives don't carry the weight of all the cargo cars behind it --- it just pulls and stops it --- although each car has it's own brakes to help.

You don't carry all the weight with a load-bearing hitch --- you just send that weight somewhere else --- minus the percentage of that weight to keep the trailer weight bias correct.

I tow approximately 10,000 lbs of wood from where I cut the trees - on the highway with my TB using a weight distributing hitch and 2-axle electric brakes on the trailer. I keep the speed at controllable values and anticipate turns, braking areas and where to downshift and where to just use the brakes.

I use a Reese 1,000lb equalizing hitch spring set, 2 5/16" ball and dual sway controls with both trailer axles having electric brakes.

I found the picture .....