Hello, I have a 94 15-passenger van, with the inline six, and a C6 transmission. I am wanting to tow a small 10ft cargo trailer with fairly light contents typically. I will be using it to put on mountain bike events so I will have to climb a pass here and there. Any experience would be appreciated on whether I would be over working it or not.
I figure it shouldn't exceed 3000lbs total loaded.

 

I am not a towing expert, but it seems that the van should pull the trailer OK, but it will be pretty dang slow up those mountains. I had a '78 F100 with the 300 inch six (bought it new) and it was a solid engine. I also remember renting a U-Haul box truck with a 12' box for moving to a different house; I was surprised that the truck had a 300 inch six. Ford definitely made that engine to be a workhorse. It was pretty slow on level ground in Detroit when full of everything I owned, but it got us there. On a mountain, I dunno...

That said, you will absolutely need a trans cooler, and my other questions are (1) how heavily loaded will the van be? and (2) what rear end gear do you have?

If you have the van full of people and stuff, I am thinking it's gonna be a problem... If the van will be fairly light (like carrying bicycles) you would do better. I am a bicyclist, prez of a big bike club, and our son was a Cat 2 racer (after starting racing as a junior) so I love the big vans for bicycle support. I also love the 300 inch six, but have a 4.6 in my 2002 E150 and that performs way better than the old six--but has to rev a bit to do its work.

Your ultimate power to weight ratio will probably still be better than a loaded semi, but you certainly may be frustrated climbing mountains. Having driven in the Rockies as long ago as 1970, it gets rough in high altitudes--but at least you have fuel injection to keep the fuel mixture sort of reasonable...

Good luck,
George

 

The 300 I-6 is a great engine. With the right gearing it can haul/tow alot of weight. A trans cooler would definitely be recommended along with a gauge to monitor it. Also, if you are hauling in the hills/mountains you would definitely want to make sure your brakes are in good shape. Most of the time the trouble isn't being able to move a load, it is being able to control and stop it.

 

I appreciate the input. I will rarely have more than 4 people in the van so it should be ok. I currently just load all my equipment in the van and it does just fine, in fact it barely phases it at all. I am mainly wanting to use the trailer for the convenience of dropping the equipment at a central location.

I don't know much about a tranny cooler, any advice there?

Also, I am in WA state and when I say I will be going up passes, I mean probably 4-6 passes a year and never about about 3500ft of so. I just pulled it with my 1997 tacoma with 188K on it and it did fine, except the trans temp light came on about 2 miles from the top.

 

Does your van have a "Tow" button? Do you know what the rear end gearing is? A trans cooler is easy to install. Just a couple of hoses and it usually sits infront of the radiator. The c6 is a pretty stout trans, just doesn't do great in the MPG arena.

 

Does not have a tow button. I just youtubed how to install a cooler and it doesn't look too bad.

 

Also, look at the sticker on the door or the vin to determine what rear end gearing you have.

Overall I think you should be fine as long as everything is well maintained. Just stay alert.

If you have the owners manual I would think that it would have a section on towing.

 

I'll check the VIN. Overall it's in great shape. I got it for a steal in essentially perfect condition, only 62K on it, maintained as a YMCA vehicle....wait for.....$600! Have taken it on several long road trips and it is totally solid. Kind of my favorite vehicle I have. In my younger years, I had a lot of delivery jobs that always used these so I'm very comfortable with it.

 

GREAT deal. There will be a code for the rear axle but there are lookup charts on the Internet ("Ford axle codes"), or even do a search on FTE...

Is this an E250? What is the GVW? Should be fine with a lite load and the trailer but the long rear end will accentuate the tongue weight.

George