Hey all - towed about 3,000 lbs of firewood twice today with the ol' gal. Gave me an idea what towing a 25' camper might feel like. Thinking of some upgrades ...

I'm focusing on towing ability. The overall goals are increased traction, braking ability, GVRW rating, and GCVRW rating. Undecided yet on what kind of diff (LS, locking, whatev).

Should I get the shackles, springs, 16" wheels, and rear from an F250 - or should I rebuild the 8.8", add helper springs, and get higher load range tires? Saw overload springs on a bullnose F350 before.

Thanks in advance for humoring me

 

Changing the rear end isn't really going to help much,as you would need to change the shift points (Bands), otherwise you'll get lots of torque on the low end,and less performance on the high end.Your best all round rear end ratio could be 3.55 using a P235 75R 15 tire. If you go to a larger tire and leave everything else alone your actual rear end ratio will go to around a 3.23 ratio. If you go to a different tire size say P225 70R 15 you will gain a small amount of torque, just remember to recalibrate the speedometer hope I helped you out

 

If you are HAULING wood in the bed, versus towing a trailer with wood, the first thing I would do is make sure I have Extra Load tires, at least in the rear.
Look for for the tire size with XL on the end, also spelled out on the sidewall.

 

The 8.8" axle should hold up fine while towing a 25 footer, but you might want to consider a regear if your going to be installing a new differential anyway.

I would advise against a locking differential since your truck will be towing. A factory limited slip with repacked clutches will offer a huge improvement in traction over your open diff without any of the ill effects you get from a true locker.

 

Thanks for the input, guys.

I'm pretty over open differentials right now Limited slip sounds nice. What are the ill effects of lockers? I saw a cable-operated kit before if I'm not mistaken; I like that idea. Manual traction control, yes please. Do they engage with a bang or a clunk?

 

The biggest problem is they scrub the inside tire through turns when power is applied. Since you'll be towing a trailer, it won't be convienient for you to alter your driving style to cater to a locking differential. You basically need to build speed before a turn so you can coast through.

They are also fairly noisy, but that bit doesn't bother me. The clunk when engaging and disengaging and ratchet around sharp corners.

 

Gotcha. I was leaning towards a locker for extreme situations, in lieu of 4wd. Traction in snow & dirt, or if I want a good burnout like an 8 year old.

Eaton has a video that made me want a locker. I got stuck in the snow in an Astro this winter and would've appreciated a locker. Reckon it would've gotten me moving.

Skip to 44 seconds in.

 

I had a Traction Loc LS in a Maverick and loved it. That video shows a very unusual situation where one wheel has excellent traction, the other near zero traction and probably heavy acceleration up that hill. Good for selling their locker but a rare situation in any normal driving.

The Traction Loc would chirp the inside tire when taking off from a stop and making a sharp turn with more than easy throttle. Other than that you wouldn't know it was LS. No clunks.

I wouldn't want a locker in a street driven vehicle.

 

To get back to your original question, putting firewood in the bed is not a good test comparison for pulling the camper. The camper will put a lot less load on the rear of the truck. And what little load it does have, you will lightening that up with a load distribution hitch. Don't think for 1 second you can pull a camper that big without a load distribution hitch. That type of hitch will put some of the load on the front tires also.

If you get the load dist hitch adjusted too far, you can actually lift the rear tires of the truck off the ground.

 

Load levelers are awesome, agreed. All the firewood was in a 5x10' landscape trailer, not the truck bed. I should have written that in ...oops

 

 

Apparently automatic lockers engage when torque is applied. Since I'm not interested in a truck that either eats rear tires, or need to be coasted through turns, I guess I'll need a manual locker.

Anyone have experience with these? I won't spend $700+ for a manually controlled locking rear diff though. I'd sooner choose an LSD & just hope for the best

 

You started this thread to help you with the towing ability of your truck. The whole thread has been about locking rearends, but I don't think that is going to help your towing ability that much if at all.

 

Yeah, hijacked my own thread