I bought my 1983 F150 in Feb as my first vehicle here in Virginia. Now I am originally from near Buffalo NY and plan on moving back up. I found out it would be too expensive to rent a uhaul between gas and the truck itself (I would tow the ford). So me and my friend have decided it would be cheaper if I towed with my truck. I have towed once before but with a Mazda Tribute from NY to VA. This is my first manual tranny but I have it down since I have been driving it. Basically would it be a good idea to tow a 6'x12' trailer?

Specs
4.9 Straight 6
14-16 gal tank (starts to suck air a little after a quarter tank is left when I hit hills)
3 speed manual with 4th overdrive


New when I bought it
distributor
tires (replaced because they were somewhat dry rotted)
brakes
alternator
belts
corroborator
muffler
fuel filter (replaced day of purchase)
battery (replaced day of purchase)
water pump

now I have a slight wobble when I go over 60mph I plan on getting that looked at tomorrow. my tow light adapter fell off so I plan on replacing that. I JUST changed my oil last week because I drove 2000 miles on it. When I bought it, the truck had 160000, like just turned to it. Like I said I put on only 2000 miles.

 

Should tow fine. I assume this is a single axle trailer? What are you going to put on it? Around 3500-4000 is going to be your limit with a single axle trailer.

Make sure to load the trailer heavy in the front, or put something heavy in the bed of the truck, it will tow better with some weight in the truck.

 

from the looks of the trailer its 4 wheeled. im still new to towing the 8x5 is single for sure but the 6x12 don't know

 

as for stuff going in it. some large furniture but nothing huge. the biggest thing would be a cabinet. most of it would be random things in totes. awkward shaped stuff would be my fishtanks. I have 4 of them

 

You can haul more with a dual axle trailer, but don't get too carried away. And always keep a lot of tongue weight on it too, or again put a decent load in the truck. The heavier the truck is in relation to the trailer, the more control you will have over the trailer.

 

yea we don't have anything like couches or mattresses. my friend just has some bulky things. when I moved from ny to va my biggest thing was my 55gal fishtank with stand. and my 44 hex tank with stand

 

what would I do gear wise. most will be highway driving but when im in small towns or going up hills what should I do

 

A good rule of thumb is to have your tongue weight be 10% of the loaded trailer weight. So if the trail and load weigh 3000 lbs your tongue weight should be about 300 lbs.

As for gearing, the 300 six puts out a lot of torque down low so you don't need to rev it up. If it doesn't want to pull in a gear then shift down.

 

Why would you want to come back to NY??

All good advice from Dave.

I've made many trips NY-VA-NY with my 86 F250 and towed many a trailer. Depending on your route, there aren't too many hills. Mostly in PA.

 

I like a little more than that unless you are going to put a load in the truck bed. I am assuming the trailer will be enclosed? Anything that can be out in the rain, I would put in the truck. You could use a tarp over the truck bed, but I hate those things on long trips flapping and coming loose all the time.

 

Just use lower gears such that you, & the engine, are comfortable.

Also, the O/D in your transmission is not strong mechanically......so it's best to only go as high as 3rd while towing. Back in the day, the owners manuals said the same thing; this also applied to automatic transmissions with O/D.

Do you know your rear axle ratio?

 

for what Franklin2 said about the tarp flapping around a bungee net can help but defiantly a good idea to put weight on the truck you want the bed of the truck to weigh as much as the trailer ( it aint no fun when the trailer pushes that back of the truck off the road)
as for the gears if you keep it between 2000 and 3000 rpms you should be good.