Hello everyone,

Just posted my new member thread, I am new to the forum but not new to trucks and towing. I have a very niche situation and idea to serve the situation that I wish to get some opinions on from those who can articulate pros and cons of my idea.

The situation: I am active duty military and subject to move around every 2-4 years. I have a 7.3 Super Duty, a 7.3 Econoline Van, and will soon be adding a 7.3 Excursion to the stable. I am trying to come up with an alternative way to PCS, or move (when the time comes), my 3 vehicles. For example I could move from California to the east coast.

The idea: I wonder what the feasibility would be of getting a 40 foot bumper bull (probably mostly aluminium) trailer, and using my super duty (zf6 truck) to tow the excursion and van...? I know, its a crazy idea! But combined weight of both vehicles is about 14k-14.8k plus whatever the trailer weighs. Im almost positive that with the weight of the trailer that would slightly exceed the legal limit, but I also knkw for a fact a lot of people (after modifications) tow much more than that and that the 7.3 trucks are a little underrated.

Now, Im not closed off to the idea of doing it with a gooseneck trailer. But if I could get it to work with a bumper pull, that would allow the van and excurison to be used as backup towing vehicles should anything happen. It will also be lighter than a gooseneck of course. It's also important to note that if this is something I actually wind up doing, I will be rebuilding each truck with every possible capability it would need to be successful towing the probably 18-20k+ on 40ft. That means 180/30s or 205/30s for injectors, adrenaline HPOP, KC upgraded turbo, fresh cups and sleeves, everything has forged rods, fresh suspension work/body mounts/bushings, alignment, etc. And probably fuel bowl deletes with 4 line crossovers and pre/post filtration with an airdog 5g system. That would be minimal accross the board. I want to refrain from going too deep into the specs and plans for each vehicle, and discuss more the act of towing the two large vehicles on a 40 ft trailer accross the country.... how crazy am I?

 

Maybe a little!

I don't see that any of them are duallies. You'll need to keep weight down. For this kind of weight, you'll have to put pin weight over the rear axle, or purchase the mother of all weight-distributing hitches if you go bumper pull. With this kind of load, I question if your frame is up to holding the kind of tongue weight that this would have. You could tow with the an and Excursion backwards, taking weight off of the tongue. This is still a lot of weight.

So let's take a step back: The Econoline and Excursion are both about 19' long, so already, you can make that a 38' trailer, save some weight, and reduce tongue weight (because the axles will be a bit closer to the front of the trailer. Both of these vehicles have approximately 5' of rear overhang. I haven't measured to be sure, so that part is up to you. If it is around 5' of rear overhang on whichever one is in back, you can shorten your trailer's deck to 34'. This will move some more weight off of the tongue. For this configuration, the forward towed vehicle could be forward or backward, but the rearward vehicle would need to face forward. This gives you some option for changing tongue weight by changing which vehicle is in front or back, and which direction the forward vehicle is facing.

What is the wheelbase of the Super Duty? Standard cab short bed? Extended cab short bed? Crewcab long bed? Etc.?

Personally, I wouldn't bother with upgrading all three of them just for this, unless your resources and time are unlimited. I would upgrade the SD a lot and get a gooseneck trailer.

Still, you should get accurate weights for all of this and figure out what your SD is rated for versus what you want to put on it.

 

I wouldn't upgrade ****. Get a ~40ft goose and call it good. Maintain the tow rig as you would any daily driver. Yeah it'll be slow over the mountains but who cares.

 

Thanks so much for the detailed response. My bad I forgot to include more info, I was trying too hard to keep my first post brief. My super duty is "technically a 250" but it has custom alcan springs spec'd like an F350, sumo springs in the rear, bilsteins all around, and a steel and wood panel flatbed, and it also has a 2.5" hitch. It is a CCLB with 3.73 gears and 4wd ZF6. It runs mint and has 265k. Zero blowby, not even vapor, not a single leak, and zero rust (entire frame coated with chassis saver coating).

I also have sitting in my garage a Dana 80 DRW rear end from an F550 with 4.30 gears that i plan on swapping onto my SD with hellwig bars and bags prior to this big towing journey im talking about doing. I'd really like to keep me geared at 3.73 though...but would settle at 4.10s. Dont really wanna do 4.30s. Best case scenario, when I swap that rear end I will also have a Super 60 to go with it depending on funds remaining. When it comes to frame considerations, im thinking about boxing and plating the frame as much as possible and gusseting any other points in the frame that could use reinforcement, to essentially beef it up beyond what a F450/550 frame would provide. And then as far as shortening the trailer, I have thought about that especially if I go the bumper pull route (with the ability to use the Ex or van as a backup tow rig). I think 34 feet would be too short but could probably do 36 maybe..? I'd have to look more into minimum space between the two vehicles being towed as well as the overhang like you already mentioned.

Another (probably equally crazy) option ive thought about is doing a much smaller trailer like 20 ft long, and then double towing the 2nd vehicle on tow dolly or just flat towing it off thd bumper trailer. I dont have any experience doing something like that but I know it has been done before and people still do double towing like that all the time. I imagine that would lighten the load quite a bit since half of one of the vehicles weight is on the ground. Ill try to get more specifics on my legal GVWR, and all vehicle lengths. I'd like to just be able to develop a plan A and B for this potential move. Absolute worst case scenario ill have to tow one of the two and then pay probably like 4 grand to have the other one shipped accross the country.... really dont want to have to do that. Thanks again!

 

Thanks for the response! Yeah this is defintirly a possible decision im considering too. Especially with a swapped DRW D80 on bags and a S60 up front with fresh gears and hellwig swaybars, I dont care if I average 60 mph the whole way I just want to make sure I dont enter a **** sandwich situation where all kinds of wrong start happening and its not only an expensive escape plan but also delaying me to my next duty station.

 

That's a lot of weight to have pushing around on the back of a trailer, let alone a bumper pull trailer. I wouldn't do it.

 

Several states require the first trailer in a double tow to be a goose or fifth wheel, 2 bumper pulls wouldn’t cut it. I don’t think that I have ever seen a trailer rated to tow that heavy.

 

Thank you for your service!

The thing is, the van and the EX really won't be able to be set up to tow that much. And if you had to trailer the SD, it would take up the whole thing.

Not to mention the cost and storage of all this stuff.

Can you find two friends to drive and fly them home? A couple plane tickets are a cheaper solution. Make a party of it. Plus you'll have help if something does happen.

 

I spent 20 consecutive years on active duty, moved a bunch, even across the country a couple times. The military will move one POV for you (when I moved from Commiefornia to Virginia I had them take one of my vehicles). Yeah its a pain, they take forever, they don't really take very good care of the vehicle and usually drop off the vehicle at some other random base that's two hours way from wherever you're actually going,,, but it beats towing two vehicles all the way across the country.

Another option is to make two trips. Usually a PCS move involves 30 days worth of leave time (and usually 10 days worth of house hunting leave that isn't charged to your normal leave balance). If you make a sorta working vacation out of it , make a few detours to see the sites/ attractions, you can make two trips across the country, take care of business and not be totally burned out over the course of those 30 days.

I've used both options above at least twice, there are positives and negatives to each.
...

 

My suggestion would be to have any extra vehicles shipped and avoid the hassle of additional equipment. Keep things simple. I've been active duty military, and I've had vehicles shipped.
If I remember correctly, storage at some military installations is non-existent.

 

Yeah, PCS sucks, along with the shipping options, I agree with crashz suggestion, hell, if you have to pay them a bit it's better than a shipper, and yes, most states tandem tow requires gn/5th wheel. You can upgrade your 250 all you want, however it's still a "250" and if pulled over or worse... onus is on you. I like your thinking and planning ahead, and your fleet!! If you were going to tow them all, I would find an HE gooseneck trailer with dual wheel axles for the weight, but in today's day n age, you're bucking the odds on the road IMO... 90% of the time you probably wouldn't have an issue, however, you might just run across that HP guy (Highway Patrol) that will give you grief.

Heck, depending on where you are stationed and where you're PCS'ing, you might be able to hit up FTE and find one of us crazy fools who are always up for a road trip, buy us beer, food and a plane tkt. and we're off!
I call dibs on the Ex

 

Well tbh even though my SD is a CCLB, im pretty sure my van is equal to or greater than when it comes to length. It's a club wagon, the thing is a damn bus it is huge. I dont store any of it, parked outside my house secured on base housing, cameras on it all 24/7. I may try to exhaust the option of having a friend drive one of the two vehicles with me while I just two one of them. Time will tell. A gooseneck is starting to sound most appealing if time/money permits.

 

Well I dont know what branch you served in but I can gurantee you the Marine Corps does not ship POVs on a CONUS PCS unless you or your spouse meet some sort of medical criteria or circumstance which, from what I have heard for years is not something easy to accomplish. In other words, if you want to ship a vehicle its on your dime. If i had this option I would without a doubt take it, even if it ended up at a different base 2 hours away. Doing 2 trips is probably a last resort, that would suck...

 

Lol that would be some **** huh! Yeah i hear you on the legality aspect of it. I understand the intent of the regulations revolving around safety and liabilities, I just wish that if someone puts in the work to modify their rig in a proven way that accomplishes more GVWR, that there would be a process to legally update that...tied to your VIN. The 7.3 being a perfect example. We all know they can legitimately tow much more than what theyre rated for, especially with some mild performance mods that not only chase power but also lower EGTs, beef up the driveline and steering, bigger brakes, etc.... not everyone can or wants to "just buy a bigger truck". But I digress... thanks for the input. I wish the MC would just fund at least one POV per household on a PCS.... I will definitely figure this out though because one thing is for certain: i won't be parting ways with any of the steeds.

 

I think this is what he was talking g about
https://ebay.us/m/WBhzXt
a bumper pull trailer that will fail 2 vehicles at once