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Old May 4, 2006 | 07:23 PM
  #1  
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Excursion Trailer Towing

I have a 2005 Excursion diesel and plan on towing a 10,000 # + boat. The hitch is rated at 5,000 # non WD and 11,500 WD. My problems seem to be that no after market hitches are available for the Excursion as the hitch is factory installed and several attachment points are not accessible. Further, as the trailer is submerged for launch and retrieval of the boat electric brakes aren't an option.
I've seen many Excursions towing equally large boats. Does anyone know the solution to this problem?
Thanks
 
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Old May 4, 2006 | 07:29 PM
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The brakes run on DC electricity and doesnt care about water. The factory hitch on our 2000 Excurion hauls 12000 lbs with out WD all summer, no problems.
 
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Old May 4, 2006 | 07:32 PM
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Thanks for your reply.
What capacity draw bar do you use?


Originally Posted by DiscountPowerPrt
The brakes run on DC electricity and doesnt care about water. The factory hitch on our 2000 Excurion hauls 12000 lbs with out WD all summer, no problems.
 
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Old May 4, 2006 | 07:38 PM
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Moved to Excursion forum
 
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Old May 4, 2006 | 07:57 PM
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I have a solid bar with a 12K rating and a ball from a 5th wheel mount that has a 17K rating on that 2000 Excursion. The trailer is a 28" flatbed with a dual axles and a 79 F-250 on it that goes 8K lbs with the hanging weights that are on the trailer under the truck. There is a 4x4x8 foot box on the front of the trailer that houses the 30 gallon stand up compressor, 5,500 watt generator, 4 spare tires on wheels, 5 ton floor jacks, all air tools and hand tools, spare fuel and misc junk. The trailer is between 12 and 13K lbs on any given day on the way to and from the truck pulls. The Excursion does not mind it at all.
 
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Old May 4, 2006 | 08:22 PM
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Originally Posted by DiscountPowerPrt
The brakes run on DC electricity and doesnt care about water. The factory hitch on our 2000 Excurion hauls 12000 lbs with out WD all summer, no problems.
Boat trailers typically do not use electric brakes. They use hydraulic brakes with a surge-activated master cylinder in the trailer's tongue. I have heard that a WD hitch arrangement is now available that does not hamper the activation of the master brake cylinder. Unfortunately, other than hearing about this new WD hitch, I have no other info on it.

Also, boat trailers have a lot of available adjustment to position the load and fine-tune the tongue weight to an acceptable amount.
 
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Old May 5, 2006 | 05:30 AM
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If you wonder what the mighty X can pull go in my gallery and see what I pulled.
 
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Old May 5, 2006 | 06:39 AM
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THanks. I omiitted the surge part in my question.
Based on replies it seems I'll be fine with the right draw bar.


Originally Posted by cficare
Boat trailers typically do not use electric brakes. They use hydraulic brakes with a surge-activated master cylinder in the trailer's tongue. I have heard that a WD hitch arrangement is now available that does not hamper the activation of the master brake cylinder. Unfortunately, other than hearing about this new WD hitch, I have no other info on it.

Also, boat trailers have a lot of available adjustment to position the load and fine-tune the tongue weight to an acceptable amount.
 
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Old May 7, 2006 | 08:50 AM
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I use a weight distributing hitch (from U-HAUL) on my '2000 v10 3.73 X to pull my 40' 10000lb boat trailer. In order to get around the problem of the weight distributing bars keeping a hydraulic surge brake actuator from working, I installed an Electric brake controller onto the front of the trailer...this unit takes the signals from the electric brake controller (in the cab) and applies the hydraulic pressure to the brakes...which always are submerged when launching.....This solution is AWESOME and gives a tremendous amount of braking control (because it is ajustable from inside the cab). Good Luck
 
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Old May 8, 2006 | 07:32 AM
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Thanks for your input. My local trailer hitch Co. said an equalizing hitch will work if the sway bars are omitted. The chain attaching the equalizer bars is supposed to rotate enough to allow the surge brakes to function normally.
Have you tried this approach?

Originally Posted by paulallred
I use a weight distributing hitch (from U-HAUL) on my '2000 v10 3.73 X to pull my 40' 10000lb boat trailer. In order to get around the problem of the weight distributing bars keeping a hydraulic surge brake actuator from working, I installed an Electric brake controller onto the front of the trailer...this unit takes the signals from the electric brake controller (in the cab) and applies the hydraulic pressure to the brakes...which always are submerged when launching.....This solution is AWESOME and gives a tremendous amount of braking control (because it is ajustable from inside the cab). Good Luck
 
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Old May 10, 2006 | 12:43 AM
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I didn't see an X in your gallery. Just some dually?

George
 
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Old May 10, 2006 | 01:26 AM
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I used to tow a 26' deckboat on a steel tandem axle trailer 10k GVW trailer with surge brakes. I used a WD hitch as I had 840lbs of tongue wt and a total wt just under 7500 lbs. The surge actuator was not installed correctly by the trailer manufacture and never worked right when used with the WD hitch.

I swapped the trailer for an aluminum tri axle trailer and had an electric over hydraulic actuator installed. I cut about 1000 lbs from the towed wt and reduced the tongue wt to 450-500 lbs. I have a solid hitch rated at 10k and love the way the trailer tows and more importantly, stops!!!!
 
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Old May 10, 2006 | 07:51 PM
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Originally Posted by guiri
Tim (Lamkin)

I didn't see an X in your gallery. Just some dually?

George
They're the same color truck and the dually has a body color topper, so you have to open the pics to clearly see the X. Towing the massive triple wheel

What did that thing weigh in at, Tim?
 
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