12K+ 5R Towing Experiences
 

Just curious how many of you out there are pulling a 5th wheel weighing 12K or more. I have a '06 Montana 3400RL that weighs 12,000lbs empty. My truck is a 99.5 F350 7.3L PSD 4X4 superduty dually 6-spd manual 4.1 ratio. It's stock.

We took our first real trip with this truck this past weekend. Everything went well, but I have to admit I thought this truck would pull this Montana monster with a little more ease. This is a big trailer, though, so maybe I'm expecting too much. Or, is there something not quite right with truck? We bought it used with 107,000 miles on it. It runs beautifully and ran great the whole trip, but just didn't seem to have as much "umph" as we thought it would.

Kwik...I'm hoping you'll chime in on this one since you talk quite a bit about how the great these trucks pull trailers. We took on a few pretty good hills and had to downshift into 3rd going up one only once. We could take most hills at 50mph for the most part. Is that the best we should expect? Is this typical?

Kwik...another question for you specifically. Have you pulled your trailer over Snoqualmie pass to the east side of the state? If so, what is the average speed and gear you used to go up the pass? How 'bout going down?? You have an exhaust brake setup...right? Do you think a rig our size would do okay going down the pass without an exhaust brake? We don't have one yet. :-down

Thanks!!

If you haven't discovered it yet, loaded diesels do not accelerate like an unloaded gas vehicle. But a loaded diesel will maintain speed, better than a loaded gas vehicle.

With an empty weight of 12k, your trailer is probably pushing 13.5-14k when fully loaded (water, propane, batteries, food, clothing, beding, dishes, lawn chairs, misc. items).

With that weight plus the wind resistance of the large frontal area of the trailer, your pulling a good load. Once up to speed, you should have no problems cruising at 55-65 mph on most hwys and grades under 5%.

I've towed my 14k Alpenlite 5th wheel with my old 93 F250 factory turboed 7.3/5 speed manual 4.10 gearing. I currently tow it with an 05 F350 6.0/auto 4x4 3.73 gearing.

As far as towing Snoqualmie, going east bound, 50 mph with the '93, 55 with the '05. Going down the west side I'd put the '93 in third and let it ride down, no problems. The '05 uses the Tow/Haul mode and some brakes, no problems.

You shouldn't have any problems with your rig. Experience will tell you what you can and can't do your setup.

Enjoy your RV!

C.F.---That's exactly the kind of info I was looking for!! Thanks so much!!!:-X22

I hope more will add their experiences, too. Really appreciate it!!:-wink

Congrats on the rig Wheatina.
My experience is the same as CF Moore's except I keep the speed at 50mph in 4th going eastbound. I have 4.88 axle ratio and the engine is doing 2500 rpm at that speed. Any faster and I get a nasty drone from the engine that drives me nuts. I could go faster, but really don't like taching it to the redline all the time.
It sounds from the description of your truck that it's doing just fine.
One thing that I like to say about this is I towed my 13.5k trailer with a '95 460 gasser with Banks headers, cat delete and E4OD and it REALLY struggled on the slightest hill. I took it over Steven's pass once with the gasser and I was all the way down into first gear. :-X15 I had bought way too much trailer for the truck that I owned at the time. The PSD hands down has twice the towing power of a gas engine even though it is rated similar HP numbers.
I know that I would be into third on Steven's with the PSD, it's pretty steep.
12,000 lb is a lot of weight to pull. You've got the perfect rig for the job.
I very highly recommend converting the EBPV to an exhaust brake. You probably have already experienced the pushing feeling that the heavy trailer gives you on the downhill side of some of the bigger hills. Using the exhaust brake makes a huge difference at those times.
Also I would like to tell you about the pilot bearing on the clutch. If you have a slight hopping sensation during clutch engagement, particularly in reverse, make immediate plans to get it replaced. It requires that you remove the transmission and possibly replace the clutch as well. But I learned the hard way, $$$$$$$$$$$$$, that it ruined the OD bearing in my transmission. All it took was one trip to Colorado. The transmission was nice and quiet when we left and grumbly rumbly in neutral when we got back. It cost me $3000.00 for a rebuilt ZF6 and a new clutch. :mad:
All for a $40.00 pilot bushing!!!

I-90 after crossing the Columbia river at Vantage either direction cannot be done in OD for me, even with the power mods I have done. I have to drop one gear. Same thing with the big hills between Yakima and Ellensburg.
And the exhaust brake is very nearly a requirement on the downhill side. When the trailer is heavier than the truck it pushes you down the hill at an alarming rate. The brakes take a good beating by the time you get to the bottom of the hill.
The difference is: using the exhaust brake. Speed is nicely controlled and you only have to barely touch the brake pedal once in a while to keep the speed down.
Not using the exhaust brake: riding the brake pedal all the way down the hill, just lightly applying the brakes enough to keep the speed constant.
It's much better to lightly ride the brakes and keep the speed the same, than it is to allow the rig to get going too fast and then try and slow back down. It makes a lot more heat on the brakes to slow down than it does to very lightly apply them and keep the speed constant.
Bottom line, get the exhaust brake, you'll be very glad that you did.
Here's how to do it.
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/2...brake-mod.html

Thanks Kwik!! I knew you could add some more really good info!!:-X22 Thanks for the details!!

Thanks to both of you!! I feel better about our truck now. It probably did the best it could with this big 5R and did okay afterall.

Oh...one note, Kwik, we really didn't feel a lot of push from the 5R, amazingly. We expected it, but it wasn't too bad. We took on some pretty steep stuff here and there and it seemed like the trailer was pretty happy following rather than pushing. I guess Big Red really handled everything pretty well now that I know what is typical for these trucks and 5Rs this big.

Thanks again guys!!! You are great!!!:-jammin

One other thing that is worth mentioning. My truck has a lot more power on Dino fuel than Bio fuel. I was surprised last year. I took off with something like B-70 and thought I was doing ok. Time to fill up at the flying j and WOW more power.
Lot of stinky smoke too.:-X18 I love the smell of Biodiesel exhaust. :-D

Yea Kwik...I did expect less power with the BD and I'm running B100. But, I did pull this trailer around with #2 in it to adjust the trailer brakes after first hooking up and still didn't feel like I had a lot of power.

Since we actually did okay our first run out on pure BD, we'll stick with it. We're not in a hurry. I can't stand petro exhaust...literally makes me sick...so I'll settle for a little less power as long as BD gets us from one point to another.

Thanks again!!:-wink We'll see you when you pass me on the Snoqualmie!!:-missingt

I can tell you from my experiance this last week. Took a trip from Indiana to GA. about 950 miles each way. My trailer is a 40' Alfa sticker says 17,999 dry . I don't know what it ways loaded (I don't wanna know) but my truck pulled it like a dream . I averaged 10mpg down and 9.6 home (headwind) . I didn't notice a drop from bio to reg diesel at all. I know what you mean by the smell . I can't stand reg diesel smoke anymore .
Make sure you keep an eye on the fuel filters when switching from reg dino to bio. The bio will clean everything in the system and filters will fill up fast . After a few tanks of bio you should be ok.
I would check them to make sure if you feel like its down on power.

BTW I did most of the passing on the big hills (mountains) and only one other PSD passed me pulling an 2 horse trailer. Average speed was about 80 mph (90 comming down and 70 comming back up the hills) If the four wheelers stay out of the way.

90mph down hills w/ that trailer!! Sounds a little unsafe

The only unsafe part is a driver thats unsafe not the trailer. You gotta know what you can and can't do . The truck and trailer will do it no problem.

Until you hit a rock on the road and the tire blows out. :-X15

You my friend are the unsafe part of the equation. Your trailers dry weight is atleast 2500 lbs (and atleast 4000 lbs when loaded) over your trucks rated/legal capacity and on top of that you are exceeding the speed limit by atleast 20 mph going downhill. That is a surefire recipe for a serious accident. I wish you good luck in towing like that, you are going to need it.

First off don't call me your friend because I can tell you and me would never be friends.

Second you have no idea what trailer I pulled or the weight .

I was not over the legal capacity .

Yes I was going over the legal speed limit going down the hills (so was everybody else) but they were still over the limit comming back up as I was doing the speed limit .

If you have ever towed in the hills you would know that most truck/trailers do this in order to get up the other side.

But I'm glad that you posted that in order to make yourself feel important.

Yeah, there's about 1500, bolts, fasteners, panels, glass, engines tires, etc that make up a vehicle and it only takes one nut to scatter it all over the road.