Wanting to tow a trailer
03-14-2012, 07:21 AM
#31
Senior Member
Join Date: 06-20-2011
Location: Savanna Illinois
Posts: 737
This runs a little long and really doesn't have anything to do with HHR's but here it is anyway,...
I used to tow things with my '47 Willis Jeep. Occasionally it was a formidable load like when I would haul my buddy's bobcat for him.
Back home there use to be a fellow who moved whole two story houses with his Jeep. I don't know what kind of problems he had using that small of a vehicle and its not like he was moving them at highway speeds. I'm pretty sure that would have made any warranty he might have had on the Jeep null and void.
I only ever had to replace the clutch in my Jeep when the rear main seal on the engine started to leak and the clutch became contaminated with oil and started to slip. I am still convinced that if the oil had not leaked the clutch would never have started to slip.
When I still had my '76 Buick Regal Landau I regularly towed a two horse trailer with horses in it.
I was told by a lot of folks that the vehicle with its small V6 engine and turbo hydro 350 automatic transmission was just to small for that load. The trailer did have electric brakes and I had the towing brake thing under the dash but again I never had a problem. Well, not after I had the transmission rebuilt with the larger clutch drum intended for GM products with V8 engines but, I had already done that before I ever started pulling the horse trailer.
You see when GM started building my particular model Buick, or perhaps sometime before that, they decided to save a few pennies per unit on their V6 vehicles by putting a clutch drum in the transmission that only held about half as many clutch disks as the same model transmission in the V8 units.
I discovered this when my transmission went out shortly after I bought the car. At first I though the transmission went bad simply because it was a repaired wreck and I thought I might have missed something in the rebuild.
When I got the transmission rebuild kit I wondered why there were more clutch plates than would fit into the drum then discovered that there was a larger drum available so I ordered one of the larger drums and put it back together.
When I finally junked the Buick I had well over 200,000 miles on it. When I bought it at the junk yard several years before it had barely 20,000 miles on it. The transmission failed when it had about 25,000 miles on it. At that time it was the newest car I had ever owned.
When it failed I had not even installed the hitch yet so I hadn't been pulling anything with the car.
I used to tow things with my '47 Willis Jeep. Occasionally it was a formidable load like when I would haul my buddy's bobcat for him.
Back home there use to be a fellow who moved whole two story houses with his Jeep. I don't know what kind of problems he had using that small of a vehicle and its not like he was moving them at highway speeds. I'm pretty sure that would have made any warranty he might have had on the Jeep null and void.
I only ever had to replace the clutch in my Jeep when the rear main seal on the engine started to leak and the clutch became contaminated with oil and started to slip. I am still convinced that if the oil had not leaked the clutch would never have started to slip.
When I still had my '76 Buick Regal Landau I regularly towed a two horse trailer with horses in it.
I was told by a lot of folks that the vehicle with its small V6 engine and turbo hydro 350 automatic transmission was just to small for that load. The trailer did have electric brakes and I had the towing brake thing under the dash but again I never had a problem. Well, not after I had the transmission rebuilt with the larger clutch drum intended for GM products with V8 engines but, I had already done that before I ever started pulling the horse trailer.
You see when GM started building my particular model Buick, or perhaps sometime before that, they decided to save a few pennies per unit on their V6 vehicles by putting a clutch drum in the transmission that only held about half as many clutch disks as the same model transmission in the V8 units.
I discovered this when my transmission went out shortly after I bought the car. At first I though the transmission went bad simply because it was a repaired wreck and I thought I might have missed something in the rebuild.
When I got the transmission rebuild kit I wondered why there were more clutch plates than would fit into the drum then discovered that there was a larger drum available so I ordered one of the larger drums and put it back together.
When I finally junked the Buick I had well over 200,000 miles on it. When I bought it at the junk yard several years before it had barely 20,000 miles on it. The transmission failed when it had about 25,000 miles on it. At that time it was the newest car I had ever owned.
When it failed I had not even installed the hitch yet so I hadn't been pulling anything with the car.
03-14-2012, 01:49 PM
#32
Senior Member
Join Date: 10-06-2011
Location: Mesa, AZ
Posts: 1,150
. Just have to keep the QUESTION, in this case of towing, out of the techs, service writer, and service directors heads lol.
03-25-2012, 08:07 PM
#36
Member
Join Date: 07-20-2009
Location: Sterling, Co
Posts: 68
Hi All
So if I reading it right no weight over 1,000 lbs to tow?
I wanted to see if I can use something like this:
http://cycle-tow.com/
to tow this:
So if I reading it right no weight over 1,000 lbs to tow?
I wanted to see if I can use something like this:
http://cycle-tow.com/
to tow this:
08-30-2014, 08:21 AM
#38
Senior Member
Join Date: 03-07-2010
Location: North Central Iowa
Posts: 713
update?
i have just purchased a stripped down 1976 Starcraft popup.
i've towed it once, and it seemed to do fine.
i'm curious on the long term effects of towing something like this.
are you still camping with your set up, and how's the wagon holding up?
thanks!
raymond
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