One more towing question

CRD Joe · **Posted:** Sat Apr 24, 2010 3:24 pm

Hello guys. One last towing question. Ill be towing a BMW 325 from Seattle to Phoenix soon. Im going to rent a Uhual trailer. My truck has a Suncoast TC and an Inmotion stage two chip. My question is, should I drop into third gear for the hills Ill be climbing in Washington and in Oregon?

If I dropped into 3rd and kept the speed around 55-60 my RPMs shouldnt be to high.

Thanks.

Tom

LibertyCRD · **Posted:** Sat Apr 24, 2010 3:30 pm

Yeah for those kinds of mountains you have out there, I'd go ahead and flip the "OD" off so it'll stay in 3rd. Just keep an eye on your temp. guage.

mag03kj · **Posted:** Sat Apr 24, 2010 3:34 pm

You will be fine! Im about to go get a 98 camaro on a flat bed with my KJ and im a gasser! :BANANA:

RTStabler51 · **Posted:** Sat Apr 24, 2010 4:19 pm

Once I noticed I'm slowing do significantly going up a grade i kick it out of OD prior to it doing it for me.....

warp2diesel · **Posted:** Sat Apr 24, 2010 9:25 pm

CRD Joe wrote:

Hello guys. One last towing question. Ill be towing a BMW 325 from Seattle to Phoenix soon. Im going to rent a Uhual trailer. My truck has a Suncoast TC and an Inmotion stage two chip. My question is, should I drop into third gear for the hills Ill be climbing in Washington and in Oregon?

If I dropped into 3rd and kept the speed around 55-60 my RPMs shouldnt be to high.

Thanks.

Tom

Don't use your cruse control unless you are on the flat lands or rolling hills. Once when I was towing, I used my cruse control, going up a steep hill, the trans down shifted two gears, and the EGT went over 1450F. Next hill just as steep, I used my foot and I climbed just as fast, the trans only down shifted one gear, and the EGT stayed below 1250F. If you watch your temp gauge you can run in fifth on the flat lands as long as you don't have excess frontal area. Your Mom's BMW 325 will have about the same frontal area as my antique tractor and should not be an issue. One trick to tell if the frontal area will be an issue is stand behind the rig, if you can see the outline of back of your KJ, all should be fine. For those with travel trailers, frontal area is an issue and the towing in fifth gear trick most likely won't work.

CRD Joe · **Posted:** Sun Apr 25, 2010 7:06 am

Thanks Warp. I figure one 3rd on all the hills and around 50 mph. Maybe 60. If I keep the RPMs up Ive heard she'll cool better. Then 5th on the flats.

CRD Joe · **Posted:** Mon May 03, 2010 3:43 pm

Alright Im getting ready to leave in the morning. One last question. Is it safer/easier on the trans to tow in 4th as opposed to 5th? In thrid with thge OD locked out at 55 mph Im running 2500 RPM. I dont want to do that to much. In 4th before (62mph) it shifts into 5th Im at around 2000 rpm.

THoughts.

Tom

geordi · **Posted:** Mon May 03, 2010 4:19 pm

torque peak is between 1800 and 2000, I would let the transmission decide based on the speed you are trying to travel. I have pulled 7000 lbs with my CRD, and left the selector in drive and let the trans figure it out. Click out of OD if you start losing speed on a hill and can't maintain within the current gear... But otherwise, you should be just fine.

Get some pics, and run it across a truckstop scale ($9) for some fun info for the future. If you scale it, try to set each set of wheels on a different panel of the scale. I usually lower the tongue jack so the trailer wheels are on one, the jack on another - tells the exact tongue weight, and if the CRD is all on one panel... Oh well. The CRD should be about 4300 lbs stock.

boilermaker2 · **Posted:** Mon May 03, 2010 7:52 pm

If you don't have a truck scale nearby and you happily live flyover country, check out a few of your farmer co-ops or grain operations. In some cases the scales have an outdoor reading. Be respectful and drive over them when they're closed. Drive over empty, drive over loaded and :BINGO:

CRD Joe · **Posted:** Thu May 06, 2010 2:35 am

Alright I made it down to AZ. Washington and Oregon and Idaho and Nevada were fine. On the bad hills I'd drop my speed to 55 and take her out of OD and shed cruise up the hills at 2500 rpm fine. The trailer weighed in at 5000lbs. Arizona was aniter story. It was 95 degrees and almost every really Long steep hill shed start to climb into the H range. It scared the doo doo out of me. Four times I had to pull over before it got close to the big red H and let her idle back to the center tick normal range and then continue up the hill. I never let it actually hit the H but it got close once. NEVER did my @$#% external outside RAD fan come on!! What the he'll is going on?

CRD Joe · **Posted:** Thu May 06, 2010 3:10 am

Ok did a little research and it sounds like a week fan clutch. I was so affraid (not having towed with my CRD before) of getting close to the bloody H that I might nit have gotten close enough to the darn H for my external electric fan to have kicked on??????
By the text it seems like I didn't let my truck het above 237 before I pulled over. Would letting it get closer to H have caused the ext electric fan to turn on?

CRD Joe · **Posted:** Thu May 06, 2010 3:26 am

One more note, it seemed to me that often as I left the truck in 4th at 60 mph and 2000rpm with the load of the trailer I'd get LOTS of sudder in the trans. At least it semed like it. Then i'd pop it out of OD to save the TC and run in 3rd. Should I be getting trans sudder with a Sun Coast TC

MrMopar64 · **Posted:** Thu May 06, 2010 4:32 am

Despite how "scary" it might be, the application is really designed to run up a hill with your foot to the floor and it automatically does what is necessary to keep the engine safe. Now if you have a bum cooling fan, that means your towing performance would suffer (overheat protection happens sooner) but the engine will still automatically protect itself.

geordi · **Posted:** Thu May 06, 2010 1:43 pm

Under those circumstances, the shuddering was probably that your engine was trying to put out the torque you were asking for, but the combination of the hill (increased loading), heat in the transmission (thinning out the fluid) and lower RPM means that you were putting more power in than the TC clutch could hold. The TC probably is fine, since you backed off of it and didn't let it do that for long.

I'm not sure if there is a way to boost the line pressures in the transmission, but that is the only possible answer I can have for you other than to (in that situation) "hitch more ponies to the load" and go to a lower gear. The engine will spin faster, the torque-per-HP will actually drop (but applying less torque faster can actually = more power) and the trans won't be complaining so much.

One more towing question

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