I posted this pic and a few people e-mailed me asking what my experiance was towing this Toy with and S-10 Blazer.
http://home.attbi.com/~forestcam2/pictures/tow01.jpg
Well when we got to hooking things up we noticed the trailer harness on the Blazer was missing so we ran to K-mart to pick one up and on the way we noticed the truck would push the Blazer around a little on turns but we got everything squared away and proceeded to drive about 300 highway miles without any problems untill......
http://home.attbi.com/~forestcam2/pictures/tow02.jpg
.... the weather turned nasty. I went to make a right turn in Toledo in heavy traffic (no way to take the corner wide) and I kinda jackknifed...
http://home.attbi.com/~forestcam2/pictures/dent01.jpg
http://home.attbi.com/~forestcam2/pictures/dent02.jpg
http://home.attbi.com/~forestcam2/pictures/dent03.jpg
http://home.attbi.com/~forestcam2/pictures/dent04.jpg

So if you're gonna tow another truck that's relitively the same side DON'T FLAT TOW! Don't be a cheap bastid like me and go rent a dolly from U-haul!:flipoff2:
BTW that's a borrowed Blazer (my boss') but at least I had the sence to put insurance on the Toy before I went to pick it up. My insurance picked up her dammage bill.:cool:

youre lucky. but it isnt just flat towing that causes MAJOR PROBLEMS. im lucky that im here to type this right now and not dead because of trailer sway today.

i was towing a 88" wheelbase land rover back from new hampshire on a good trailer with a big suburban... but even that doesnt help when you have a 40mph crosswind :eek:

it was fawking SCARY watching the side mirrors and seeing the truck and trailer DISSAPEAR then reapper amazimgly quick and see half of the front grille, then it dissapear again.

lucky to be alive...

The secret with flat towing is vehicle wieght. You have to have a tow rig quite a bit bigger then the towee. If not the towwe will push the tower all over the place. Also you need to have a fairly good alignment on the rig you tow or it will want to wander. If it has to little caster or a lot of bunpsteer you are in for a fun ride.

If it gets icey or real slick give it up and get there tomarrow.

hmmm why ya towing that yota?? looks like a sweet highway rig to me!!:flipoff2:

IMHO anything that can be flat towed safely is prolly just fine to drive it instead..

anything worse has to be trailered anyways...

have you ever seen somone flattowing a 1 ton jeep with 38+'s ???
lol

I am with moab on this one, why you towing a perfectly good street truck ?

I think it will buff out:smokin:

woulda been worse if you also had a 1500lb trailer under that toy!!! If you want to tow get a tow rig! Now offense meant but DUH

Some lessons are learned the hard way, fortunately no one got hurt...it appears.....:skull:

Austin:
have you ever seen somone flattowing a 1 ton jeep with 38+'s ???

I have, just ask Swamper502, hehehehe


LOL!!!

i know your bummed, but wtf........... a s-10 is not up to the demands of towing... period... trailer, dolly, whatever.......... hell a half ton FULL size would do a helluva lot better.... thats the very minimum id use......

Try flat Towing a 5500 lb. cj w/33s for 1300 mi. behind a Oldsmobile...Thats how we started...
Then we got a suburban...much better, until we had a blowout and flipped the jeep...

Flat towing sucks

hell i dont see any thing wrong. they sell reciever hitches for luminas and camaros. its a reciever hitch you can tow a car trailer :rolleyes:

Dont mean it to be an insult by common sense must have skipped a generation

Well I was trying to get a 3/4 chevy PU instead but the guy backed out at the last minute.
As far as driving the truck back, I was hoping I could but it wasn't exactly in running condition when I got there but after a week of tinkering it was. Only problem is that with the stock 4.10 gears, chevy 307 & TH350 trans the engine turns about 4 grand at 55 so in hindsight driving it back would have taken a LOOOOOOONG time!:D

Please don't take this as a thrashin to you ok! But what made you think (and your boss) that it was ok to tow a 3500# truck behind a 3500# S-10?? You know to flat tow safely, your tow rig must weigh 1.5 times the amount of the truck being towed, so now you learned the hard way. Sucks, but it's the bottom line.

Jeff

Did you slide through the turn, or what?

Because if you just turned too sharp, that is DRIVER ERROR - and has nothing to do with the vehicles towing or being towed....

We slid through the turn, was only going about 10 mph but I hit a patch of black ice. Buddy got out to check the dammage and fell on his ass in the middle of the street.:laughing:
Bad part was traffic refused to stop. He tried holding it up and almost got run over by someone else turning the same corner.
Ended up putting it in 4 low and yanking myself free.
Rest of the trip home was just as uneventful as the first 300 miles. Well other then when we were almost home, I took another wide right and some ass turned right from the left turn lane and cut me off.:mad:

Couple of months ago I towed my '88 pickup with a bed full of body parts and spare tires about 100 miles with my '95 4Runner. I had to get it out of my friend's yard, but it wasn't road legal and needed some work as well. It was VERY interesting :eek: When I touched the brakes the rear of the 4Runner would twitch something fierce. After a while I got used to it, wasn't too bad. Slick roads would have been BAD, I wouldn't have done it then. Let me tell you, a 22RE pulling 8000+ lbs uphill is SLLLLOOOOOOWWWWWWW.

Ha!

You think that was dumb?

Talking of moving junk...I'm one of the dumbest

Read a funny story of how dumb i am here:

http://billyxj.tripod.com/junk/junk.htm

you guys are doing better than me.
1/2 ton chevy truck pulling a 1,800LB car trailer with a 6,000 pound bronco on it.http://forum.mybigbronco.com/iB_html/uploads/post-15-14628-Mvc_013s.jpg

hell just before i sold my heep i was flat towing it around az (because epa sucks) with my 2000 4cyl taco going down hill on sandy roads was tons of fun ! i ended up locking in the front to help keep my front end straight ! and if you jack knife try to back up ! especially with a locker in the heep front end it will not go backward in the dirt far! after the last real bad scare with my family in the truck with me i will not tow anything as heavy as i am ever! hell last week in las cruses i saw some one pull a one ton jeep on a flat bed trailer with a old monte carlo ! ........here is your sign!:eek:

Wow Forestcam you are a braver man than I!!!

I flat tow my CJ with a 7000 lb van and its freakin scary sometimes...
Wind,wet roads..washboard fireroads at 50 MPH and a hairpin turn ;)
This :beer: is for you!
Cheers

MJ

This isn't about flat towing but kinda funny still ...

Some :rainbow: bastid loosened the lugnuts on the driver's front wheel. I had no clue until we had gotten on the freeway and was cruisin about 65mph when the front end starts a shakin'. I barely got pulled off the freeway and to a complete stop when I heard - THUNK!! I got out to see my wheel resting on the lockout hub! :eek: Even more carnage was the fact the lugs didn't just fall off ... 3 of the 6 sheared off!! Keep in mind I have a FULL SIZE cherokee on 36" swampers with SOA and 4" body lift ... not to mention the :emb: other 6 people with me! Iffin I ever find them :rainbow: dance hall :cow: pokes ... what I do to 'em would be illegal anywhere in the world! But still entertaining to some! :D

Okay, that wasn't the funny part ...

While on the side of the freeway, a CHP pulls in behind me ... towards the end of explaining the mishap another CHP stops. The two end up chattin' for a couple and the 2nd CHP has me come to the back of my Jeep. He was kind enough to point out the reg. sticker I had borrowed from my car.:eek: DOH!! He didn't bother asking for the current reg or insurance ... whew! After a little good cop/bad cop they had me scrape the sticker off completely, then said I could go seeing as how we almost died that night, PROVIDING that I had it towed to my house. They didn't leave until I signed the papers with the tow truck guy. :mad: I was gonna limp it the 1/16th of a mile and go the back way with 3 lugs on(one of our buds was gonna drive the others home behind us).

So the funny/strange part now was sitting in the tow truck and being blinded every time I turned around to look at my jeep as it swayed left and right. I kept getting "blinded" by the headlights of my buddies 'burban as they came screaming through UNDER my jeep and above my axles.

Boring to you maybe, but a freakin wierd memory for me. :flipoff2:

i have flat towed to Wa. and Or. a few times, no problems.
and the weight thing is important, but i know of a suburban that has been successfully flat towed home from wheelin with a certain FJ55, i wont name names.
glad no one was hurt, and you got insured

you guys are doing better than me.

Thats not true at all, your truck pulling a trailer is better off then the flat towing gig.

Jeff

I've logged 10,000 miles flat-towing a Scout II with a Scout II with minimal troubles.

http://tigger.tmcom.com/~tsm1/scout/jpg/trips/2001/pic257.JPG

Lead Scout is a little heavier under normal conditions, but the towed rig was often used as a trailer..

Tow rig is 4" lift front/SOA rear, 33s, 4.09 gears.. negative caster, disc/drum, wide 4spd, 345..

The "trailer" rig has caster, SOA front/rear, and is stripped down.

You learn to NOT take corners quickly - doesn't matter as much close or wide turns, but fast turns are Bad.

I can back it up if I need to.

I can cruise through the McDonald's drive-through..

Stopping immediately can be interesting at times, but do-able. Mostly I just plan my stops and use the 4spd.

Works fine.

I've also flat-towed my IH Travelall home about 5 miles when the motor mount x-member sheared it's rivets..

That said, I started using the 1/2T Travelall and trailer.. and found that to be nicer, but still a hand full.

Then I bought my 1T 4door long-box IH pickup.. and I can't go back to flat-towing. :D

i don't think your accident had anything to do with vechile weights. you ever been in a PSD crew cab and hit black ice? same results would have happened.

i flat tow my 91 yj with 1 ton axles and a chevy motor and about 12 inches of lift. i take the boggers off for towing and use some reg 33x12.5 ats on the jeep. i tow it with and 86 f250 with 4 inch lift, 1 ton axles and 4.10 gears posi rear and 35 inch bfg ats. i have towed it 8 hours at a time and to just about every 4x4 event i go to. i have never had a problem, i even locked the brakes up once and it handled fine. i will get a trailer when i can afford one that the jeep will fit on with the fullwidths and 39.5 boggers. goosenecks and fifthwheels arent cheap.

I've done that, with a SJ-413 LWB.

It's pretty insane. I had no intentions of towing very far or anything, just a few miles down a country road from a storage place to my "Suzuki Ranch".

I figured, no big deal, keep it under 40 km/h, stay half on the shoulder, etc. Ha! I got the Scout all hooked up and just pulling out of the storage place the Scout tried to push the back end of the SJ around the first corner and jack knife me. It was gravel, the weight of the Scout is immense, you get a really good feel for it when you are towing with a Sam.

And people wheel these things? Holy crap! No wonder they are always stuck in a mud hole! :D

Anyway, I was lucky that the Scout made it's weight known at the start of the tow. I kept it under 20km/h for the first few miles and as soon as the abandoned rail line that leads through the ranch appeared I grabbed that. That is half a story in itself between two flat tires and the Scout wanting to fall off the crown.

It probably took three times as long to move the Scout but at least I wasn't endangering anyone else other than my "spotter". "Hey, is it still back there? Yep!".

When it comes to towing, I am now a firm believer in using the right equipment to get the job done.

It really is amazing we don't hear about more towing related accidents; stupid hairless apes. :D

r@m

Originally posted by Moab Austin
hmmm why ya towing that yota?? looks like a sweet highway rig to me!!:flipoff2:

IMHO anything that can be flat towed safely is prolly just fine to drive it instead..

anything worse has to be trailered anyways...

have you ever seen somone flattowing a 1 ton jeep with 38+'s ???
lol
I flat tow with 38's no bigge, you guys need to learn how to drive :D

J/K, i tow with a f-250, does fine around 55mph, any faster and it sway city

Originally posted by welndmn

I flat tow with 38's no bigge, you guys need to learn how to drive :D

J/K, i tow with a f-250, does fine around 55mph, any faster and it sway city

When I was flat towing, I would take my "good" tires off and throw 'em in the back of the towed rig, and put some useless stock 235/75-15s on for the tow.

No sense in wasting good tread on the pavement while towing it...

It also seemed to handle better - less resistance if the alignment was off a little, and IF you got the wheels turned the wrong way when making a turn, you could just apply more right foot and drag 'em sideways until you were out of traffic.

They make a horrible howling sound when you do this though. :D

usin a dolly wouldn't a helped ya. i towed my amigo with a blazer just like that one on a dolly and ended up in a ditch facing traffic. bitch started swayin and wouldn't stop. we ended up spinning a 180. luckily no damage, but i'd never tow with that POS or a dolly ever again.

Dallas

The stinkin U-Haul dollies are too narrow for my jeep. Trailering would only be considered if they had electric breaks otherwise why not flat tow?

Originally posted by tsm1mt


When I was flat towing, I would take my "good" tires off and throw 'em in the back of the towed rig, and put some useless stock 235/75-15s on for the tow.



Way to much work to get out and slap on a new set of tires for me:D

Originally posted by welndmn


Way to much work to get out and slap on a new set of tires for me:D

I was usually flat-towing to a race. :D Not like I had to just unhook and go play.. tech inspection, blah blah.

Besides, my Goodyear Terras say "Not for Highway Service" right on the sidewall.. definitely not DOT legal (or wear friendly!) :D

on the topic of towing...just a funny pic of be4 the tub swap on the ol cruzah...
http://www.rivercityrockcrawlers.com/BBSups//dsc_059.jpg