Need advice for towing downhill....

Diesel without exhaust brake, do not gear down well. I have one and truly wish I had a THE EXH. BRAKE.

Terryallan wrote:

Vannnce wrote:
Why do you say if its a diesel gearing down wont help? Down shifting my diesel holds me way better than any gas truck ever has. I can go down a 6% grade and simply pulling it out of overdrive or down to second will maintain my speed with my fifth wheel

If it does as you say. then it has some sort of after market exhaust, or engine brake or trany brake. diesels by design little to no engine braking in their natural state. Why? Because while they have tons of compression on the front side. All they have on the back side is a great big open hole. Nothing to create back pressure.

That is why Exhaust brakes were invented in the first place. To give engine braking to diesels, because they didn't have any. Having driven the big trucks. I learned the hard way. Diesels in their natural state, free wheel down the mountain, in any gear.

What are you talking about????
Diesels have so much compression that they like having 2 batteries to start them. Plus there is no throttle plate, so they are always sucking in as much air and compressing it if your foot is on or off the pedal causing enging braking.
Automatics are designed to freewheel or up shift when you let off the gas pedal in normal city driving so you dont feel the engine braking in top gear. Put one in 3rd or any manual gear in the city and cruise steady then let off the pedal, make sure you have your mouthpiece in before you bite the steering wheel.

Vannnce wrote:
Why do you say if its a diesel gearing down wont help? Down shifting my diesel holds me way better than any gas truck ever has. I can go down a 6% grade and simply pulling it out of overdrive or down to second will maintain my speed with my fifth wheel

If it does as you say. then it has some sort of after market exhaust, or engine brake or trany brake. diesels by design little to no engine braking in their natural state. Why? Because while they have tons of compression on the front side. All they have on the back side is a great big open hole. Nothing to create back pressure.

That is why Exhaust brakes were invented in the first place. To give engine braking to diesels, because they didn't have any. Having driven the big trucks. I learned the hard way. Diesels in their natural state, free wheel down the mountain, in any gear.

Would you rather take 100 miles life off your engine but descend safely or wreck your truck in a corner you can't make because you're brakes faded to oblivion?

It will NOT be even remotely hard on your tranny to travel the entire slope in 2nd, or even first gear. It will put a teeny-tiny-completely unprove-ably greater amount of wear on the engine to do the entire thing in 1st gear.

And frankly, the key here is doing it slowly so the brakes (as much as you have to use them) get lots and lots of time to cool. And preferably cool while the wheels are turning. Cooling while you are stopped on the side of the road, grateful for having survived THAT slope and the last corner, is likely to either burn your brake linings or warp your rotors/drums. If you spend 1 minute on the brakes descending and 5 minutes sitting to cool, you would have been much, much better off taking 3 or 4 minutes descending slowly, but moving the whole time.

My daughter laughs at my son-in-law still over the time he caught his brakes on fire, having used them so hard the disks were glowing red when he stopped beside the road. He'll probably never live it down. And Porsche brake pads and rotors (which he had to replace afterward) are not cheap.

I'd also recommend taking the start of that descent really slow, lest you find out half-way down that you weren't quite slow enough.

Why do you say if its a diesel gearing down wont help? Down shifting my diesel holds me way better than any gas truck ever has. I can go down a 6% grade and simply pulling it out of overdrive or down to second will maintain my speed with my fifth wheel

an 01 250 with WHAT type of engine? IF it has a diesel with no exhaust brake. even gearing down won't help a lot. IF it has a V10, or other gas engine. Use 1st gear in the really steep part, and you will be fine.
Just start down in 1st. Because it won't shift down at too high a speed.

Use 1st gear if needed instead of your brakes, won't hurt a thing.

Where is this 16% grade you climbed??

If you have a 4 wheel drive you may consider low range for the 16% part.

Back in the 60’s when I was young I made my first non tent camping trip with a borrowed, heavy wooden PU with no brakes and I lost my TV brakes coming down Teton pass. I pointed to a small town visible through the trees and told the DW and two sons that’s Jackson Hole, get out and walk down the mountain there and wait for me. I made a hairy decent about 100 yards at a time to try and cool the brakes and survived the experience. But I learned my first lesson the first time out. Don’t pull anything without brakes and use the transmission to control the descent.

Keep your speed down as you start and mainly use the transmission to control it. The speed will increase beyond what you’re comfortable with and then use the brake fairly hard to knock it down maybe 10mph or so below what you want. And repeat as necessary. The object is to minimize the use of the brakes; you do not want to ride them.

Always go down in the lowest gear it took you to go up!! Stay off the brakes as much as possible. Once they get hot you will find stopping to be a real problem. If you start to smell them pull over and park asap and let them cool down. Good luck and be safe.