TomG2 wrote:
Anyone who has towed a lot, can probably confess to some dangerous combinations. Another contractor gave us a large quantity of steel sheet piling, so I loaded all I could get on a 12 ton beaver tail trailer. I had a tandem dump truck almost doing wheelies going down I-55 that day. Had to let up on the gas to make much steering correction. That was thirty years ago and I won't do that again.
Guilty as charged....
Had a 97K2500 Extended Cab Long Bed 350/4L80/4.10 gears. Great truck for towing, though the 350 was a little weak for some of the loads I moved. My misadventures involved a Ringo 12x6 14,000# dump I dragged behind it. The trailer was built like a tank but towed terrible because it was so short and high (deck over).
Rolled off the scales at 22k once which puts the trailer at 16k. It had 14.5" nylons on it, on 8 lug wheels. Blew one out at about 45 mph bringing that load home. Damaged the rim in the process. That's when I learned 14.5s don't normally get mounted on 8 lug rims. Fortunately I had a spare set of 8 lug rims with 245s on them. Trailer was much better for going across lawns with the wider tires anyway.
Another trip with that trailer involved railroad ties. It had pull out steel side boards so you could load it like a flat bed. I bought three "bundles" of ties. The bundles were just small enough so I could put two on the deck just inside the edges. Then we put a third bundle on top in the middle. I think it was 75 ties all together. Easy 6000 pounds of payload with a high center of gravity. On a high deck trailer. With a short tongue. Drove about 80 miles home with that load, getting my back pounded the whole way. Get home after dark and park. Go out the next morning to unload. Took one look at the hitch and new something was wrong. The front tabs of the hitch bent upwards, the rear tabs down. Bent the truck frame in the opposite directions. Put a Curt Magnum 14k in place of factory unit.
