Greatest Weight You’ve Ever Towed

[memtb]

Just for fun......which “NO” criticism from those that have never had any violation of any law! Give truck year/make/model......Whether it was farm equipment, an emergency tow for just a short distance, move a trailer for a friend, or something you’ve done as a normal (for you) towing ! If you towed doubles, give total weight of both towed units.

I suspect that most of us towed a bit over the listed weights for the tow vehicle,especially if you started towing in the ‘70’s or ‘80’s.....when we had less knowledge of towing limits and before the internet created the “Weight Police”!

AGAIN.......”No Bashing”, as everyone “now” knows and understands the “yellow sticker”!

I’ll lead off....’96 Frieghtliner FLD 120, pulling a “pup”, grossed-out @ 111,000 lbs
‘97 Dodge Ram 2500, 5.9 Cummins pulling doubles, grossed-out @
23660 (approximately)

[burningman]

I do 105,500, that’s the regular limit in WA if you have the axles for it.
I’ve taken dump truck & trailer rigs over scales that read up to 125,000 and blanked them out.
With my camper and trailer on my Dodge dually I roll at about 22,000, with no tires overloaded.

[myredracer]

When I was younger and naive and knew nothing about towing, I bought a skidsteer loader and borrowed the seller's double axle trailer. What I didn't realize is that first, I should have had the trailer brakes connected up (didn't have a trailer plug at the time) and that the 6K lb skidsteer and about 2K lb trailer was waaay above the max tow capacity of the F150.

The trip home was only around 10 mile and I thought it'd be easy if I took it easy. Got to the nearby highway and was doing okay until the traffic got heavy in front of me. Used the brakes and the truck barely slowed down at all. O schitt!! I quickly pulled over onto the shoulder and crawled along to the nearest exit and drove the rest of the way home on backroads at a snail's pace.

What isn't right is that when you go to get your driver's licence for the first time, our gov't agencies teach you nothing and tell you nothing about towing. And if you go get a trailer licence whether it's a home-built, horse or travel trailer, again, nobody tells you anything about towing. It wasn't until I started reading RV forums that I discovered how much there is to towing and towing safely.

[memtb]

mt1729 wrote:
One hundred & sixty thousand pounds. 145 ft long, 12 ft wide, 16 ft high. 1979 kenworth, 375hp. 3 pilot cars.

That’s a “pretty good load” for a ‘79 KW! :C

[mt1729]

One hundred & sixty thousand pounds. 145 ft long, 12 ft wide, 16 ft high. 1979 kenworth, 375hp. 3 pilot cars.

[wnjj]

Skidus1 wrote:
18000 tons. I’m a locomotive engineer ??

I was waiting for one of you to chime in. 😉

[memtb]

Skidus1 wrote:
18000 tons. I’m a locomotive engineer ??

That’s cheating! :B

[Skidus1]

18000 tons. I’m a locomotive engineer ??

[FF286]

I have no idea of the weight but I had an 02 Duramax 2500, and borrowed a dump trailer to get dirt to build a parking spot for the camper. As soon as I left with the load I knew I messed up. The truck was not happy pulling the trailer, and would barely stop it. Got home and had to unload around half the trailer with a shovel before the hydraulics would dump the trailer. The capacity was 16k lbs.
But I did get enough in one load for no need for a return trip.

[memtb]

I forgot about this tow.....it was only about 100 yards. Tow vehicle- 1977 Honda Accord, 5 speed, 1600 cc engine. It was a winter morning in SW Wyoming, a Ford Truck, towing a loaded 6 horse slant load trailer (several horses onboard), had plugged a fuel filter near the top of a grade. He had run the batteries down trying to get new filter purged and truck started. I was going home from work, stopped and offered help. He explained, and said thanks for stopping, saying he just needed a tow to to the crest of the hill, then he would coast down ( manual trans)the other side and get it started, and that someone would come along and offer help. I told him, we had nothing to loose, I’d give it a shot! I don’t know who was more surprised, me or him. With a few rpm’s, a little “fancy” footwork with my clutch....I got him over the crest. I watched him coast down, bump-started the old Ford, and we were both on our way. I have no idea what the gross weight was....probably exceeded my “yellow” door sticker! :B memtb

[Bedlam]

Nothing overly heavy that my current truck could not do, but I didn't always this truck:

7000 lb panel van down the shoulder of the freeway to a service station with a VW Super Beetle 1.6

3000 lb fiberglass camper over mountain passes with a Mazda B2200 2.2 diesel
15,000 lb flat bed truck out of an intersection with same above

5,000 lb 20' boat over mountain passes with a Mazda B2600i 2.6
6,000 lb pickup 30 miles over city and highway roads with same above

25,000 lb city bus up a snow covered suburban grade with a Ford F250 6.0 diesel

[Grit_dog]

I wasn't actually driving, but I did run the D10 push cat once for it.
Manitowoc M2250, fully loaded series 2 or 3, boom up with a Mack Prime Mover over ice roads and ice bridges.
Little over 1,000,000lbs. Crane was around 400T.

Most with a light duty truck?
88 or 89 D350 Dually dump truck with a 360 gas V8 lol.. IDK how much it weighed, but there was a New Holland 785 skid steer in the dump box along with 2 36" root ball trees, towing a 24' tag trailer with another dozen 36-48" ball trees. Whatever it weighed was enough to crack the truck frame and bend axle shafts, multiple times for both issues. It was good job security. I'd get paid one day to destroy the truck and then get paid the next 3 to fix it and then repeat the operation the following week.....
Part of the reason I laugh at the silly 3/4 ton payload conversations on here!

[MFL]

Here is my new 1/2 ton, hauling a typical load!

In the bed two dirt bikes, in backward, the second one not visible, on the other side of the 4 cylinder GoldWing in the middle. Yup, had to remove the fairing from Wing to make all three fit. It is in the heavily loaded camper, due to the space in truck bed filled in with other gear, full gas cans, etc. Putting the bars on the WDH sure helped the sag, and flattened tires! IDK what the trucks GVWR/RAWR/tire ratings were, but it was a new truck, so all should be okay....right??? Oh ya, and I was only towing 1K miles, and only half of that was hilly and mountains. 🙂

Jerry

[leggy]

2005 F-250 with 6.0 and a gooseneck dump trailer. A bit over 9 ton of stone dust on the 5 ton trailer, loader operator wasn't very good, put gross over 33,000.

[1320Fastback]

Pulled out a stuck dump truck (California double) with my forklift. It's gear to do 12 flat out in 4th so has enough reduction to get it done.