Hi guys,
I bought a car in NC which is about 900 miles from where I live. I need to get it home with either my van or I will rent a one ton truck from somebody.
The GVWR of the van is 6530 lbs and van recently hit the scales at 3442 lbs with two people on board and a full tank of gas. That leaves me with 3100 lbs of towing capacity and the car I bought is 1900 lbs. The car doesn't run so it will have to go onto a tandem axle trailer of some sort.
The van has new springs and is a good runner so does that mean it can haul 3100 lbs or should I use something else?
Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks! Steve

 

Your van sounds very very light to me, are you sure of the numbers? You must give more info as well I am referring to engine size rear end ratio and is it a cargo,passenger or conversion, all important factors.

 

Hi Iodj,
I must have not weighed the van properly, nobody was at the scales and I'm not sure if I needed to weigh each axle individually. I've now found a brochure that says it should weigh 5300 lbs as a base weight. I imagine that would put me at closer to 5800 lbs with two people and fuel. http://www.roadtrek.com/_images/broc...model_year.pdf
The van is a Roadtrek Versatile conversion which is 18'9" and has a 318 with 3.90 rear end. They show the van as having a 10,500 lb total combined vehicle weight but I don't know if I believe it in real life. None of the stickers in the door frames show a max combined weight, just the max vehicle weight.
Is this for real or am I going to regret it 20 minutes into my return trip? Installing the hitch on this van is going to be quite a chore too, it has a trunk under the back end which will need some serious modifications to take the hitch.
Thanks again, Steve

 

SteveR

Curb weight can be tricky to find online because of the many possible pass/cargo or conversion configurations. Two years ago ran our 15 passenger van (with rear seats removed) over a Flying J scale, weight was 6300LBs. I pull a 35 racing sloop, 26ft fishing boat and a 28ft travel trailer off and on spring through fall, heaviest being over 9000lbs. The van is unremarkable, a B3500 15 pass 5.9l with 3.92s rear airbags E rated tires trans cooler and can honestly say it is my favorite tow vehicle. Also own a Chevy Express 6.0l with 3.90s and a Ford Excursion 7.3l and for what ever reason the Dodge is the most relaxing to tow out of the three.

You should be able to easily pull at least 5000LBs. Conversion vans weights vary, some much heavier than others. With 3.92s I feel you should be fine, you may have noticed posts regarding transmission coolers they are a good idea your trans will thank you.

You have a good tow vehicle, that being said a open trailer will be lighter and have less wind resistance which will be easier to pull. Small changes would improve your towing experience such as adding light truck tires which reduce the chance of sway (stiffer sidewalls), installing airbags to reduce rear squatting also if you do not already own one purchase a weight distribution set up.

Finished viewing that link you posted, the Road Trek configurations seem well thought out.

 

I have always heard the Roadtrek conversions are some of the best, but also the heaviest conversions out there... consider you talking about
Are you talking about an extended wheelbase conversion... the long Maxi-van setup or the short wheel base van? Check out etrailer.com for a hitch... you can call them and describe your van and they might have something in stock to help you out with the hitch that you can have installed at a local garage. The long wheel base vans will squat low when loading the rear with lots of tongue weight. I purchased air bags to solve that issue with my '01 B2500 Maxi-van as I tow 400#+ tongue weight with my 318 and 4.10 rear end which is NOT a conversion.

ALso think about the weight you will be adding by the tandem wheel trailer, which has to probably be 1000# plus the weight of the car, and the close to 300# tongue weight pulling that weight around.

You might consider using a two wheel car dolly to pull that car, which would be considerably lighter.

If you are never going to pull anything again, then consider an alternative method of transporting that car and skip the expense of the hitch.

 

rsdata has introduced some cautious reason to the discussion, If you do not plan on towing much and don't have a hitch installed or own a trailer you may be money ahead to have it shipped as you will be lucky to average 8 mpg on the return trip. Now I purchase my sailboat trailers from a Canadian manufacturer (Cradle Ride). From experience I can say US Customs is a huge hassle I pay FedEx export service to prepare the paperwork and still wait quite a but of time at the border. Us-Can may be easier but a transport company can deal with all the Customs paperwork with ease. Just food for thought and you save 1800 miles of driving.

 

Hi RSData: Page 7 of the brochure shows the hatch to the trunk under the tail of the van. It sort of looks like an extra gas tank from under the van and is almost the full width of the van. I will have to cut slots into it for the hitch to pass into the trunk. I will also have to cut it out from around the "frame" and then try to seal it afterwards.

I actually need a vehicle with a hitch as I sold my truck recently so I have gone ahead and ordered a hitch and electric brake controller. All that stuff together is going to cost about $280. I hope 8 MPG is not in my future with an open trailer. The van gets about 20 MPG as it is with overdrive engaged. Not having OD sucks, the RPM is not well thought out for towing on the highway.

I tried getting a shipper but the condition of the car and the border crossing prevented me from getting any takers. I could get the car brought to upstate NY but if I'm going to hook the car to my van I may as well do the full trip.

Cheers, Steve

 

SteveR

So your definitely going to pull the car home? Do contact the Canadian Border Agents to be sure you have what you need to get across. Years ago I watched a US Border Agent explain to a young US citizen that he could not bring the used car he bought in Canada over the border without the proper customs paperwork (not just a title and bill of sale)

Mileage will not be great 8-10MPG is a realistic estimate also you may find yourself pulling up long or steep grades in 2nd gear which is no big deal,keep a eye on your engine temperature. When I owned a 1989 B350 360 with 3.92s the motor would turn 2600rpm @65mph and pulled real nice, rarely went to 2nd gear but sometimes it was needed.

To be honest sounds like a great adventure.

 

The border will take some time and the worst part is that you have to cross during regular working hours so a quick trip isn't possible.

The process is to mail your title and bill of sale to the US crossing so they can verify it isn't stolen. I suppose they arrest you upon arrival for exporting a stolen vehicle if there is a problem with the title? You also have to book the Canadian part of the crossing which I haven't looked into very closely yet. The car is a 1934 Hupmobile so I don't need to worry about the RIV process. The car isn't in the greatest shape either so this will be a multi-year endeavor.

I highly recommend Canadians look at the Canadian Hitches (Curt) website for electric brake controllers and wiring parts. You can get the controller and all of the wiring/connectors shipped to your door for under 100 bucks where as the cheapest controller at Canadian Tire is 75 bucks plus tax. I did the front half of the wiring tonight which went well but Dodge doesn't give much extra wire to play with for the brake switch.

I have the electric brakes off the starting battery and I intend to run the aux power off the coach battery so that I don't have to worry about the trailer draining the starting battery when the van is off. Now to figure out where to put the 7-way connector...

Steve

 

As I mentioned before FedEx offers a service to process the paperwork, I used FedEx Export Services so I did not make a mistake and get turned away at the border. Seems your gathering the papers and info needed to import your car, I have a feeling a memorable road trip is in the making.

Great idea to wire the trailer 12v feed to the coach.