maybe someone can help me with this one, i have a 94 dodge ram 1500 4x4 5.9 litre engine and 203,000 miles.. i've towed 3000 lb trailers for years...i am looking at a trailer dry weight of 5000 lbs and want to make sure i'll be safe towing....i cant seem to find any tow specs for a 94...i will also need to put larger shocks on the back...
can anybody tell me what the max weight to pull is on a 94? thanks

 

Im thinking 6000lbs is the max .. i mite be wrong on this.

 

well I have a 2001, with a 5.2l and an auto. With 4wd I think its like 6,500. BUT, I Regularly tow over 10,000 lbs. Nothing bad has happened yet. WhatI am doing to help me, is I am putting 4.88s to help, and also I added a brake controller(helped alot).

 

I have a 94 with the 5.2 and on the back bumper is a stamp that says not to tow over 5000. But in any case id sugest getting a trany cooler if your gona be towing regularly.

 

A good rule of thumb is to never tow more than the weight of the tow vehicle. Gettting going isn't the issue, its the stopping part.
With a lot of miles on your tranny, overheating it will probably kill it quickly. I'd tow with the OD off if the trip has lots of hills.
If the shocks are original, replacing them with a good set of gas shocks won't hurt. But I'd worry more about the transmission.

 

From the specs I'm finding, looks like 1994 1500's with the 5.9 is as high as 8000 lbs. (4.56 axle, factory hitch, 2wd) down to a low of 6500 lbs.(3.55 axle, factory hitch, 4wd) so I'd say you'd be OK as long as you weren't towing off the bumper...

You may find that if you tow that kind of weight regularly, you may benefit from an inexpensive set of air bags. I have them and would install them on any tow vehicle I'll own in the future. You can make them fully automatic, but a manual setup like mine takes seconds to adjust with a compressor and I have under $200 invested in them...

 

my 98 says 8000, but like mstephen89 said, i have towed well over 10000 lbs before as well. these trucks will out tow anything.

 

+1 on that. For me I found a set of helper springs off of a gen 1 3/4 ton truck bolted right up to my truck. The old 3/4 tons have 2.5 inch springs. That addedalot payload ability. And also helped to level out my ride some.