Opinions needed on Tow truck - Diesel or Gas?

[gemleeus]

my boss and i went on a fishing trip to fla. on the way down, pulling a 20ft grady white boat w/ late 90's 454 dually. the boss got so tired of upshifting and downshifting, we stopped in a dealer in ala. and he bought a new 3500 diesel dually. at first the truck was a little herky-jerky with the boat, but once the trucks computer learned the boat was back there it was like driving any other truck, and sometimes almost forgetting the boat was back there. the truck pulled it very smoothly and would downshift automatically when coming to a stop making using the brakes hardly none at all. myself not having to much experience with pulling with a truck was very impressed. the truck pulled the boat effortlessly. the boat i know weighed over 12k. lbs. probably much more. 3500 dually, duramax w/ allison trans.

[Glenn J Coleman]

WOW, I have a similar set-up and the exact same problems. An 83 1 ton Chevy dually with a tired 454 (nagging exhaust manifold leak) pulling an 86 42ft Chapparel. With both cars in I think I'm loaded at 13,000 lb.s I have considered a 454 HO crate package from GM Performance or just rebuilding the stock motor into a stump pulling tq. monster. But with interest rates in the dirt, you can sure make a case for driving home a new truck.

Please post how you resolved your situation.

[Chevy454]

Glenn:

As I mentioned above, I've been in your shoes. We had a '91 Chevrolet 3500 crew cab with a 454/auto/4.10. At that time we had a 44ft gooseneck that weighed 9K pounds empty. After we munched the 4L80E a couple of times, we upgraded to a special heavy duty 4-speed manual with a gear splitter attached that Moparts had in his shop. This helped a lot, but I wanted more so on went a Paxton and a full dual exhaust running through headers. While it ran like a scalded ape, it necessitated a 110gal. auxillary tank in the bed of the truck in addition to the dual 20gal. saddle tanks. MAJOR gas hog. We then upgraded to our crew cab TopKick with the 3116 CAT diesel and haven't looked back. I will NEVER go back to a gas rig to tow with.

[YENKO DEUCE REGISTRY]

Good info, keep it coming, many of us are looking at this same debate - somebody factor 'the wife' factor for me I don't know if mine will agree to a crew/dually/diesel! I need to bring my car to the one and only SuperCar Reunion and race

[JChlupsa]

[ QUOTE ]
I need to bring my car to the one and only SuperCar Reunion and race

[/ QUOTE ]

Damn now THAT sounds GOOD

[Chevy454]

M:

Let your WIFE get behind the wheel of one...I couldn't keep my wife out of my dually, and I caught heck for selling it! I still get grief about that...

[COPO PETE]

I too am looking at purchasing real soon. What's the differnece in braking with a 3/4 ton vs a 1 ton????? A dually would be nice, but Im thinking just a crew cab chev with the Duramax. Are they really getting about 17 mph just driving around without a trailer on????
Peter

[Pantera]

My truck is a dually 454 with TH-400 auto and a Chaprall sleeper on the back window. It was used by a SCCA vette racer and we took it to the west coast one time and he had a 3 wheel 42 chapparall and it weighed 25,600 according to Arizona when we went through there. That was with only one 3,300 lb corvette and some spare motors and such. Have you ever weighed your rig? That seems too light to me.

[VETTEGUY]

When it comes to towing a sizable trailer-you can't have to much power or be too safe. I saw a guy with a two car stacker
trailer pulled with a 3/4 ton Ford. I believe this is illegal
but I know that it is stupid. Don't overlook trucks like the
Freightliner FL60 (Sportchassis) These trucks (classified as heavy duty pickups) are sold for the most part to folks
pulling travel trailers. Used ones are not that expensive.
Not real practical for daily use, but if your main use
is towing, I would recommend one. Try RVTruck.com

[Chevy454]

The only downside to the FL60 route is your GVCW. According to the Federal DOT laws, anything 26,001 pounds and over requires a CDL. And, those FL60s are quite a bit heavier than your average 1-ton dually, as I found out with my TopKick. It would be easy to have a 2-car trailer in the 16,000 pound range loaded (more than likely it will be more), which means you're truck had better be 10,000 or less.

I unfortunately had to find all of this out the hard way, which sucks, because the Medium Duty trucks are far safer to tow with than the 1-ton offerings when you start getting into some decent weights.