Looking for a trailer

Ive been looking at a 20+5 goose neck trailer with 2-7,000 axles and a third ramp to haul my farmall and round bales. Would a 2001 GMC 3/4 hd 4X4 with the 4:10 gear with a 6.0 gas with automatic hpull the trailer with 2 old tractors. Thanks Gary

It depends what size tractors you have and how many round bales you want to haul. We have two 2004 Chevys at work with the 6.0 and automatics, I pulled a few trailers with them and wasn't very impressed with the power. I don't think we have 4.10's in them though, probably 3.55's or so.

You'd be better off with a Powerstroke or a Dodge/ Cummins, and even better with a 1 ton for the weight & brakes. Not many folks do serious towing with GM pickups, unless they're brainwashed Chebbie junkies that let pride get in the way. You'd do OK around town & local for a while, but you wouldn't want to be in a hurry to get anywhere, and leave a lot of cushion for stopping, with the trailer brakes in tip-top condition

The 4.10 is a help as far as pulling, but if you're going to get close to maxing out your 14k, you might want to beef up your rear suspension some.

The mfr's certificate on my gooseneck read 4100 or 4200 for weight, but it scales at a whisker over 5000# with 800 on the truck and 4200 on the axles. Two big tractors would eat up the remaining 9000 pretty quick and, depending how you load them, could put as much as another 1200-1800 on the hitch.

But that center ramp sure is handy.

I pull a 20 ft with a Chevy 2001 1500 4x4 with a 5.3L, auto and 3.73 gearing. I have pulled over 6 tons with it over 200 miles one-way. Your 2500 is fine. People that want/need diesels fall into to these classes, but there are some people that REALLY NEED one.

Want to be cool, drives it to work only.

Want to be cool, pulls 2 horse bumper pull to the rodeo with a F350, 4x4, diesel dually.

Wants to be cool, puts an 18" lift kit on a 2500 Duramax and never goes off-road.

I do not tow enough to justify a diesel truck, nor buy a new 3/4 ton. And it I did, it would be Chevrolet's 8.1L gasoline, not the Duramax. Also, I live in a fairly flat area.

CT

Not many people do serious towing with a GM? Where have you been hiding? I have seem the same if not MORE GM's towing since the dmax came out and seen them run circles around powerjokes. Cummins...tough to beat. If you were referring to the 6.5, you would be correct. Don't ask me how I know....

I have to say I am a little disappointed in the 6.0, I have an 03 ext cab short box HD. Pulls my 20+5 4500lb gooseneck and my 4300lb H OK, but it doesn't want any more. I pulled my H and my buddies JD A and was really let down.

Your truck will pull it fine. My friend had a 92 silverado with a GM 350 rebuilt engine. crate motor that is. he'd pull a 40 footer with it all the time and never had a problem. It was 2wd as well. 3/4 ton probably has the larger engine. Cannot remember the size but my 1500 will pull a loaded bumper pull like there is nothing back there and I only have the 5.3.

T.C.

Is this guy serious?

To me there's a couple of issues.

First: safety...do you have enough brakes and trailer brakes to handle what you're doing?

Next: duty cycle...my thoughts are if you are going to transport round bales all summer long or be towing every other weekend you're better off with some upgraded hardware...the 1 ton class as was mentioned.

Related: as Charles Todd mentioned, a 1/4hp electric motor will pull a semi truck to the top of mount everest...it might just take awhile thru all of the reduction. Just about anything can get the load going...it might take awhile and feel like there's 60 tons back there...but it will get things going. Hills are obviously part of the equation. If you are in flatland you need less truck than if you are constantly going up and down.

Some people seem to have the need for speed when towing and size their tow vehicle proportionately.

I personally did not...bought an old 454 TBI 1-ton gasser for less than $3000 and have put 25k hard miles on so far with minimal problems. Do I get 5-10mpg? Absolutely...but I pay at the pump, slowly, over time, paying as needed, rather than paying a truck note which is there with alarming regularity whether the truck sits in the shed or is blowing black smoke out the pipe.

Gary, your truck will do just fine. It will not be a race horse, but with the 4.10 gears it is a pretty good workhorse. I own a 2001 3500 with the 8.1. 6 spd manual, and 4.10 gears. I pull the same type of trailer that you are looking at. The 8.1 has an abundance of power, but when trying to run 75 MPH on the interstate the engine RPMs get quite a bit higher than what I like to see, so I avoid those high speed death traps if at all possible. Your 6.0 is not an 8.1, but I think you will still get along just fine.

I think Gary's going at it right.

He's got tandem singles under the trailer, so he's limited to 14k gross. If he'd gone for tandem duals and was looking to load up to 20k it'd be whole other ball of wax and I'd have a diffeent opinion.

That and he asked about a SuperC up above, so I'm guessin' he's not into the later big and HEAVY tractors. As far as the round bales, as long as he uses his head and is guided by weight and doesn't feel the need to fill the deck of the trailer up (there's a reason you see big trucks haulin' only one or two coils of steel that don't begin to fill the length of a flatbed), he should be okay.

I don't know what was available for automatics on Chevies, but as long as he has a trailer tow function and stays out of overdrive, that 4.10 rear will help. If he's going to haul heavy and a lot, an upgrade of the truck might be in order, but for occasional hauling, he should be fine if everything is maintained in good working order. As I said earlier, he might find with experience that it would be good to beef up the rear suspension.

I hear ya on the speed. My trailer is similar to what he's looking at. The truck is a one-ton SRW Ram with a stock (no chip) 305/555 Cummins turning a six-speed and 3.73 rear. I've been close to its rated limits for weight and it's served well. Especially with a top-heavy load like tractors, it doesn't bother me in the least to have to sacrifice some speed to drop one gear all the way up through and not even think about using 6th when fully loaded. I can still make a full 65mph turning 2500-2600 in 5th and hold all but the steepest hills doing that, and it works out better for the motor, running cooler at the higher rpms in the lower gear. (I don't know about the Isuzus and Navistars in the other pickups, but the conventional wisdom on a Cummins is "drive it like you stole it," and it doesn't hurt a thing to run it that high, it seems to enjoy it. Certainly better than luggin' and runnin' hot at 1700rpm in the next gear up.)

It sounds as if Gary's trying to go your route and avoid buying another truck. Common-sense, I call it. And he gets points in my book for asking about it, as opposed to all too many of the tourists I see up here who clapped a pair of air bags on a half-ton and hitched up to a 32-foot fiver with three slideouts. I make a point of staying well behind or well ahead of those rigs.

ROFL!

I was up to the county seat one day and see a young kid pullin' out of the Dodge dealer in the brand-spankin' new pickup his daddy bought for him (salesman confirmed that last detail for me). Sporty-lookin' rig with the off-road decals that big long C on the front fender and plain old stock Michelins under it. Last thing I want on soft ground off-road is the weight of a diesel on my front end. I see the front end sinkin' real fast and the rear end too light to help. But I'll bet he was the envy of the high school parkin' lot.

I've run a 6.0. I wasn't impressed but I thought it did alright. 4 bottom white, 7 foot Kuhn discbine, and 4 row 7200 deere planter on a 22K gooseneck.

Ford has a new 6.7 or 6.8 coming out next year, that they engineered in-house.

The 8.1 went the way of the 6.5 and 454 when they redid the truck sheetmetal 2 years ago.

Hi Gary,

From my gear calculator, your at 60mph and 3316rpm, in a 1.26 tranny gear and 31.5" tires, 4:11 final ratio.

That's within your peak torque band ???

I don't a torque graph for your engine.

T_Bone