Interesting story jd, thanks for sharing it. I thought I was going to have to tow a ~7,000lb backhoe that I was going to look at today, so that's why I was looking into this whole towing thing. I spoke with the local rental agency guys in my town and they had a tandem wheel trailer that would have handled it and they said the brakes on it worked really well. They were mechanically operated, if the truck brakes the trailer bears down on the hitch and applies a force to a mechanical mechanism inside the trailer's hitch, which in turn causes the trailer brakes to activate. That surprised me because I worked on some trailer brakes (once) a long time ago and they were electrically activated. Plus he said that if the trailer broke free the trailer brakes would activate too. Overall it looked pretty good, plus the trailer was professionally maintained and insured. And personally I wouldn't mind towing a little more than what the manufacturer says it's considered capable of towing (powerwise), as long as (1) I knew the truck and trailer brakes were excellent and (2) it was on pretty flat ground. My truck brakes are good, but it is a 15 year old truck. Last year I already had one of the rear brake lines rust out on me which caused the pedal to go straight to the floor one day. It was pretty scarey, the only brake action I had was the emergency brake. Fortunately it was offroad when it happened, but that sure would be an unwelcome surprise with several thousand pounds behind me in traffic! Oh and the backhoe I went to look at turned out to be a full size JCB (the lady thought it was a "JD" because "it was yellow"), probably on the order of 7 tons or so. Now I have to find a trucker to get it home, can't wait to start checking it out. Thanks to all again...
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