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A little advise on hauling a K30 on a trailer

01maroonz71

01maroonz71

1/2 ton status
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Well, fate has brought my a truck back to me. long story short....i built it 9 years ago, had to sell it, guy bought it and took it to WA state. 3 owners later and it is now back in FL and for sale. It is about 4 hours away, and I am going to pick it up this weekend. I rented this 20 ft trailer to go pick it up.



7x20%20trailer.jpg





i will be picking up this truck (poser pic)


40s.jpg




and towing it with this truck....



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i know the swampers are too wide for the 83inch width between the fenders, so i will be taking a set of rollers that i will swap on before i load it on the trailer.

I am looking for any pointers guys!!!! should i back the truck onto the trailer since the axles set towards the back of the trailer?

also, i have 4 axle straps and tie down straps that a buddy uses to haul his jeep around. each strap is rated at 3335lbs and they are manufatured by trailmate. should this be enough? or do i need to buy something more.

thanks so much guys. P.S i am not new to hauling things as I have been driving a tractor trailer for the last 9 years. only difference is i never have to load/unload said items.
 
Nice truck.

Load it forward, you need weight on the tongue. If you load it backwards the trailer will sway.
The straps Will be fine.
 
I use to do same setup . you will be just fine .

but plan on removing the ramps and putting them in 1 of the truck beds . the bumper will prob not clear them in the stowed position .
 
Hey nice to see an old "face" pop up every once in a while. :)

Definitely load it forward, tongue weight is your friend to track straight.
Why even worry about swapping tires? I let the tires of my crawler hang off the deck of my trailer a few inches on each side.... done it this way for literally years and thousands of miles.
 
You can get those tires between the fenders if you air down and wiggle the wheel back and forth to wedge them in...I do it with my 39.5-15's all the time, just watch the sidewalls so nothing cuts them.
Do you have equalizer bars...you'll need them with that much tongue weight....pull the truck forward as far as possible and you might get the ramps up all the way...These implement trailers have a lot of tongue weight built in, so putting the front of the truck forward will give you up to 40% tongue weight...a LOT of tongue weight even with equalizer bars.
 
yeah, are they drive over fenders or do they at least fold over? Would be way easier than pulling tires off.

Gezz, I can't see fitting my 89" width through 83" fenders. I don't know how you guys do it. Lotta fold I guess
 
I had the same problem with fitting a wide stance on a car hauler and getting the weight far enough forward to track well.

When I had my trailer built, I told them I didn't want drive over fenders in case something were to happen to the truck. Trying to load that heavy SOB would be interesting. I had them leave the fenders off so we could make them bolt on removable. I figured that would be easier than swapping tires back n' forth.

As for strapping down, I use four heavy duty 2" straps like you have. One at each corner on the front, then one at each corner on the rear but we X pattern them for added peace of mind. With the short coupled Blazer it could only go up so far before the rear tires hit the fender so we made the fender mounts sit away from the frame of the trailer so the rear tires can fit up between them. It's snug, but they fit.

Pulling with the lifted truck wasn't as bad as I thought it would be either. After a good 500mi. test I'm completely confident in the setup. In fact, I personally think it pulled better than my friends stock height Dodge pulled my trailer and K5. But maybe that's just me finding a way to pick on him for owning a Dodge.. HA!



 
A strap at each corner and an actual safety chain attached to the front somewhere, not tight, just snug in case anything happens to the front straps.
 
Hi I a 1976 k5 blazer 4x4.my transmission gave out does not shift .I'm going to overhaul the transmission how do find out the part part number for the transmission
 
I'd just take the ramps off and leave them home. You shouldn't need them w/ that truck on those swampers, just crawl right up. That would allow you to position the truck back a little farther to distribute the weight better.
 
4xcrazy said:
A strap at each corner and an actual safety chain attached to the front somewhere, not tight, just snug in case anything happens to the front straps.
Click to expand...

I would be more concerned with the rear straps, heavy breaking or god forbid, an impact could break the straps on the back. I would suggest using a safety chain on the rear of the vehicle being towed especially with those described straps.
Also with that much lift I would consider compressing the suspension to limit "bodyroll" in case of a sway situation.
 
Probably a good idea to use a safety chain at both ends then, I just got in the habit of it when I was driving tow trucks, but that probably more of a factor using them on the fronts because the winch is the only thing usually holding the vehicle in place.

Although I have seen more and more tow trucks strapping down at all 4 wheels lately, maybe rules changed or something.
 
Glad to hear you are getting your truck back and happy to have you back on the forum. :waytogo:
 
try not to limit suspension movement . if bounce good can pop off / unhook .

clamp down the axles and safty chain both ends is best .

and tow trucks are doing the 4 wheel / corner thing more and more cause the designers / manufactures are deleting tie down points and or putting them in bad places like 1 brand I know puts the dam fuel filler tube right in the middle of the slot hole :dunno::doah::haha:

so anymore its better / faster / easy to strap the wheels and be good to go .

and NEVER TRUST the winch to hold the load . always 4 points and winch as backup if anything .
 
Thanks so much guys. im headed out Sunday morning to pick her up. Im more concerned with getting the weight distribution correct on the trailer than anything else. it does not have drive over or removable fenders, and im not sure if the ramps are removeable.

would it be ok to back her onto the trailer?


its actually kind of funny. I sold the truck about 7 years ago to a guy who took it to Seattle, WA. then about a year ago I saw it for sale on craigslist about 2 hours away. I went and looked at it twice within 2 hours, but I passed on it because the cab had rusted out so bad. the guy who bought her fixed ( I think fiberglass) most of the rust, but it still needs paint and a few more things. I regretted selling it 7 years ago, and I regretted not buying it back last year. im not letting it get away again. I put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into this build all those years ago. hahahaha
 
Do not load it on the trailer backwards... It will sway like crazy with more weight on the back of the trailer, I learned the hard way when I hauled my 76 blazer home, I rented a uhaul trailer and uhaul being the people they are wouldn't rent me the big car hauler so I was stuck with the smaller one. I had to load the blazer backwards and though it would be alright because it had no motor, I was wrong, couldn't go over 50 mph because it would start swaying. Definitely load er frontwards.
 
You can usually still get plenty of tongue weight if you load it on backwards. I recently had to tow my 2500HD crew cab back home on my 18' car hauler after it lost a wheel bearing. I had to back it on because otherwise it would have way too much tongue weight, this was because of the total length and wheelbase that required to pull the front bumper almost all the way to the front of the trailer to fit. After the initial backwards loading I had to move it even a little bit further to the back of the trailer to reduce the tongue weight a little more. But again, this truck is a good bit longer than K30 in question and you shouldn't have a problem loading forward.

About taking the ramps off, if you have to drive over the fenders also it can be fairly challenging. I have 39.5's with lockers front and rear and don't want to try popping the rear tires up on the trailer deck while the fronts are climbing the fenders! My friend has 42's and lockers and is in the same boat. Of course I would be leery if the stock fenders on that trailer would hold up...hard to tell in that picture. On the other hand if you put rollers on the front to get between the fenders it would probably have a hard time getting up on the trailer. I would guess the ramps are removable without a whole lot of effort as most I have seen were that way, however they are probably heavy.
 
like I said my combo use to be the same for trailer . I hauled a few k30s front first no problems . even 1 with a big block .
 
76zimmer said:
I would be more concerned with the rear straps, heavy breaking or god forbid, an impact could break the straps on the back. I would suggest using a safety chain on the rear of the vehicle being towed especially with those described straps.
Also with that much lift I would consider compressing the suspension to limit "bodyroll" in case of a sway situation.
Click to expand...

Strap down the axles tight. Then use a strap or two to "pull down" the suspension to lower level to avoid the truck bouncing around in the back. I take a come along to do this when I haul. Also keeps the tow truck ride a little better from the damn thing bouncing around back there.
 
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