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School me on flat towing

noJeepshere

noJeepshere

I Drove Trains!
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In the procsess of convincing my dad I need to build up the Jimmy for him, I need to figure out a way to take it from Washington to Idaho. How do I flat tow a vehicle? and what do I do about lights on the Jimmy? can I safely hack into the rigs wiring to make the factory lights work? or would I just be better off getting some like tow-truck operators use?

Thanks guys!
 
Easy to buy a $30 walmart or kragen light set, and mount to truck,. I wouldn't hack teh factory wires.
 
Flat towing is pretty straight forward. Forward! Can't back up with a tow bar or at least none that I have used. Keep yourself out of that situation.

The tow bar needs to be nice and parallel to the ground as well. If the bar is high on the towed rig, slam on the brakes and the towed vehicle will attempt to climb the bar. If the bar is low on the towed vehicle, it will attempt to go under the bar which lifts the tow rig. At any rate, both of these scenarios cause violent changes in the way the combination relate to each other and handling suffers dramatically and unpredicatably.

One that comes to mind is to make sure the tow rig is physically larger and heavier. Helps you maintain control of the lighter towed rig.

There are ways to engage the brakes on the flat towed rig with your tow rig pedal. Don't know much about that though. I bet it'd help.

Pull the driveshaft/s on the towed rig. Make sure any lockouts are disengaged.

That's all I can think of.
 
cybrfire said:
There are ways to engage the brakes on the flat towed rig with your tow rig pedal. Don't know much about that though. I bet it'd help.
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You can look up those braking unbits on Camping World's site. They are required in some states from what I've heard. Also, I wouldn't sweat pulling the d-shafts as long as you unlock the front hubs and put the t-case in neutral.
 
Thanks for the help guys! I really hope that I can convince my dad to let me do this, his birthday is on September 13th, which coincides with the last day of Blazerbash, so I thought it'd be a pretty neat present for him.

The Jimmy has a manual trans and WARN hubs, and I will be towing it with my Yukon, the Green Machine.
 
Tail lights are easy to hack into. There is a plug at the drivers frame rail at the rear. Run a flat 4 wire trailer harness down the length of the truck and plug into the tailights using spade connectors.

I flat towed a K5 from Austin TX to Vancouver BC with my 81 Jimmy. I built a tow bar that physically bolted to the frame of the towed K5. No hokey univeral brackets that would allow the tow bar to shift around on the bumper.

You can back up with a tow bar, as long as you don't care which way the towed vehicle front tires are pointing :D. If you get in a pinch and you have to back up that is...I got stuck like that once. A little brute force and ignorance solved the problem.

I'd say it'd be nice to have the tow vehicle outweigh the towed vehicle by at least 1500 lbs. Even with no motor and missing a bunch of parts up front the one I flat towed was able to push the ass of my Jimmy around on sharp corners and wet pavement. It scaled at 3400 lbs, my Jimmy was about 5700 at the time.

Gotta watch the laws in the states you plan to tow through. Some require trailer brakes of some sort if whatever it is weighs more than 3000 lbs.

Rene
 
tRustyK5 said:
Tail lights are easy to hack into. There is a plug at the drivers frame rail at the rear. Run a flat 4 wire trailer harness down the length of the truck and plug into the tailights using spade connectors.
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Really? That easy? Sounds too easy...:thinking:

I'd say it'd be nice to have the tow vehicle outweigh the towed vehicle by at least 1500 lbs. Even with no motor and missing a bunch of parts up front the one I flat towed was able to push the ass of my Jimmy around on sharp corners and wet pavement. It scaled at 3400 lbs, my Jimmy was about 5700 at the time.

Gotta watch the laws in the states you plan to tow through. Some require trailer brakes of some sort if whatever it is weighs more than 3000 lbs.

Rene
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I figure the Yukon and the Jimmy will weigh nearly the same, so I guess I'll go slow...:doah:

Oh, and did you know? a fully loaded 45 foot, 50,000 lb Motorcoach can get pushed around a bit by a 25 ft toy trailer loaded with 10,000 lbs of baggage?:doah:
 
noJeepshere said:
Really? That easy? Sounds too easy...:thinking:

I figure the Yukon and the Jimmy will weigh nearly the same, so I guess I'll go slow...:doah:

Oh, and did you know? a fully loaded 45 foot, 50,000 lb Motorcoach can get pushed around a bit by a 25 ft toy trailer loaded with 10,000 lbs of baggage?:doah:
Click to expand...

Don't forget to check the states you'll be drivng in or through regarding trailer brake laws. If you get pulled over and are found to be over the max weight for no trailer brakes it could be an expensive tow, or possibly a fine.

As for the actual towing, the time to be very careful is any turns that are somewhat sharp. I got pushed around a bit getting onto the freeway in Wichita. Somewhat sharp cloverleaf type of deal and the pavement was very wet.

I can see even a motorcoach get pushed around a little by 12-14,000 lbs. Your set-up has the potential to get pushed around a lot. The nice thing with flat towing a vehicle is there is no worry about trailer sway. On flat straight highway I ran for hours at a time at 75 mph and would regularly forget the damn thing was behind me until I'd glance in the mirror. :haha:

"Hey, who's that asshole tailgating me?"

Yes the tail light hack is really that easy. ;)

Rene
 
I flat tow my sub with a 98 extra cab 2500 it works great only had one pucker moment and that was when i had the 42 on it and hit a turn on the fwy to fast it tried to push the rear of the truck around. On the smaller 33 tow tires never had an issue goes back to kirts have the tow bar flat to ground. I had just got new tires also and did not realise they where a c ratting i switched the front to rear wich where e rating.Never happened again i have towed it a ton of times probably 5 or 6 thousand miles atleast. Its awsome.
 
I have always considered this. I have a 2500 Suburban (1989) with all the towing controllers, etc, and I'd love to flat tow my 84 K30. I can easily deal with the Lighting, and the tow bar part. I can disconnect the Hydraulic Ram assist on the steering, and pull the driveshafts etc. But the only thing I haven't figured out is how to add Auxiliary braking to the towed vehicle.

I looked at these:

http://www.campingworld.com/shopping/product/brakemaster-towed-vehicle-braking-system/2506

Which are nice because they are portable, but my K30 has Hydroboost, so the brakes do squat without the Bigblock running.

Anyone ever built a completely separate trailer only system onto a twoed vehicle? Something like a separate Transfer case brake or something?

I have the trailer, but I would love to not have to have the trailer, because it is a pain to store it, and park it at the trailhead.
 
I dont have any aditional braking on the sub it stops ok it's not to bad i just leave axtra room for insurance. I can tell you that flat towing the burb is alot easier than pulling it on a trailer i have done that once and that was it. With flat towing i can pull it at 70 not a problem and it gets close to the same fuel milage as running with no trailer i usually run 60 to 65, It also pulls easier than my 20ft toy hauler once up to speed you can hardly tell the sub is back there.
My tow vehicle has a 5.7 350 motor and has 233,000 on original tranny and motor so you know its tired.

I tow the sub 300 miles to glamis each way during the winter holidays.
 
I believe that in California it is illegal to tow something as heavy as a Truck without Trailer Brakes, right? I am no expert on the law, but I believe this to be true.
 
Oh ya im for sure it is but if you go the speed limit and have drag lights safty chains i think you will be ok.I have seen numerous trailer in the carpool and fast lane going 70 plus and just get mad because if it where me i would be going to jail. I have been doing this for 3 years now fingers crossed. I did not know about the brake add on thing till reading this thread i might look into it but the 1,000 dollar price tag is hard to swallow. At that rate i think i would get a trailer.
I thought about this previously and would just play dumb and say ill un hook it and drive it from there hopefull that would get me out of the ticket.
 
Yep, its eitehr 3000 or 3500. I would just get one of those pedal pusher boxes that sits on the floor, and be done with it. Might not be cheap, but it woudl be easy, and w/in compliance, regardless of how well it works in practice.
 
dhcomp said:
http://www.readybrake.com/

This is a surge brake setup on the toungue, that ties into vehcile's brakes.....
Click to expand...

This one is very interesting. I watched the video and it is kinda like the pedal pusher, but it just works on a cable that pulls the pedal.

My question is "How well would that actually stop a Truck with Hydro-Boost Brakes?"
 
You can mount and wire an electric vacuum pump they have a pressure switch to turn them on and off so it would not be running the whole time. I think that would work great just put it on a toggle so it works on ignition switch for normal driving and on with the toggle for towing.
 
I just thought of something. Would the vacuum pump allow air into the system when it isnt running? If it does, then a valve would need to be installed to prevent vacuum loss. Otherwise, you could unhook the vacuum line from the engine tothe booster and plug in the pump.
 
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