Posted by Dan Shockley on Thursday, September 11, 2003 at 1:27PM :
In Reply to: Re: I think that this truck is a cool novelty, but ... posted by Marty on Thursday, September 11, 2003 at 12:29PM :
Alright Marty, One point at a time!
Power is cool, but when it comes to towing there is only so much usable power. Now maybe, when you see a towing vehicle you are looking for a vehicle to dominate the Redneck Games mobile home towing drag races, but I use a different set of criteria. I want a vehicle that will pull very reliably over long distances with a very slight chance of breakdown and low cost of ownership. I also want a vehicle that has power!! I need enough that I can get up to speed relatively quickly and once I get there stay there regardless of what hill may come in front of me. You have to keep in mind the GCVW of the vehicle. I am not a stickler for weight ratings. We routinely pull a 26000# stock trailer with our stock 2003 ctd ho. It does a fantastic job. Could it use a little more power, yes? However, the 1999 that it replaces had 90000 miles and always met all of the other criteria, never once breaking down or requiring more than routine maintenance. When I think of the question is there such a thing as too much torque, I think back to a story of a fellow CAT employee. He decided his Ford needed more power; so he dropped is a 3206. The first time his wife drove it, she accidentally popped the clutch and twisted the driveshaft like a pretzel. If you are in excess of the power requirement for the job that you are doing, you are risking the rest of your truck. Towing and drag racing have different requirements (I realize that challenges your way of thinking).
This transmission is not really a concern other than excessive weight.
The transfer case is probably the biggest “weak-link” in this truck. The divorced NP-205 is inferior to the married counter part. You are limited to a smaller input u-joint than what is required for this application. There are other divorced cases that may be up to the job (Rockwell comes to mind), however this is an under matched case. I wouldn’t rather have anything in my truck than the married 205. As for the never stuff, there are some very stout transfer cases offered in current production trucks, so this definitely is not a strength of this truck.
I would rather have the current 4 wheel disc brakes as well. It is a great addition to this truck that he updated the brakes and added four wheel calipers. With the additional power and weight, it was a very necessary addition.
Never run dual lockers in a tow vehicle unless you like to break stuff! Not to mention the safety aspect. Granted, lots of people do it, but when you are already pushing everything, why risk the potential problems. The axles set up as they are, would be fine for daily driving/drag racing, but I don’t feel that they are nearly adequate to meet the long-term durability and maintenance requirements above.
This all brings us to the question of why I don’t feel it is a superior tow vehicle. Look at the gcwr for a ¾ ton Ford. He has done nothing to significantly increase the weight rating, however, he has selected a set of components that have added significant weight. When I think of a weight rating this is how I would rank the concerns. 1) Can it carry the weight down the road with out inducing and adverse handling characteristics? 2) Can it stop the load in a reasonable distance repeatedly and reliably? 3) Does it have enough power? In this case, this truck passes with flying colors on 3, but fails to satisfy my engineering curiosities for 1 and 2. When we first bought our largest trailer, we only had one truck to pull it. It was a D-400 with a 225/6. It passes 1 and 2, but didn’t fare so well on 3. I felt a lot better about that truck than I do about this one.
Again I will say that this guy has done a terrific job of putting together an awesome vehicle. It is no doubt a very capable vehicle with a lot of power potential; it is just not well suited for towing duty.
What would out pull it? If I were towing heavy on a regular basis, I would be tempted to have one of two vehicles. First, a F550 4x4 is about the best mass produced 4x4 towing rig available. Yes it is a ford, but other than the engine lacking a little to be desired it is a great truck. Secondly, I would get an International that had been converted to 4x4 and run a 3406E (600hp-2050 lb-ft). It could be had in crew cab or just about any other configuration imaginable. But, since we are not all made of money, we bought a 2003 ram ctd ho for our intermittent towing requirements. I am not typically a person that sticks strictly to the rules and would get bent out of shape about running a truck a little over weight or would get tied up over liability issues, but you would just be exposing yourself too much to use a vehicle like this for repeated heavy hauling.
Have a great day,
Dan
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