[Gold5th]

I know there's going to be some people who will yell at me....

From a safety stand point, I'll be on back country paved roads with minimal traffic, like the odd farmer. All flat with one 30mph limit down hill. Most of the way is a 65mph limit, but I can do 45-50mph if need be.

It's 62ish miles round trip, so only 30miles loaded, I'd rather not have to make a second trip.

The Truck: 2012 Laramie Crew Cab, 5'7" bed, 5.7L hemi, 3.92 gears, 20" wheels with factory tow pack including brake controller.

The Load: 2 Lifts of 2x4x16 dry econo grade spruce. They didn't have the weight of a 16' lift, but a 14' has a "shipping weight" of 4557lbs. She (the shipping lady at the mill) guessed the 16' lift would be 4775ish, my rough math has it closer to 5230lbs/lift.

The trailer: is a 20' long hydraulic tilt deck.. no idea what it weighs, but empty it pulls easier than my 18' flat deck with no tilt and 1/2 the capacity. The trailer brakes actually work really well, even with 12000lbs on the deck.

All in, I'm speculating 10460 for the wood, 3000ish for the trailer.

The only reason I'm even contemplating doing it is because my 04 Durango towed a 12000lbs tractor on the same trailer, and the D was only rated to tow 8750lbs. (Yes a few of you yelled at me for that already)

So putting the fear of killing and mameing mass amounts of people aside (anywhere I'll be doing more than 30mph I may only see one other vehicle, if I even see that one), could my Ram pull it without shredding a diff or tranny? I have 4 turns of which only 2 have stop signs, no up hills.

 

[NMBowtie]

Yes, your truck can do it. Tongue weight on the trailer will be an issue. Expect to end up in court if you wreck. Lol!

 

[Gold5th]

Tongue weight I can adjust just by shifting the load, so that's easy.

Funny thing, here the laws are stupid, I could put 20K behind my truck and because it's not a commercial vehicle all they can do is ask that I don't do that.

Like I said, there's nobody to mame on the roads I'll be taking, the perks of rural northern Alberta

 

[txwooley]

I think she can handle it. I would keep a close eye on trans and oil temp though.

 

[Shots]

.....So putting the fear of killing and mameing mass amounts of people aside, could my Ram pull it.....

Ha ha. Well, clearly you're already aware of the risk, and are willing to give it a shot. Soooooo...

I think she can handle it. I would keep a close eye on trans and oil temp though.

I also wonder about the how steep that down hill section is. Can the brakes handle it? I'd certainly hate to have the brakes get hot, fade out, and have 13,460 lbs chasing me down the hill.

Capability wise though. Per Dodge, you've got a 9,800 lbs tow capacity with your configuration ↓ http://www.ramtrucks.com/en/towing_guide/pdf/RAM.1500.Towing.Specs.pdf

That load is roughly 37% heavier than the truck is rated for. I would think it's capable of hauling it, but I wouldn't want to risk my transmission to find out.

 

[Gold5th]

With the risk factor, if it were unfamiliar roads, or higher traffic roads, a much longer journey, then I wouldn't even attempt it. If on my way to pick up the load there's actual traffic, i'll only grab one lift at a time. I totally understand that too many people overload and drive like empty, those are the guys who crash and kill families of crippled orphans. I could take a high traffic highway to get home, but instead I'm taking the 0 traffic back roads, and I'm willing to drive slower, and should shit hit the fan, I'm prepared to hit the ditch at speed instead of the minivan that stopped for the spider crossing the road.

With the brakes, I watched a video a while back where they max out the truck trailer wise, and time how long it takes to get to the top of some mountain pass going WOT just to stay close to the speed limit, then when they get down they measure the brake temps.. and the Ram brakes ran HOT!, they didn't have the brake controller set properly so the truck was doing all of the braking, so they did it again after setting the brake controller and the brakes were still twice as hot as the competitor truck they were testing (Can't remember what it was Ford/Chev/Toy...). The hill is fairly steep, but it's short 1/4mile-ish, with a 1/2mile flat run before any traffic lights, the brakes on the trailer are more than up to the task, I plan to crank them up for the down hill even if I end up hauling 1 lift at a time.

I plan to park my truck on the scale, have them put 1 lift on see how much it weighs. Math wise based off what I've been told locally is the 10412lbs (1.74lbs/ft), but googlefu says 2x6's are about 2lbs/ft which would put me at 13400+trailer in which case I won't do 2 lifts.

As to the transmission, people keep saying that the "6spd" in my ram is the same as the "5spd" that was in my Durango, and the Durango took 16000lbs like a champ, even had to pull out of a ditch after loading the tractor.. used 4 lo for that And I had a long up hill grade that I was pretty much wot all the way up just to maintain 25mph. But yeah, I'll keep the evic on the trans temp screen. I may hook my Bully up and set a few gauges up.



I think that makes sense... typing in the seconds between work..

 

[Shots]

....., I'm prepared to hit the ditch at speed instead of the minivan that stopped for the spider crossing the road...

:thatfunny Ha ha.

And yeah, that all made sense. I think as long as you take it slow/easy, and the trailer brakes are set/working properly you shouldn't break anything. Unless of course you've got to take that ditch, but that's a whole different kind of breaking things.

 

[Gold5th]

It's just fun typing replies 3 words at a time, waiting 10min to type another 3 words Then quickly scanning to make sure it's English before clicking post

 

[Gold5th]

Ok, so I did it. Nobody was hurt or died

Trans temp never peaked past 176F, until I was in 4lo with the trailer tilted dragging the load off, then it only hit 181.4F
Coolant never hit above 203f
Oil peaked at 213.8F

In retrospect I should have changed the brake controller to heavy electric from light electric. Going down the hill I decided to I put the truck in 2nd, and just use the manual over ride on the trailer brakes.

It's hard to get the yard guy to load perfectly where you want it, I managed to get him to offset the load so I could tilt the deck and drag it off, yet still have some tongue weight, even so I was a bit tongue light, anything above 51mph and the trailer started to wag, nothing out of control, didn't even feel it in the truck, but could see it in the mirrors, So I did 45mph on cruise control, even turned off tow on the really flat sections and it kicked into eco mode a few times. Over all I averaged 15mpg while loaded... not bad

 

[Shots]

Nice. Glad to hear it went smoothly.

 

[jet133]

Ok, so I did it. Nobody was hurt or died.

I suspect the trailer groaned more than the Dodge did. Seen lots of Dodge half tons pulling loads like that in these parts.