Towing with the 6.2/6.5

[More Power]

As a way of introducing three of our towing forum moderators, we're re-running three short stories they originally authored in 1999. These guys are the experts.

Towing with the 6.5L Turbo Diesel K3500
http://www.thedieselpage.com/members/features/bradford.htm
By Denny Bradford (Inspector)

Towing with the 6.2L Banks Turbo Diesel
http://www.thedieselpage.com/members/features/howie.htm
By Howie Eldridge (Howie)

Towing with the 6.5L Turbo Diesel Suburban
http://www.thedieselpage.com/members/features/mccauley.htm
By Tom McCauley, Sr. (tanker)

[bob]

Those were great stories all we need know is some one with a duramax to step up to the plate!

[markrinker]

I tow an 18' flatbed trailer, mostly to haul an 8,000# Case skidsteer to jobsites. Combined weight truck/trailer/skidder is around 17,000#.

My habit is to tow in 'Drive' rather than 'Overdrive', mostly based on experiences with gasoline engines and tranny combos that weren't up to the task and cost me thousands in tranny repair.

Is the diesel version of the 4L80 improved in the overdrive unit over its gasoline prepped counterpart?

[rjschoolcraft]

Any 4L80E should be capable of towing in overdrive. The older 700R4's had a bad reputation for failing under those conditions. I tow in OD all the time. My Dad has a P Chassis motorhome with a 454 gas and 4L80E in it. The motorhome weighs over 18,000 lbs. by itself. He runs in OD all of the time. My 4L80E has over 187,000 miles on it and has never had a hiccup. 60,000 to 70,000 of the miles (estimate) have been towing heavy in OD.

[Turbine Doc]

Mark,
I had my clutches upgraded to HD just for extra comfort zone, but my tranny rebuilder says stock 4L80 okay to tow in OD as long as it does not get hot, heat kills trannys as well as engines.

For more comfort you might want to look at a deeper pan that adds passive cooling from fins and extra cap http://www.yourcovers.com/ similar to Mag-Tec but lower cost.

Also consider additional cooler I mounted a thermostat controlled remote elec fan under the bed I got at Summit rated to 25K cap. Never had hi-temps my max haul to date 18,700 GVW.