GCWR of 20,000 plus

[Bulldogger]

Who tows with a dually with a combined weight of 20,000lbs or more and how does the truck pull a 7% grade? I'm curious because my wife decided on a new 37ft fifth wheel with a dry weight of 12,000lbs. I'm running the juice and I am curious if I will now become one of those people who pulls in the right hand lane up hill maxed out at 40mph. You know the ones I used to look at and smile and say thank god I don't have to go that slow. Thanks Dave

[bearman]

You will pull it just fine, Just watch your EGT's. My GCVW is 25000 +
Cheers
Bear

[Applecore]

We travel to washington state from Minnesota, We pull Pipestone Pass, Lookout Pass 4th of July Pass, Vantage "Hill" which is an 11 mile5-6% grade out of the Columbia river Gorge.WE DON'T PULL IN THE RIGHT LANE
We have a 37' 5er, 20,000# plus Juice in level 2 and watch the EGT.,stay under 1250

[David Utz]

I don't have a dually, but I do pull about 21,000 GCWR. 2500HD, D/A, CC, LB, pulling a 33 foot Travel Supreme with two slides (11,900 lbs dry). Took it to the Rendezvous in Missoula this summer and came back through Yellowstone. No mods or chips. I could pull a 6% at 55 to 65. An 8% would sometimes drop me to 50 or just below. The only times I would get any slower is when I had to slow for other traffic. I was doing 75 on I-70 comming back across Kansas with a 20 mph head wind. (boy did that drop the fuel milage - 7.85mpg.) Averaged 10.9 mpg for the 5,500 mile trip with a 20.59 mpg driving solo around Yellowstone at 45 mph. I never felt the need for more power.

[Kennedy]

To date, the heaviest/hardest thing that I pulled was this 17k stack of trailers 13'2" in the air. This was in the "pre-pulse" days when all we had was pressure type boxes! It pulled just fine up to about 45 mph, but anything above that took a little coaxing. If you've never experienced a load like this, you probably don't want to. My mpg was 6.8 and 7.5 for the loaded part of this trip from Dell Rapids SD across MN to Loyal.
The wind gets ahold of every corner, and in between the trailers making it pull harder than a full van body as you never get a good "slip stream" going...

http://www.kennedydiesel.com/photogal/images/Trailer%20stack.jpg

[Rick T]

I pull a large horse trailer at a GCVW of 21,000+ frequently. Slowest I've seen is 45-50 on the steepest grades (probably 7% or so). ON these grades I might be in 3rd vs. 4th gear (Allison) and with just a bit more hp or shift in the torque/hp curve I could easily work up the grade at 60+. My truck is absolutely stock and I'm very content with this performance as the time difference means little to me. Performance upgrades are interesting, but trailering horses my no. 1 priority is reliability and not having to watch EGT's. Having said that and enjoyed this Forum for 3 years I see no evidence that the modest performance gains used to assist towing do anything to decrease reliability.

Rick T

[wushaw]

My GCWR on my last trip was 23320 and the only mountain pass I went up/down was Slumgullion pass on 149 going to Lake City Colorado and it is 7% for about 11 miles with switchbacks 15mph curves and trying to keep it at 30-35mph was a chore going down, tranny temp hit 230. Then when I went back up there was no head start you start out going slow and I had to pull off twice to let things cool down, eng temp @230 and the same on tranny, I was just trying to maintain 20-25mph.

[CanadaKev]

Dave,

With da juice you'll be able to accelerate on a 7% grade with only a 20,000 lb GCVW. Absolutely no problem!
I pull an 18% grade @ 27,000GCVW. Now that's a hill!!

Kev

[sdaver]

GREAT WIND RESISTANCE........ :D

[ 09-23-2003, 05:07 PM: Message edited by: sdaver ]