Vexing towing problem

[James150]

That would pull the truck doing the winching right down the hill. Seen it done a few times with wreckers and such at the boat ramp. In this case the only thing you can do is chain it off to a tree or a few more trucks.

There is no way a truck weighing 7,000# with a winch is going to pull a 7,000# truck and a 14,000# trailer up a hill on gravel while staying still.

Chris

I wish the trailer was 7,000#, it weighs 12,500# PLUS the truck. Based on my 2200 mile trip here (just completed) there is NO WAY my truck is getting this thing up that driveway. Even if It were paved I don't think the 2WD has enough traction, even with 2600# on the pin. And that is BEFORE addressing the other issues.. .I'm off to talk to the dozer guy (closest to site) and then the mobile home movers if he can't do it.

Jim

 

[Diamondpilot]

I wish the trailer was 7,000#, it weighs 12,500# PLUS the truck. Based on my 2200 mile trip here (just completed) there is NO WAY my truck is getting this thing up that driveway. Even if It were paved I don't think the 2WD has enough traction, even with 2600# on the pin. And that is BEFORE addressing the other issues.. .I'm off to talk to the dozer guy (closest to site) and then the mobile home movers if he can't do it.

Jim

I said the trailer was 14,000# allowing for stuff in the camper.

Chris

 

[James150]

I said the trailer was 14,000# allowing for stuff in the camper.

Chris

so you did, you'd think I could read by now . . .sorry . . .

jim

 

[Soundguy]

no foul.. threads gone on long.. we all miss things.

 

[QRTRHRS]

Late sixties, early seventies, I was working for an excavating contractor. Pre zoning in the area, the project was a development selling "campsites". At first it was just tents and small RV trailers, etc. Then, people wanted to bring in mobile homes. Mostly out of the "city", trees were considered sacred so the customers wanted these boxes shoehorned in any way possible.

Mostly, the toter's could only drop them on the dirt roads by the site. We usually hooked up an old D2 and once in awhile the D6 to pull them in. To weave in around the trees and such, we would pull them sideways with a track loader.

At first, we would put greased plywood under the wheels to slide them on. That took time and time is money so eventually, we would just drag them on the ground. Sometimes the tires would pop, sometimes not.

I recall one setup where we advised the owner to take down this tree because it was rather "decrepid". Against our advise, he had us put his trailer right next to the tree. After a few wind storms blew branches onto his trailer roof, he asked us for a price to cut it down.

His brother-in-law advised him that he would do it for free. On the fatal day that the bro-in-law did the deed, the owner came driving up the road where he had heard us working asking for help. Seems the tree had gone the wrong way, cantalevered on the close by trailer wall then literally flattened the other side.

Anyway, our last property had a pretty nasty hill. We owned that land for ten years and I spent a good portion of that time fixing the driveway after a storm. The first thing the new owner did was have a contractor rebuild the drive for a small fortune. First hard rain, all that fine work washed down the hill.

 

[James150]

I'm looking for suggestions for a vexing towing problem

I have a 1995 Ford F350 Single rear wheel, 4X2 7.3 Diesel that I use to tow my 1996 Holiday Rambler 32 camper trailer. Trailer weighs about 12,500 loaded.

The truck is 2 wheel drive with about 150,000 miles, new tires and runs great. I am taking my trailer to my new home site in the mountains of SE Arizona where the builder has excavated a place for it with electric and water hookups so I can live there while they build my house.

My problem is access, getting my heavy big trailer up a narrow, steep gravel road (1/4 mile) that is a bit rutted with a few small washouts and then up my short (160? but very, very steep soft gravel driveway.

The drive is the steepest one I have ever seen. When you first turn into it and go up you cannot see anything over the hood but the sky. After a few white knuckle seconds (with tires slightly slipping) you pop up into the yard where we are building the house.

I plan to re-grade the drive and make it concrete once the house is done but for now it is staying gravel. The driveway is so steep that the standard rear-unload concrete trucks had to back up in order not to spill their load when they poured the foundation.

The other problem is that there is no place to turn around my trailer except at the top of my driveway where I need to park it. No margin for error along the way up if I were to lose traction or get stuck. I can't imagine that backing back down is a good option either.

My plan all along was to get the trailer up to the house site and live in it. The problem dawned on me when I saw that the excavator with the backhoe and skid steer parked their smaller double axel trailers at the bottom of the first hill and driven their equipment up to the site rather than tow it up and parking it. If they don't think itｴs a good idea to drive up, how am I ever going to get my camper up there?

When I saw that I figured out that my 2 X 4 truck probably would not make it up the road and drive with the trailer. I thought I might add a 4 X 4 truck in front of my truck and chain the two together but I'm not sure even that would be enough traction and it would be really tight space-wise up at the top.

So, I'm looking for suggestions, a Chinook helicopter probably could get the trailer up there but I don't have any available.

Thoughts?

Jim

Here is the rest of the story:

Old truck and old Holiday Rambler 5th Wheel made it from the Midwest to Arizona (2500 miles) NO PROBLEMS!

This Ford 7.3 truck had not been run more than 300 miles at one time in 10 years. It ran better and better as the days and miles passed. I was worried about the old 5th Wheel (new tires, brakes, bearings, I'm no fool!) but it rolled right along with NO PROBLEMS.

The fuel economy was nothing to write home about (10 into a stiff headwind, 12 with less wind) all at 59MPH. I later found out my wife slipped a few things into the camper and my combined weight was 19,000#. That probably accounts for the low MPGs.

The problems started when I got to AZ. I took a week at the local campground ($165) go get my feet on the ground and scout out the treacherous ascent to my new house.

Turns out the heavy trucks have firmed up the sloppy driveway pretty good however the turn/ascent at the bottom of the short steep drive is WAY too sharp/steep for my truck (or any truck with a standard bed and 5th wheel hitch) to negotiate.

Also the nice place they excavated for my trailer was now occupied by a trash dumpster and HUGE pile of framing cutoffs. No way was there any room for my camper. If I could have gotten it up there the trip DOWN would have been a roller-coaster ride.

So, My solution:

Stay in the local campground ($460/mo, everything included) and look up at my new house on the hill every day as they build it.

I even parked the truck and used the Rokon to commute up there. That thing had no trouble at all getting to the house.

So, for those of you wondering, I found a place to store the camper when I'm not here ($1/day, secure storage) and I did not wreck anything or have anything expensive break! I call that a success!

Thanks to all who posted their expertise and suggestions.

Regards,

Jim

 

[rambler]

So - when the house is done, how you going to get to it, have friends over with no parking room, etc.? Just seems like a very troubling location to put a house.

Here in icey Minnesota, I see some driveways like that, and just wonder what people are thinking? Might work in summer, but in winter.... Often see those houses for sale often, as people get sick of the issues, no matter how nice the view.

Enjoyed the thread, don't mean to be a wet blanket, sounds like you have an exciting project going & best luck with it.

--->Paul

 

[Gary Fowler]

To each their own, but I wouldnt want a driveway that steep or angled so that I couldnt bring a trailer into the property. I would have to make a much wider driveway from the road. Steep without ice I guess would be ok as long as you could pull in at trailer without dragging the rear end off it. Hopefully the OP can fix those situation later. I had just a small steep section on my drive and I had it filled in with crushed stone and graded out so I wouldnt spin the wheels when going up even if stopped and restarting and it wasnt anything like the description on this thead.
This is what I consider too steep. The drive was originally same slope as the dirt but I hauled in some fill and decreased the slope as shown in the gravelled drive. It is a bit steeper than the photo appears, That is about a 5-6 foot drop in elevation over 40 feet now whereas it was about 6' drop in 20 feet distance. I wouldnt want to be going in and out of anything any steeper than that pulling a long trailer. A 12 footer would drag on mine previously to my remodeling it.

 

[Soundguy]

good turn of events!

 

[Diamondpilot]

Glad you got it there. I have a friend who's uncle has a place like yours. You are only getting up in a 4x4 truck or AWD car no matter what the season. Privacy can be nice.


Chris

 

[jeffsw6]

UPS, FedEx, etc. don't deliver to me when there is snow. I would hate for my driveway to be so treacherous that they don't deliver at all!

 

[James150]

So - when the house is done, how you going to get to it, have friends over with no parking room, etc.? Just seems like a very troubling location to put a house.

Here in icey Minnesota, I see some driveways like that, and just wonder what people are thinking? Might work in summer, but in winter.... Often see those houses for sale often, as people get sick of the issues, no matter how nice the view.

Enjoyed the thread, don't mean to be a wet blanket, sounds like you have an exciting project going & best luck with it.

--->Paul

Having come from Icy Wisconsin I can sympathize with the snow issue.
In AZ we get snow only occasionally (maybe once every other year) and it melts within hours. So snow and ice are not a problem on the driveway. Once the house is done there will be plenty of room for parking, my barn etc, it's just that right now they have plies of cutoffs and huge pallets of lumber, beams and concrete block all over the place.

The reason we bought this land is that it is the perfect lot for a net zero energy house, that is a house that use the sun to heat and cool itself and provide all it's own power and water. The lot slopes gently south and east and west (sort of like a peninsula). We get 100% sun exposure for the passive solar and array of solar panels. We also get good slope so the gray water (sinks, showers, clothes washer etc) can run downhill to irrigate the gardens.

We also have good slope so that the rainwater from the roofs can run downhill to the rainwater storage tank (and then be pumped back to the house for use) We got the land fairly inexpensively because it was on a dirt road and would take effort to get a driveway in.

The big trucks on the driveway every day have packed it down very well and we will put in a hard surface once the house is done. Then any car can get to the house (as they can now, it was just a problem when they first made the drive and it was soft).

Oh yeah, I'm reminded the other reason we bought this land every time a contractor comes up for the first time . . .they get out of their truck and usually say something like: 'Holy S**t! look at those mountains!" Then they spend 10 minutes marveling at the amazing mountain views for 300 degrees around.

Jim

 

[dodge man]

Well, now you did it, I want pictures.

 

[James150]

Well, now you did it, I want pictures.

Here are a few, two from the distance, one makes it look small, one big. Then there is the view. If it looks good in pictures, it's 10 times better in person.

Jim

 

[James150]

Here are a few, two from the distance, one makes it look small, one big. Then there is the view. If it looks good in pictures, it's 10 times better in person.

Jim

Here's a few more of the views. East, then Southeast and then South and southwest.

Jim

The second last one shows where I am going to build my walled gardens, lots of tractor seat time there!!

Jim

 

[Marveltone]

Very nice! Great views everywhere, like you said. Makes me miss the southwest.

Can't wait to see pics of the finished place.

Joe

 

[dodge man]

All I can say is WOW! It looks like its going to be your dream house and your are correct, the views look great. I didn't see exactly what the driveway looks like, but it will be well worth it. Show us some more pictures as the house get built.