Setup the Fury for towing

[mgm1986]

1968 Fury III w/318 and without the factory tow package. After reading through several posts, google search results and my FSM, I wanted to get your input. What MUST be done to safely tow a trailer? I read through the Vintage Trailer thread and it seems the car is fully capable, just not in her current state.

I believe I would need:

Power brakes with front discs
Trans cooler
Tow hitch
Hookup for electric trailer brakes

Not sure if I need:
Different gearing
Upgraded suspension
Rear auto leveling airbags (Really nice to have)


What do you all think? Pro's? Con's?

 

[tallhair]

What are you going to tow? If a car on car trailer add a 360 and rear air bags should move up to the top list .. really great for leveling and handling the tongue weight. Also all the brake upgrades you mention around the hills in Penn.

360
Power brakes with front discs
Trans cooler
Tow hitch
Hookup for electric trailer brakes
airbags

If just a utility trailer with a lawnmower or snow mobiles or 4 wheelers, or a small travel trailer you're probably set with a hitch and trailer brakes.

If on hills a lot

Power brakes with front discs
Trans cooler
Tow hitch
Hookup for electric trailer brakes

Heavier duty rear leafs wouldn't hurt either way. I'm assuming a 2.76 or 2.94 gear already and that's fine .. except maybe on the hills then 3.23 would help out

 

[mgm1986]

Good question, my intent would be to tow a travel trailer, maybe 18-20', so I can travel the country. Even better would be a trailer circa 1968!

So you think a 360 is a must have ? I thought the 318 was powerful enough to tow with. I was thinking a refresh of the stock motor with a few upgrades to get more torque. I like the idea of the 318 because of the gas mileage although I would imagine towing makes the two comparable in MPG.

 

[tallhair]

The 318 will work but If you are going to pull the engine and rebuild anyway I'd try to score a 360 if staying small block and do your mods/rebuild to it. A 318 will pull but has less torque than a 360 due to the shorter stroke for the 273/318/340 engines but could be built to have the power of a 360. However the 360 would have more torque than the 318 with the same rebuild for towing due to longer stroke. Torque is what you need for towing or performance on the street for that matter.

360 2 bbl motors actually get pretty good mileage in C bodies due too less effort for the 360 to move the weight.

Oh and at first I thought you were in Pittsburg, hence the ref to Pennsylvania but since you are going to travel the country with that big of travel trailer the 360 would be the better setup for overall ease of towing and mileage in my opinion. If the 318 is OK and you are just going to freshen it up the top end and cam in the car go ahead.

My 318 Durango pulls a 22 foot steel floor car hauler and a b body fine esp on level or levelish roads around here in Illinois but it has a 3.92 rear gear.

 

[bajajoaquin]

I'd say that the thing you really need is a trans cooler. I say that in the sense of what additional load are you putting on your car, and how do you keep that from doing damage?

Second, power brake controller. Make sure that the trailer has brakes or retrofit them. It's a different circumstance, but I had a 37' diesel pusher motorhome (GVW 36000) and a 7500 pound trailer. I didn't realize that the brakes on the trailer were not operable, and used the combination to go over a significant grade. That was extremely nervous-making. Good trailer brakes in good condition are an important part of the equation. As is proper loading of the trailer.

Next, I'd go down a step in gears. If you're 2.94, go to 3.23. If you're 3.23, that probably works. It's going to mean that you either driver slower without the trailer, or get worse gas mileage, but the car will also feel livlier, so you pays your money... and all that.

Power brakes, air bags (or simple helper springs), are nice, but they're more to make it easier, not to reduce wear and tear. If you want to drive the country, you're not in a hurry. If you're looking at a 2500lb trailer (a small older canned ham, for instance, you should only have a tongue weight of 250lb. That will make your car sag, but not drag. If it is, your trailer isn't loaded properly, and you should fix that, not just jack up the back end of the car.

I'm not saying don't do power brakes or power disks. But if you look at the car/trailer combination as a system, you want to make sure that the drivetrain doesn't wear prematurely, and you want to make sure the trailer is a properly-configured part of it.

 

[bluefury361]

Good question, my intent would be to tow a travel trailer, maybe 18-20', so I can travel the country. Even better would be a trailer circa 1968!QUOTE]

I'm currently doing the same thing with my 69 300. I've got a 17' Jayco pop up that i'll be using to get my feet wet with the camping thing. Maybe a vintage unit later.

The 440 will provide plenty of power, although I think your 318 would be OK also. You'll be able to enjoy the senery longer.
Disc brakes should be a must have. espically in hilly areas.
Trailer brakes will be helpful. You might look into a "surge" brake setup. It has a master cylinder built into the trailers hitch that will apply the hydraulic brakes according to the rate of slowing. Less trouble prone then the electric setup.

I'm not a big fan of air shocks, A better choice would be coil assisted shocks, or a set of variable rate shocks. The touge weight on a small camper will be minimal.

A good trans cooler is manditory.

I'm designing a class III hitch that I can remove when not towing. The mount brackets will be permanent, (bolted on), but I want to be able to unpin and remove the hitch.

I upgraded from a 2:92 open diff to a 3:23 sure grip. But the 2:92 should work fine.

 

[mgm1986]

All great info and good points around. Sticking with the 318 is my plan for now although I am not ruling out a 360 yet. Probably harder to find the 360 hood ornament than the engine itself! I love the idea of a removable hitch, i would be interested in learning more about that.

As far as the rear goes, how can I check what I currently have if I can't tell from the fender tag?

 

[tallhair]

All great info and good points around. Sticking with the 318 is my plan for now although I am not ruling out a 360 yet. Probably harder to find the 360 hood ornament than the engine itself! I love the idea of a removable hitch, i would be interested in learning more about that.

As far as the rear goes, how can I check what I currently have if I can't tell from the fender tag?

You are probably pretty safe in assuming it's a 2.76 but maybe not

Might still have the tag on the rear end nuts holding the chuck in, you could jack it up and rotate wheels and see how many times the drive-shaft turns (can't recall if that works for autos) , if you have a tach you could drive a steady speed and compare the RPM to one of the online tools that tell you all kinds of things. I'll post a link later

You could pull the diff out and see what's stamped in the ring gear, and you could pull the speedo gear and tell us the color / how many teeth, probably something i'm forgetting

It is a 8 3/4 rear right?

 

[tallhair]

Here it is .. the needle's a little off so look at the digital number for RPMs

Lot's of adjustments in this tool

http://vexer.com/automotive-tools/speed-rpm-calculator

 

[mgm1986]

That is awesome, thank you! Now I wish I had a tach! I will try to crawl under and look for a tag. I do not know what size the rear is, still learning a lot about the car. I think the speedo gear might be the quickest for me to check although I believe the rear is weeping a little bit so maybe I will check the stamp on the gear when I pull it apart. I'd like to know before I tear anything apart though so I can source a new one if need be. Or maybe I just bite the bullet and install a tach which I would love to have just don't like the idea of screwing in aftermarket stuff in the interior.

 

[tallhair]

Mount it to the column with a big screw clamp

 

[mgm1986]

Mount it to the column with a big screw clamp

Good call, thank you!

 

[tallhair]

Welcome and btw folks you can change any number in those gray fields

 

[polara71]

My 70 has the HD towing package from the factory code A35 .... no trans cooler

 

[mgm1986]

My 70 has the HD towing package from the factory code A35 .... no trans cooler View attachment 29416

Wow, that is a great picture! What engine does it have?

 

[Big_John]

I've actually done some towing with Furys and Chryslers. I used to tow my race car and trailer all over the place.

Trailer brakes.... Buy a Tekonsha Prodigy controller. I use one in my Ford Excursion and love it. Surge brakes are liked by some, but IMHO, they can be problematic and expensive. You also can't back up without getting out and putting a pin in the trailer and you can't apply the trailer brakes themselves. You may want to do that to straighten the trailer out.

Helper springs/air shocks/coil over shocks... Never used them myself. If you are towing a heavy trailer, you'll want to use a weight distributing hitch system. If you really feel the need, air shocks are OK, but don't use then as a band-aid to weak springs.

Trans cooler.... Good idea, just plumb it correctly so you don't have leaks.

Disc brakes.... Another good idea, but I put thousands of miles on drum brake tow cars. The electric trailer brakes and controller are key here. BTW, brakes on ALL axles of the trailer.

Hitch... A class 3 hitch with the weight distribution spring bars. They used to make them for C-bodies, but I haven't seen one in years. Make sure the frame area it bolts (bolts, not welds) to is solid.

Engine and gear ratio... It going to depend on the weight you're towing, but a 318 will probably be OK. 440 is better, but try the 318 first. I always used 3.23 gears myself, but try what's there first. You may be OK.

This will illustrate just how well the weight distributing hitch works.

 

[polara71]

Wow, that is a great picture! What engine does it have?

383 2 barrel, the photo is from 1971......... the boat is a 16 footer

 

[saylor]

any recommended hitch?

any out there that bolt on or is this gonna take some drilling on the frame?

- saylor

 

[bluefury361]

any recommended hitch?

any out there that bolt on or is this gonna take some drilling on the frame?

- saylor

Do a search here for "hitch's". there are a couple good threads that have been posted with pictures. Mine is one. I built my hitch to mount without any drilling into the car, and it's removeable. I tow a 19', 3500 lb vintage trailer with it.

 

[polara71]

Polara71, do you still have the boat?

Funny you should ask that.... The photo was from 71 , when the original owner had the car. Since this threads origination I had a verbal deal to buy the boat with the original owner, two months later, she passed.
Best of my knowledge the boat is still in her garage. It's bigger than a 16 as I discovered when I went out to visit, July last. I wanted the boat to reunite with the car, not that I'd use it but it was pretty and it would be a nice addition.