Tell me why I should NOT make this my tow vehicle

yeah, short wheelbase plus SRW plus long overhang probably make it suck balls.

Mike924 said:

Toyman:  You make a great case for these older RV's.

I've towed with a lot of things over the last 35 years. Hauled 1500 pound trailer loads of firewood behind a Corolla. 10K pounds of shrimp boat stabilizers400 miles behind a I6 F150. Race car and trailer behind a Cherokee. 12K#, 35' camper behind a 90s Ford. I've even pulled a 16' flat bed trailer full of kids with my Samurai. It's almost never the tow rig that makes towing unsafe, it's the driver. 

If you want to run with traffic down the interstate loaded to the gills at 80, that's not the rig to do it with. If you want to run a couple of hours to the local track for the weekend and are willing to run the back roads at 55 or run 60-65 on the interstate with the big trucks instead of 80 with everyone else, it will do the job just fine with a few precautions. 

Toyman01 said:

\willing to run the back roads at 55 or run 60-65 on the interstate with the big trucks instead of 80 with everyone else, it will do the job just fine with a few precautions. 

 

 

Even when I am towing my little 300# 14 foot sailboat, I stay at around 65 mph. The Disco barely notices the trailer and boat are there, but it's everyone else I worry about and even that little bit of speed reduction can give you more chances to save a problem

You have no place to store it?  there is your answer.

I've owned big block and small block tow rigs as well as diesels.

I'll never buy one with the smaller engine option again. The fuel burn on a 460 vs a 300 doing the same job was negligible and having the extra power on tap was always welcome.

I hate vans, vans were created to punish mechanics. Nothing worse than trying to service the engine in a van.

It will eat exhaust manifolds. Poor airflow in vans combined with heavy loads from towing will destroy them. Put a good set of header on it the first time you crack a manifold and never worry about it again.

noddaz said:

A little creativity (ok, maybe a lot) with a sawzall and a welder and you have a ramp truck with an air-conditioned sleeper.

A few times every year I kick myself for not buying this-

Cooter said:

noddaz said:

A little creativity (ok, maybe a lot) with a sawzall and a welder and you have a ramp truck with an air-conditioned sleeper.

A few times every year I kick myself for not buying this-

$2,000? As well you should!

Cooter said:

noddaz said:

A little creativity (ok, maybe a lot) with a sawzall and a welder and you have a ramp truck with an air-conditioned sleeper.

A few times every year I kick myself for not buying this-

That would be sweet for a dirt late model etc

Floating Doc said:

 

$2,000? As well you should!

It was 2011.  I had been out of work for over 2 years, and my health was still in question, as my cancer treatments were still happening.

Mike924 said:

irish44j said:

If you want us to comment on the prospective tow rig, you're gonna have to move that camper-van out of the way. I assume the tow rig is stashed in that garage?

PS - that's a neat camper-van, though not sure what it has to do with the tow rig question. 

Tow rig right now, is No tow rig. I drive to and from the track.  Drive the car on the track, and if need then use my fathers Dodge and trailer to get the car home.  I was looking to see if this Camper Conversion was a possibility to use for towing my 944 with an open trailer on the back.  So really, just looking to know if this is a good thing to be "Given" from my in-laws or throw it up on the For Sale boards.  LOL

lol, I was being facetious, just in case it didn't come through.

it was just a tongue-in-cheek way of saying "that's not a tow rig, and don't put yourself and others in an unsafe situation trying to make it one." I know this place has its way of enabling questionable things in many cases, and you will get guys saying "looks like a great idea and I used to use a Geo Metro to tow my Chevelle on a 20'  single axle trailer with bald tires" 

But the reality is, while anything can physically tow if you go slow enough, towing with something that sucks at towing makes for a E36 M3ty race weekend and E36 M3ty, exhausting travel. 

the camper actually is pretty neat. It's just not neat for towing anything with safely. If you can't keep it for other purposes, sell it to someone who wants to use it for something other than towing. Then go buy a more modern (anything) for towing. I'm not saying F250 or anything crazy. pretty much any pickup or SUV made in the last 20 years would be massively superior to this camper at towing. 

Here's my take on that little motorhome.

It is lovely, but it is already overloaded.  For years I towed a boat with a monster 26' class C.  It was a dually built on an Econoline with a 460.  Aside from being very slow, the long wheelbase made the towing a breeze.

What you have there is more or less a bone-stock 3/4 ton van with a crap-load of weight on it.  I'm sure it is built with heavier springs and E-range tires like a 1-ton or better, but the SRW will be tough to get enough tire under it to support the weight of the box and the tongue weight... especially with the tongue being so far behind the axle.

It certainly won't be ideal, but the basic recipe is there.  It is most likely a P/G hybrid frame (basically a G-van from the cab forward and a P-van from the cab back).  That means it probably has a 14-bolt rear in either 9.5" SF or 10.5" FF variants.  Both are great axles.  I'm sure its a TH400, unless it is new enough to be a 4L80E (doesn't look like it), but either one is darned bulletproof.

If I were doing it, I would eject the box, chop off the frame right behind the leaf spring mounts, build an 8' flatbed for it, and throw some Vortec heads and a cam at it.

Oh, heck.... just noticed you're in Ottawa.  Potentially simple solution.  If you head pretty much anywhere west... Sharbot Lake, Perth, Lake country, Frontenac county, Lanark county... you'll find tons of properties who would love to have the box.  Heck, my best buddy lives about 15 clicks from Sharbot and he lives on a stretch of road that is mostly trailers, motorhomes, etc.  I'd bet you can find someone who needs a hunting camp and you could sell or give them the box and they can set it on blocks and cover the hole in the front with plywood and a sheet of plastic.

I can give you a contact number for a guy who is all about doing things like that.  He knows everyone out there and he could find someone to take the box off your hands leaving you a bare chassis that would be a great tow rig.

As far as covering the back of your cab, you could fab up something, or look to a commercial truck junkyard.  Plenty of van chassis that were used as box trucks that have a rear wall.  Like this:

Then build yourself something like this and you're into the ultimate utility machine:

Guys, I might be mistaken but I'm pretty sure the whole point of towing to the track with the camper was sleeping in it at the track. A pickup bed or flat bed, while certainly better for towing, doesn't make for a very good nights sleep. 

In reply to Toyman01 :

#IJS

what if...weld another axle on behind the body, cover with fenders, build steps and a small porch on top of that...beef up motor, reinforce frame, and have 6-wheel party towing van?

drawing not to scale:

In reply to Toyman01 :

I agree having a camper is handy I would just want a bit more wheelbase or less overhang than the one pictured.

You can get a pretty silly amount of load rating in a trailer tire. If you're not going fast anyway I'd personally be willing to do that on the back of the RV.

This is some serious bench racing of bandaiding, though.

https://www.etrailer.com/question-158513.html

Mike924 said:

 Well, after their first real trip together down a highway, it was blown all over the place, and kind of scared my mother-in-law, bringing their marriage to the edge.    

 

Have you ever noticed how most van-based RV's with big boxes on the back (a Class C) have dually rear wheels?  And how the only single rear wheel examples are pretty old? Well, there's a reason for that... 

Did Finnegan already buy up all the old ramp trucks nationwide ? Sounds like that's what you want. Unless you're towing a racecar for ants. 

We have a mini stock racer here that sometimes uses his toy hauler for his race car.

Any way you look at it, step one is checking the current weight vs capacity.  The voices saying its probably already pretty much there sound right to me. 

\

Then you have a lot of frame work to make it happen.

While it sounds awesome, and I'm sure the juice is delicious, its just not worth the squeeze in this case. 

I have done a lot of towing with various tow vehicles. Most of it was with a similarly sized 20' '78 Minnie Winnie motorhome, with a 400 big block Dodge. Never really had any problems with the towing, but I didn't run over the speed limit (or always maintain speed up-hill). Gas mileage would sometimes approach 8mpg if running with a light foot. Towed a CRX racecar to various East Coast tracks, often on a tow dolly, but otherwise, on an 800 lb tandem axle trailer.

Biggest difference was it had the dual rear wheels (which I would recommend).

I also towed with a 3/4 ton '76 GMC 3+3, with an 8' (Stepside) bed. Towed the tandem axle trailer great, at least until I put a 10' cab-over camper in the bed. I had to upgrade the rear tires/wheel combo, though I don't remember if I used 8- or 10-ply rating.

If comfort is a key factor, but so is towing...

Why not big van converted to small home? It's been all the rage the past couple of years or so on Youtube; Sprinter vans being the go-to. Could keep weight down by only installing the essentials that you'd want/need.

Pics of van build shown below: https://imgur.com/a/RijZM

FWIW, I agree, that particular RV isn't well suited to trailer towing. But . . . 

I just read that sales of new RVs are starting to tank (the economy). My guess is maybe used ones will be in a bit more of a demand. So, sell the one you have and find one better suited to towing.