John: Big Iron.....the 1989 Suburban, has a rebuilt engine. In this case, at 250,000 miles, the original engine was pulled and rebuilt by a local company. They told of horror stories of the rebuilt "crate" engines. The players are high volume, low margin, and as per my guy, is designed to outlast the warranty, which is something like 1 year or 12,000 miles. I'm over 50,000 miles and no problems to date. BTW, I no longer use her for this, so if anyone is interested in a cheap tow vehicle................ On the Dodge Ram, used ones must be free. My local repair shop said they were good, but not to buy a new one as the resale value is nothing. Plan on driving it into the dirt. I am currently towing with a 2006 Tundra. It has 42,000 miles and I have done nothing to it but change the oil. Newer Tundras are larger size. Current Toyota that matches this might be the Tacoma. That would haul an M17 OK. As you say, a lot of vehicles will get a boat moving. It takes a bigger one to get it stopped in an emergency. On May 19, 2010, at 9:00 PM, saltm17@aol.com wrote:
Just got back from a month in Hawaii and waded through the 300+ messagesin my inbox! It's been some time sincethe talk on towing vehicles but here is my take on the subject.
When I bought Miss T in 1985 I towed her with a 1976 ToyotaSR5 pickup. That truck did an amazingjob, easily pulling Miss T across Montana,but I was worried about how well it could stop that rig in a panic situation. Luckily I never had the chance to find out,but the concern lead me to ask Jerry Montgomery what he recommended. At that time Jerry was delivering his newboats across the country and was using a Ford F150 with the 300 cubic inch,in-line six cylinder engine. I found aused one in 1986 and have driving it ever since. Old Blue is a gas guzzler to be sure but it pulledme and Miss T for over 60,000 miles all across the country including a fewcrossings of the western mountains.
I have had two panic stops with Old Blue both due to someonecutting in front of me and then having to stand on the brakes. Both times I was able to stop in time but theincidents left me debating adding surge brakes to the trailer. That little extra braking power would havehelped. As of now I haven't added thembut the mental debate continues.
However Old Blue has also had three rebuilt engines put inher, the last one a year ago. Now I'mconcerned that if we get above 60 mph I'll be arrested for littering; it's timefor a change.
I'm looking at three trucks: Ford F150, Toyota Tundra, Dodge Ram. The first two have a high rating in Consumerreports based upon fewer repairs needed compared to other trucks, The Dodge Ram is included because it is alsoConsumer Report recommended for it's pulling ratings. Which one I get willdepend which has the best deal but I have one requirement: AirConditioning!. I bought Old Blue in Montana and didn't thinkI would mind not having AC since I had no plans to leave that state. Fuzzy Thinking! Most times keeping the window open is cooling enough but when I was trailering MissT from San CarlosMexico to Tucson, the temperature was 113, and while Ihad to keep the window open a bit, a 113 degree blast of 50 mph wind was like ablast furnace. When I got to TucsonI was more like an over cooked linguini than a human. I sat on the AC in the motel room for quitesome time until I finally started to cool down.
One other observation, this time about rebuilt motors. After a total of 105,000 miles over all and 3rebuilt engines I've come to the conclusion that the company thinking behindthem is that whoever put a rebuilt engine in a vehicle will soon sell it. sothere isn't any great need to put a lot of time into building a longlasting engine. They did give me 5 years and 70,000 miles onthe rebuilt engine and made good on the warranty when the engine(s) died, buttwo engines later - and still within that warranty, I put in my last rebuiltengine.
John Edwards Miss T M17 372
_______________________________________________ http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/montgomery_boats
Remember, there is no privacy on the Internet!