You want a towing horror story, here’s one… In the mid '90s, when I was stationed in San Angelo, Texas, the base motorcycle club went on a Picnic run and my wife drove her '85 Toyota with two of the wives to the Picnic location. About 50-miles away.
On the way back we all stopped at a “quickie mart” to fill up with gas about 30-miles from home. But the Devil be damned, her car would not start back up. It was getting gas, but no spark, so we figured the problem was the electronic ignition. It was late Sunday afternoon and we could not leave her car there, especially with the three women, one pregnant, and we had no helmets for them, and they were not dressed for riding motorcycles…
I had done this previously, decades earlier, towing a car with my old Triumph 650, back in the '60s, so I figured my '84 Ironhead Harley with its bigger, and beefed up engine could pull that car.
I had towing straps in the Toyota and ran one from the hold-down brackets on the front of the Toyota and tied the other end to the shock absorber on the Harley…
The ladies got in and with the rest of the motorcycle riders riding “road guard” to make sure no other vehicles gave us any issues (10 motorcycles riding in close formation tend to clear the area nicely…)
My Harley had no problem towing that car the 30-odd miles from Mertzon back to San Angelo and I did it in 4th gear (high gear…) at 40-plus MPH…
I had taught my wife how to tow many years before and she knew that I towed her and she stopped me to keep the tow strap tight…
Most engines out there are detuned, that is why you are able to have a tune put in them and or a less restrictive exhaust/induction, including headers … The OEM computer is the limiting factor more so than the engine in a lot of cases…
Besides that, the 300 was built for torque not high HP…
OK, what is your point, it only takes about 5 psi of boost to make 200HP from 155HP… Not very impressive…even less boost to go from 170 to 200HP, about 3psi of boost…
That’s a good one, it was so late when I posted it that I missed the “indirect pronoun” being “she” and which “she” I was referring to…
The Harley is 40-years old and I will not put vintage plates on her because “she” is a “lady” and you never tell a ladie’s age… L o L . . .
As for the wife; well, we are both in our early '70s (please note, I have not actually told the wife’s age either…) and I’ve know my wife since 3rd grade, we graduated High School in 1970 and we’ve were married in '71 so we’ve sort of been together for over 60-years and married for 53 of them, and she (my wife) has flatly stated many times, “Do not post my Photo on any of your on-line chats…”
As for “replacing the horse,” I am not sure if you are referring to the Harley or the wife… But we have been asked the secret of our longevity and I’ve replied on occasion (with tongue in cheek…), " She has good teeth, chew leather; strong shoulders, pull plow; keeps me warm in the winter and gives good shade in summer…" of which I usually get a good shove…
And if I want to get much older, I’ll keep her photos off the internet… L L . . .
I wonder if it would have been cheaper to get the F-350 with the 300 instead of the 460 and boost the 300 up to above 200 hoursepower. The fuel economy would have been a lot better too!
No way would I want an RV with that (or any) 300 6 instead of the 460 v8. Torque is the name of the game, not hp. Now if you’re talking a commercial grade turbo diesel 6, that’s different.
Couldn’t have been too far into the 90’s, by 1992 or 1993, the base engine on the F-350 Crew Cab was the 351W. You could get the 300 in the SRW F-250 up until 1996.
Yes it was around 92-93, cause I was the 1st tech to pull the dash on the (then) new Mustang (body change) over a water leak, no manuals for it yet… lol
All I can tell you is I was working for a Ford dealer and the trucks came there new, on car haulers along with other new cars) with beds on them (just like the F-150 did) and we had to do the new car/truck prep which included a test drive and oil change and check off a list, everyone in the shop talked about how well the 300 I6 pulled in the F-350 4 door, by the way, they also had power front windows and crank rear windows… And I also pulled the dash on the new body style Mustang over a water leak… I only worked there about a year (around 1993)… Maybe they were late production F’s and an early production 'Stang, cause nobody in the area had the service manual on how to pull the dash yet, and none of the other techs had done one either…
The 1994 Mustang was “new” for the 1994 model year. It was the debut of the SN95 chassis, which was basically a glorified Fox chassis. Interior was all new as well. It’s very possible that you would’ve had to deal with one in late 1993 (it went into production in Oct of 1993). From what I’ve seen and what I’ve been able to look up on the matter. The 300 I6 could not be had on the F-350 with the pickup bed after 1986, but it could be had on chassis cab (no-bed/flat bed) up until 93 or 94. You could get it in the F-250 with a pickup bed, but not a dually up until around the same time.
It’s also possible that the folks at the shop never bothered to pop the hood, dually F-350’s from that time period had either the 351W , 460, or diesel.
Yeah mine has good teeth too but it wasn’t cheap. I bought a gift for our 51st anniversary and the curious young clerk wanted to know the secret. I said two sinks in the bathroom helps.
Well, I was their in person, getting paid and I’m talking about Dually’s with a bed on it and last time I remember it is really hard to change the oil without looking under the hood…
Now this was out in farm land and maybe the dealer special ordered a few of them, but either way I know what we, not just me, worked on…
Send it to Ripley’s if you want to cause Believe It or Not, I was their and I have no reason to lie about it…
Actually, I did not, there are differing factors in our lives, so I will give you more information, I am older than my wife. I wrote that I grew up in the Adirondack Mountains of NY and the family was running a logging tug towing logs to the mill. We lived in a log cabin, no electricity or plumbing and the logging industry was waning then and much was going on… I had to repeat 2nd grade… and the family left the mountains… Decades later I was 18 in 11th grade, but working a full-time factory job as a machine mechanic on the night shift 4PM to mid-night. You can work a factory job when you are 18, but you cannot if you are still in school. I told them I was a drop out. In Mid-June, the factory shut down for a complete re-tooling and the mechanics all had to work double shifts. I could not tell them that I had to take time off for my final exams, not if I wanted to keep my job. No final exam, no passing, I had to repeat 11th grade… Now for my wife, she was in the Academically Talented (AT) program and she skipped a couple of grades, she actually had enough credits to graduate in the 11th grade, but she was “way young” and she stayed for the senior year. She teases me that she stayed so we could graduate together…
So you have some more information but not all, so I still did not tell you the ladies’ age…
It has been a long time since I towed anything with a car or pickup,1999 I think. My recpllectiom is that NY reqiores brakes over 1000 lb boy when I did pull a trailer with my minivan, it had surge brakes, no brake wiring or controller involved. Chryslers ole 225 slant six was used in moving vans but I imagine yours has the 3.9 v6.
THe short annswer is that I would do it but you should not. I have over 3 million miles of tractor trailer experience. You should not learn to tow with marginal equipment.
For towing, horsepower is almost irrelevant, low end torque and gearing is what matters.
Oh, what a memory you must think I have… That was almost 30-years ago… but alas, I will not disappoint… It was the Ignition Control Module (I think…). I knew the dealership owner and all the crew in the service department… It’s a small town and the dealership was also small. I also had them do a complete tune up and some other stuff, tire balance and rotate, and had them dump the ashtray… L L . . .
I asked b/c my Corolla probably has similar design. I think you said your Corolla was a little older than mine, and used a carb rather than fuel injection. For the record, mine has never cranked ok but failed to start. But it has failed to crank, probably the most common problem I’ve had w/it.
It’s a 1985 Toyota Corolla LE with automatic. The engine is the 4-LC, 1600cc with carburetor. It is pushing 230,000 miles and it’s in the garage. It has only failed to crank once and that was in 2019. Go ahead how I remember the date, it’s because after we got it towed to the dealer. They had to keep it for over a week. The first three starters that came in all failed and after that my wife got scared and insisted that we buy a “spare starter” and the spare starter came in a 2019 Toyota Corolla SE (the hatchback…). L o L . . .
In 2020, the A/C compressor failed and again it took a couple of weeks to get a compressor in… Again, she insisted that we buy a “spare compressor” and it came in a 2020 Honda Fit.
She does not like the like the '19 Toyota, so hard to see past the large door posts and she can’t see what might be driving in the passenger side blind spot. The Fit has a Right Blind Spot camera and it can actually holds a full paper grocery bag in the back hatch area. The '19 Toyota’s back hatch is only 9" high… I say big deal, my 2001 Dodge Ram 2500’s cargo bed will hold the Honda Fit…
Now, you should realize that the '85 Toyota is my wife’s baby and she bought it new from this dealer 39-years ago…, and they gave her a life time engine guarantee, oil changes for life, state inspections for life and “free coffee” for life when serviced… L o L . . .
They know this and even when the car was in for those long-term services, they did not just park it out in the lot, they put it in one of the unused service bays…
Presenting “Eleanor” (that’s her name – the car…) in the “flesh…”
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