Hauling a vehicle

[pyroman]

So this weekend will be the first time I tow my 67 on a trailer. I'm renting a full vehicle trailer from u haul and will hopefully have it loaded up on Saturday afternoon.

I was reading through the instructions on the trailer and it said it should be loaded front heavy. By the time the car is on the trailer I will have removed both the engine and transmission as well as all the exterior body panels on the front of the car. Will I be safe loading it forward like this or should I load it backwards. (Forward=front of the car at the front of the trailer, Backward=rear of the car at the front of the trailer)

Thanks, I just want this to go as smoothly as possible

 

[68RCodeConv]

Doesn't really matter. Just place the vehicle so that you have about 100-200 pounds on the hitch.

Note that this rig is going to be heavy. You absolutely cannot make any drastic turns or it will jackknife. If it is raining and slippery then slow down.

 

[rbohm]

you want to load your trailer so that the tongue weight is between 10 and 15% of the total trailer weight loaded up. if you have 5000lbs total trailer weight you want about 500lbs tongue weight. this means that you will need a heavy duty half ton truck at least to haul the trailer.

as indicated you dont want to make any harsh maneuvers as you will have problems with the trailer getting out of control.

make sure the trailer has brakes on it that work since you can use the trailer brakes to stop trailer sway if cross winds get too bad. your trailer brake controller should have a manual lever for just such a situation.

leave plenty of room between you and other vehicles as your braking distances will be substantially lengthened.

when going down hill, be sure to drop a gear or two and let the engine control your speed rather than use the brakes, you dont want to burn up the brakes on a long hill and have none at the bottom when that inevitable stop sign shows itself.

when accelerating dont try to beat don garlits off the line. take it easy accelerating.

 

[Realmongo]

When I towed mine on one of those trailer in one piece it was fine, but when I towed it with the engine and transmission out and loaded nose forward, it swayed quite a bit. I found it trailered better once I lowered the hitch ball down as much as I could. I was not in a position to unload it and try it loaded backwards.

 

[pyroman]

Thanks guys, I ended up leaving the engine in and didn't have any problems with the actual towing. However the headlight wiring harness short circuited on the way and burned completely! I'm lucky the car didn't catch fire. I'm hoping just that harness was damaged.