Anything to know about dollying?

[RayCo]

You could always have your brother drive thirty miles to crawl under there and pull the shaft himself ??

No way! I'll do anything for my brother!

 

[RobertN]

Safety chain it! A buddy of mine, 14 years ago, had a Ford Ranger on a dolly behind a big Ryder moving truck. He used the straps over the tires like normal. He was going through a slow area, fortunately, when the strap failed. His truck went off the side of the road, through a fence, and in to an orchard, amazingly without hitting a tree before it stopped. He never noticed it, since he could not see or feel it behind the moving van.

A car pulled up beside him, waving like crazy. He waved and kept on going. Then they started honking. Kids in the car hollered "Mister, your car ran off!".

 

[dfkrug]

.... putting a manual transfer case in nuetral is enough. check your owners manual, but If it were mine I would not pull the shaft unless I had too.

Yes, the owner's manual usually has some very interesting things to say
about towing, even with manual trannies. My 5-sp 4x4 Suzuki Samurai
says you can tow the vehicle with trans and transfer in neutral, BUT you
need to start engine every so often (50 miles?) to get lube circulating. My
guess is spinning the trans output shaft while towing does not splash
enough oil onto the bearings for long-term bearing life.

 

[Rara Avis]

Front wheels on the dolly
run the engine for 5 minutes every 30 miles
shift the gears thru the pattern a couple of times
don't exceed 55 mph...

 

[RayCo]

Here's one last thing to know. To have someone come out with a rollback and take the truck to my destination will cost me $98. For an extra few bucks, I have no headaches of trying to find a dolly with a capacity greater than 3100 pounds, no liability, and I don't have to figure out a way to pull this non-running truck up a long hill in an offshoot in my driveway and then reposition it onto the dolly.

 

[Ductape]

I'd call that $98 well spent ! And , no....... i won't suggest you have your brother pay the tow bill !

 

[RayCo]

Actually, my brother is paying it. The deal is that he can own this truck if he pays to get it the **** off of my property. It's been sitting in my driveway since a tree fell on it in December. He and my dad kept talking about fixing it via a cab swap. I've tried multiple times to explain that while I think doing that would be enjoyable and interesting, it's just too low on my priority list. I wanted to just junk the thing, but now the plan is that they'll just do that, as I continue with my tractor hobbies during my free time. My days of turning wrenches on cars and trucks ended when I bought a house.