More towing with my '65

[66Submarine]

I know you guys like the "trucks at work" pics, so here's a couple of my '65 hauling a Mercury Grand Marquis back from Rome, GA yesterday. The truck did great pulling it stability-wise, and the little 250 and SM420 did very well pulling all those hills. Not bad at all for a junkyard truck I paid $600 for and still probably have less than $1,500 in including four new tires!

And now, the obligatory

[1963c-10]

Right on....good to see the truck getting used.

[1963chevyc20]

Man! I want those overhead lights! I am honking on converting my c20 to a tow truck and they would look good! Where dud you get them.

[66Submarine]

Glad you liked the pictures.

Here's a link to ebay for the lights I have: http://www.ebay.com/itm/5-Amber-Cab-...c7f3f9&vxp=mtr
They are made by "United Pacific" and are copies of the old Yankee 77's that came on these trucks.

This scanned book at the GM heritage center shows the light placement: http://gmheritagecenter.com/docs/gm-...olet-Truck.pdf It's at the 100th page--I used the Conventional/LCF layout, BTW.

The biggest pain was threading the wire back from the lights, but with a little creative thinking I got it done. I added them partly for safety/visibility when towing at night, and they are also certainly very nice for that. Adds a lot of visibility, and most people certainly seem to try harder to stay in their lane with them lit up.

[TJ's Chevy]

Cool pictures Sub! Here's some of mine.

[66Submarine]

Neat pictures, TJ. How'd yours do pulling that little Kubota backhoe?

[TJ's Chevy]

Originally Posted by 66Submarine

Neat pictures, TJ. How'd yours do pulling that little Kubota backhoe?

Did great! Hope to make a vid of taking it down the road one day!

[66Submarine]

You should--I almost did some video of this trip. I guess you probably have trailer brakes on your truck, too? I added an old Kelsey-Hayes controller to mine (and added brakes to one axle of the trailer).

[1963chevyc20]

You guys ever herd of a c20 for a tow truck? I have a 283 v8 with a 3 speed manual. 8 foot bed big backwindow. Will it work?

[Old Truck Man]

Originally Posted by 1963chevyc20

You guys ever herd of a c20 for a tow truck? I have a 283 v8 with a 3 speed manual. 8 foot bed big backwindow. Will it work?

The three speed is marginal you really need a granny 4 speed If your moving heavy loads. I used a 64 C20 250 Six & granny 4 speed with a home built wrecker sling for many years. I even moved a couple of school buses with it. A C20 as the atvantage of a heaver frame stronger springs. Floating 8 lug rear axle, bigger brakes and many had 456 rear gears.

[TJ's Chevy]

Originally Posted by 66Submarine

You should--I almost did some video of this trip. I guess you probably have trailer brakes on your truck, too? I added an old Kelsey-Hayes controller to mine (and added brakes to one axle of the trailer).

I don't even have tail lights on my truck. LOL! But the trailer does...if we were to take her down our road we would pretty easily get away with out brake lights cause in certain times of the day our road is super quiet.

Originally Posted by 1963chevyc20

You guys ever herd of a c20 for a tow truck? I have a 283 v8 with a 3 speed manual. 8 foot bed big backwindow. Will it work?

Thought crossed my mind..but unless yer only going to tow smart cars you'll at least want a set of over load air bags. My 77 C-20 has a leaf suspension in the rear with air bags...3/4 ton leafs and the air bags make it classify as a 1 ton. If it wasn't for the air bags..half the dirt loads we haul wouldn't have happened...but..the truck could also use a new set..these are perrty worn. My 2 cents.

[66Submarine]

That there's cheatin', TJ! So you didn't take it out on the road then? I thought that seemed like a pretty stout load for a SWB 1/2 ton. I got up to 65MPH with the Merc+trailer behind mine, take that! lol

x2 on the SM420 for hauling/towing. The deep first/reverse is very nice to have, and second is still deeper than the three speed's first (3.58:1 vs 2.94). Also, there's no question about somehow blowing up the SM420!

Also, a note; why does this lame little 250 seem to run as good as the 5.4 ford in the borrowed late model F-150 I previously used? Besides that lame 1/2 ton being thrown around like a rag doll by this very C-30 on the trailer behind it, it also barely pulled it. On similar (actually lesser IIRC) hills it struggled to maintain 40-45MPH running 2,800RPM+ (IIRC). The Mercury isn't much more than 500lbs lighter than the old C-30 (there's technology for you), and I was pulling hills in high gear with this little six! On only one or two of the steepest did it slow down to 40MPH at the top (1,800RPM!), and if I wanted to downshift into third I could have maintained speed just fine.

So... WTF? I know the F-150 is slightly heavier, and the manual SM420 is much more efficient than the auto, but damn! According to the specs the 5.4 should be making roughly twice the power of the 250! Oh well, I guess I'm not complaining.

[TJ's Chevy]

Originally Posted by 66Submarine

That there's cheatin', TJ! So you didn't take it out on the road then? I thought that seemed like a pretty stout load for a SWB 1/2 ton. I got up to 65MPH with the Merc+trailer behind mine, take that! lol

x2 on the SM420 for hauling/towing. The deep first/reverse is very nice to have, and second is still deeper than the three speed's first (3.58:1 vs 2.94). Also, there's no question about somehow blowing up the SM420!

Also, a note; why does this lame little 250 seem to run as good as the 5.4 ford in the borrowed late model F-150 I previously used? Besides that lame 1/2 ton being thrown around like a rag doll by this very C-30 on the trailer behind it, it also barely pulled it. On similar (actually lesser IIRC) hills it struggled to maintain 40-45MPH running 2,800RPM+ (IIRC). The Mercury isn't much more than 500lbs lighter than the old C-30 (there's technology for you), and I was pulling hills in high gear with this little six! On only one or two of the steepest did it slow down to 40MPH at the top (1,800RPM!), and if I wanted to downshift into third I could have maintained speed just fine.

So... WTF? I know the F-150 is slightly heavier, and the manual SM420 is much more efficient than the auto, but damn! According to the specs the 5.4 should be making roughly twice the power of the 250! Oh well, I guess I'm not complaining.

WOW! You got yers to go 65!!! You must have 5.13 rear gears! LOL! My truck is geared taller then yours is so it may not get to 65. lol I wouldn't do 65 with it cause the truck is lighter then the trailer/tractor weight. lol But I did get up to 25 mph on the dirt road! So I took it on a road! LOL!

[66Submarine]

Private dirt road doesn't count!!! Cheater!!!

Mine has 4.10 gears and 32" tires on the back; 65MPH is about 2,900RPM. Most of the time I ran about 55MPH (kind of my normal rural highway/road cruise). The truck handled great at 65 though!

Yeah, I think 65 would be pretty scary with a SWB half ton with that much weight behind it--especially if you need to stop without trailer brakes!

[TJ's Chevy]

Originally Posted by 66Submarine

Private dirt road doesn't count!!! Cheater!!!

Mine has 4.10 gears and 32" tires on the back; 65MPH is about 2,900RPM. Most of the time I ran about 55MPH (kind of my normal rural highway/road cruise). The truck handled great at 65 though!

Yeah, I think 65 would be pretty scary with a SWB half ton with that much weight behind it--especially if you need to stop without trailer brakes!

I think my rear gear is 3.73...I have a 30 inch tire on there and 2900 rpm is around 60-65...75 is about as fast as she'll go unloaded. I've had some serious power loss I'm sure with the compression being as low as it is, accelerates great...but..with a load will be the test I'm looking forward to. lol And it does count...a road is a road! LOL! Dirt or no dirt! LOL! I'll take her on the government road () here and do a vid of some trailer pulling. Trying to stop it from 25 mph was scary enough! LOL!

[66Submarine]

Yeah, probably 3.73's. That's what 99% of them had IME, too. Not sure where this one tops out; it still had some left in it at 80MPH with the old 283, but I haven't tried that with the 250--I'm sure it's fast enough for a ticket, anyway.

[TJ's Chevy]

LOL! Mines a ticket attractor the way it is!