Towing a 68 on car dolly

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magnumdart

magnumdart

There is a bad moon on the rise.
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Rogers, Arkansas
What would be a reasonable speed, distance to tow a 68 Charger on a tow dolly. 8 3/4 sure grip, no engine, trans, or drive shaft. I seem to be having trouble with the differential running hot.
 
magnumdart said:
What would be a reasonable speed, distance to tow a 68 Charger on a tow dolly. 8 3/4 sure grip, no engine, trans, or drive shaft. I seem to be having trouble with the differential running hot.
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Uh spend the extra 49 bucks and rent the flat car trailer from uhaul
 
dukeboy_318 said:
Uh spend the extra 49 bucks and rent the flat car trailer from uhaul
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He might not have enough truck for the flat bed. I towed my 70 Swinger home with a tow dolly, engine, trans and 8.75 with 489 case about 350 miles. All I did was remove the drive shaft.
 
I have a 7.3 Ford available, but geez, probably gets about 8 to the gallon. I have to go from Eureka, Mo to Rogers, Ar. Then to Ft. Wayne, In. and back to Rogers.
 
mopar head said:
check the gear oil?
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Yes, new clean Mopar oil with the Chrysler additive. Doesn't smell burnt after 300 miles, but rear end is hotter than it seems it should be. Drums too. I can still touch without burning myself, so maybe it is just me in a panic. It is 95 degrees here.
 
Well if you can hold your hand on it, its below 200 degrees. Whats hot tap water-160/170?
 
If you can hold your hand on it, you are fine. Would not hurt to check the gear oil "just because."
 
magnumdart said:
I have a 7.3 Ford available, but geez, probably gets about 8 to the gallon. I have to go from Eureka, Mo to Rogers, Ar. Then to Ft. Wayne, In. and back to Rogers.
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I'm just a couple hours south of Fort Wayne, if you run into trouble and need help in Indiana, hit me up.

And good gawd man, I knew them fords sucked but geez. My 05 Dodge Ram 3500 6 speed Cummins averaged 23.4 on the trip to Ohio and back Saturday, usually get about 17 towing the fifth whee camper. And I run 80-85 mph
 
magnumdart said:
Yes, new clean Mopar oil with the Chrysler additive. Doesn't smell burnt after 300 miles, but rear end is hotter than it seems it should be. Drums too. I can still touch without burning myself, so maybe it is just me in a panic. It is 95 degrees here.
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I just don't like towing with dollys. I burnt the 8.25 in my 74 charger up towing it from Richmond Indiana to Columbus Indiana, it was plum full of oil too, the pinion shaft looked like it'd been hit with a blow torch. I had the driveshaft out and all. I figured it had to do with the front of the car being on the dolly and the angle causing the oil to pool away from the pinion shaft. But I've also towed cars just fine with a dolly so who knows.

Oh one last note, you probably get BETTER mileage as you have the free spinning trailer axles versus what ever gear ratio that is in the charger. Less drag.
 
dukeboy_318 said:
'm just a couple hours south of Fort Wayne, if you run into trouble and need help in Indiana, hit me up.
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Appreciate man. Sometime soon I got to get my Dart out of Churubusco, where I keep it at the family farm while I move
The Ford just seems to go thru mountains of diesel, not to mention the cost of fuel.
 
If the drums are hot. are the brakes dragging, > back off the adjusters
if the car has been sitting awhile, if it has bonded brake shoes,
the shoes may have come apart, causing it to drag
 
If you have enough truck, go with the whole car trailer. I know it's easy to spend other people's money, but it's the best thing to do. So what if it costs you an extra $200 total (fuel and rental), you'll have peace of mind knowing that you will have no problems. I hate towing with tow dollies. I even bought a new one several years ago. Each time I towed a car on it, it was a pain to load, strap down and unload. Plus, the straps would work their way loose after the first few miles, and I had to stop several times and tighten them. After about 5 years, I sold it. Plus, the big ones you rent from the rental places have a bad habit of having the big fenders touch the car being towed when making tight turns (like to fuel up).
 
could you remove the spider gears easily?
or the ringgear ?

allowing both wheels and axles to spin freely while still sitting in the bearings
 
diy
What I meant was No it's not easy
cuz you have to take the chunk right out, probably an hour and a half in your driveway plus the time to pop the spiders out and replace the pin. And now you have the situation where the sidegears are constantly spinning in the case and the pinion/RG, not spinning, and those parts are not engineered to run that way. I have no idea how that would play put, but I suspect it wouldn't be good
 
Well the best I can figure is that the drum is coming in contact with the shoes on one side. Drum gets very hot, but I can wrap my hand around housing at outer bearing and not much heat.
Going fast enough for long enough will heat the entire unit pretty good.
All four corners got new shoes, drums, cylinders, rear brake cables, and hardware. When I tightened the wheels the rear drums came in contact with the backing plates and the frame of the shoes, not the not the friction material, the steel frame of the shoe was hitting the hub of the drums. Here is a quote from FBBO of what I had to do.


Thanks for all the replies. This is what I did:
.075 off the outer rim which helped to clear the upper ball joint
.075 off the inner rim which now clears the backing plate
increased the finished surface width by .125 so the drum clears the frame of the shoe

I suspect the Chinese drums are all different and maybe .125 wasn't quite enough to clear the shoes. Or I did it wrong by a hair. What I suspect is that the is some lateral movement of the axle on one side allowing the hub of the drum to intermittently contact the shoe frames.

Since I don't have time to mess around right now, and my cars are all over the country, and there is a huge possibility I will be bringing my old 340 4-speed Cuda home to roost, a trailer is in my future. Can't wait to see the fuel bill.
 
Towed My '64GT 'vert over 1100 miles on a dolly, not one problem................ related to the car anyway, lol!
 
Killer6 said:
Towed My '64GT 'vert over 1100 miles on a dolly, not one problem................ related to the car anyway, lol!
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Yea, I would think this would be no problem, as long as reasonable speeds were maintained. People tow all sorts of vehicles all over the country behind RV's.
 
If it is dragging brakes,pull the drums off. A couple wraps of packing tape to keep shoes in place.
 
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