Just haul a '69 Barracuda 500 miles...............

[Dr. Righteous]

My brother car has been in storage in a barn for the past 4 years. He was in the Air Force and got orders to Korea before he could make the car road ready. My father in law offered to store it for him for free until he got back.
A little over 4 years later a lot has happened. My Brother has since retired from the AF, both my in-laws have passed away, and that Barracuda was still in the barn. I offered to haul it to him over our vacation to FL this year.
I have a 20' car hauler and I outfitted it with a 5000 lbs winch to pull the car up on the trailer.
I would put the weight of the car around 3200 lbs.
So how did my '14 Ram Express do? Pretty well.
The only thing I didn't like was the fact the trailer bounced the truck around quite a bit at high way speeds. But this is only a 1500. A 2500 with heavier suspension would handle this better.
Power was more than enough, cruised at 70 mph no problem. Mileage was surprisingly good. 15-16 MPG. But the trip is down hill the entire way from TN to FL. It got about the same on the trip back with the trailer unloaded.

 

[DRkNESS]

That's a beautiful looking project car, and that was quite generous of you to offer the tow.


F.O.F

 

[DannyMK2]

if you flipped the car around ill bet the trailer wouldnt push you around as much.

 

[69GWC]

if you flipped the car around ill bet the trailer wouldnt push you around as much.

This.

Will be a nice ride once done.

 

[kg93]

damn i would love one of those bad boys. Air bags would have definitely helped too

 

[Dr. Righteous]

if you flipped the car around ill bet the trailer wouldnt push you around as much.

Didn't have much of a choice. The car does not run and I had to load it by myself. It was balanced pretty well the way it was loaded. 1/2 ton trucks now a days are engineered to ride like cars. My father in laws '98 Ram 1500 had rode like a rail, but it was a pulling machine.

 

[drittal]

Love the Notchback



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[paxton]

My single car tow story is forthcoming, so my commentary is about as useless as... well...

Anyway, the trailer I had from U-Haul came with specific instructions to load the engine end of the vehicle on the front of the trailer.

Glad it worked out for you. Towing is always an adventure.

 

[Dr. Righteous]

Love the Notchback



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NICE.
My brother has had several of this style Barracudas over the years. He is on #4 now.
He never like the fast back style which is much more common than the notch back.

Nothing cheap about restoring cars these days but there are some advantage compared to back in the 80s when I got into MoPars. You can buy most things from a catalog now. In the old days, that was unheard of. For Ford and Chevy there was some stuff available but for Dodge,Chrysler Plymouth? Forget it.

Back in those days it was pretty common to buy a "letter car" (R/T, GTX, Roadrunner, Challenger, Charger, etc) for a few hundred bux and limp it home. Between us we had some nice cars.
He owned a 70 Charger and a 73 Challenger in those years. I had a 70 GTX, and 71 GTX, as well as a 67 Belvedere and a 65 Coronet. In the early 2000s I had a pretty mean '69 Coronet. 10:1 383. Great car. I was dating my soon to be wife at the time and she didn't like the car and was afraid to ride in it. I loved her more than the car so I sold it. Besides, needed the money for the wedding. Oh well.
Here is a pix.

 

[Dr. Righteous]

My single car tow story is forthcoming, so my commentary is about as useless as... well...

Anyway, the trailer I had from U-Haul came with specific instructions to load the engine end of the vehicle on the front of the trailer.

Glad it worked out for you. Towing is always an adventure.

Ahh, that depends quite a bit on the car, the trailer, what you are hauling it with, etc.

I would say on a SHORT car hauler, which is usually 16' you have to load it nose first. Mine is 20'. As long as you some what balance the load over the wheels you are good.

The complaint from the wife on the trip was being "bounced around" by the trailer. I pondered trading my 1500 for a 2500. But the reality is when I'm hauling a car she will usually not be with me.

 

[Rampant]

Ahh, that depends quite a bit on the car, the trailer, what you are hauling it with, etc.

I would say on a SHORT car hauler, which is usually 16' you have to load it nose first. Mine is 20'. As long as you some what balance the load over the wheels you are good.

The complaint from the wife on the trip was being "bounced around" by the trailer. I pondered trading my 1500 for a 2500. But the reality is when I'm hauling a car she will usually not be with me.

I had to put my '67 short bed 4x4 in ass-first because the front track is about 4" wider than the back and will not fit between the wheel wells in my 8.5' wide race hauler. That's just how they built them back then. I tow different vehicles in it probably 3 or 4 times a month.

This was the first and only ass-in-first experience with this setup. It was also very dangerous and stupid of me. You would think that a "big 'ol '16 2500 CCSB" with a 28' all aluminum enclosed car hauler would handle any situation well, right? Not at all. It was the worst wag-the-dog, scary experience ever! Pucker factor was right around eleventeen going through the narrow Baltimore Harbor Tunnel and not much better on the open freeway.

I'll never do that again. I'll have to get skinnier tires and load it properly before towing it again. According to my Weighsafe hitch, the tongue weight was only 1k lbs, which is what the trailer is empty. The trailer weighs 4k empty with a 14k gvrw and the '67 only weighs about 5k, so it was nowhere near the weight limit.

The moral of the story here is that the theory of having a bigger truck and a longer trailer does not allow you to defy the laws of physics. Lesson learned.

It may be a bit exaggerated, but here is a good example of why you should load nose-first. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCH1t-_sTL4



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[DannyMK2]

its been my experience that loading a single car trailer more tongue heavy vs trying to balance the load tows much better. always load nose first. on a long trailer you can shift the car backwards to take some weight off the truck, but you still want to heavy axle in the front. on a short local trip its not terrible, but for a long haul like you made i would have dealt with flipping a non-running car by myself to have a comfortable trip. thats just me though. not that any of this matters now since its already been done.

 

[beng3303]

NICE.
My brother has had several of this style Barracudas over the years. He is on #4 now.
He never like the fast back style which is much more common than the notch back.

Nothing cheap about restoring cars these days but there are some advantage compared to back in the 80s when I got into MoPars. You can buy most things from a catalog now. In the old days, that was unheard of. For Ford and Chevy there was some stuff available but for Dodge,Chrysler Plymouth? Forget it.

Back in those days it was pretty common to buy a "letter car" (R/T, GTX, Roadrunner, Challenger, Charger, etc) for a few hundred bux and limp it home. Between us we had some nice cars.
He owned a 70 Charger and a 73 Challenger in those years. I had a 70 GTX, and 71 GTX, as well as a 67 Belvedere and a 65 Coronet. In the early 2000s I had a pretty mean '69 Coronet. 10:1 383. Great car. I was dating my soon to be wife at the time and she didn't like the car and was afraid to ride in it. I loved her more than the car so I sold it. Besides, needed the money for the wedding. Oh well.
Here is a pix.

Sweet B body with the a12 style hood! Too bad about selling it but I get the motivation behind it [emoji51]


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[GsRAM]

Nice project car! Looking good! Glad you made it safe. As said in this thread having proper tongue weight is extremely important, regardless of what your towing with, yes even a mighty HD truck cannot overcome a poor setup if the load is heavy enough, as also mentioned (thanks for sharing that!)

I've seen some 3/4 and one ton trucks towing trailers rolled over too. Towing is serious business and should be treated as such. I dont care if it's a large TT or a utility trailer, you need to be careful and take your time. Just my .02

 

[Dr. Righteous]

Sweet B body with the a12 style hood! Too bad about selling it but I get the motivation behind it [emoji51]

The lift off "6pak" hood I only added because after I got finished with the engine the stock hood wouldn't fit anymore. I had a tall Edelbrock RPM intake and a tall K&N air cleaner. It was not in my mind for a second to attempt to build a SuperBee clone. I personally DO NOT like clone cars. But I had to come up with a solution and a lift off 6pak hood was the answer. But everyone assumed it was a clone car and that irked me to no end. It shows how little they actually knew about the differences between the 2 models.

I have a '72 Plymouth Satellite in storage that I that I plan to start a resto on once I get my shop building built. My dream car has always been a '71 GTX and I had one back in the 80s but circumstances wouldn't let me keep it.

 

[NCRaineman]

Back in those days it was pretty common to buy a "letter car" (R/T, GTX, Roadrunner, Challenger, Charger, etc) for a few hundred bux and limp it home. Between us we had some nice cars.
He owned a 70 Charger and a 73 Challenger in those years. I had a 70 GTX, and 71 GTX, as well as a 67 Belvedere and a 65 Coronet. In the early 2000s I had a pretty mean '69 Coronet. 10:1 383. Great car. I was dating my soon to be wife at the time and she didn't like the car and was afraid to ride in it. I loved her more than the car so I sold it. Besides, needed the money for the wedding. Oh well.
Here is a pix.

And now those cars, in good condition, are commanding close to six figures. If only you knew.