purchasing 26ft enclosed car hauler

[BOWZ]

hey, i'm looking at purchasing a 97ish car hauler. it is a gentlemens that passed away. it has been sitting for over 3 months now and hasn't moved. it has 3,500lb axles, a/c, electric jack. lots of scraches where they took off old sticker lettering for a race team, a few gouges and all the tires are dry rotted. it defently will be a fixer up er. looking at pulling it with my dodge 3500 cummins. it has a 6in lift riden on 37's. 4.10 gears and 6sp. it pulls my 21ft cuddy cabin boat like nothing so i think it will do alright with this hauler, but i'm sure i will feel it, unlike the boat. so what do you guys think would be a good price to offer. thanks

bowz

 

[Bounty__Hunter]

I would regear the axles in the truck.

 

[jps4jeep]

if it was a gas motor, I would definatly re-gear, with a diesel, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Just make sure you have a way to monitor your transmission temps. that hauler, loaded with a jeep on it will weight a LOT more than your boat. you boats wet weight is probably 3-4 thousand pounds, a lifted jeep with 35" tires, winch and all that stuff probably comes in close to 5 thousand pounds, plus the hauler has to be another 3 thousand pounds alone. I haul with a 20ft open beaver tail trailer and my trailer has to weigh over 1000 pounds easy.

I found the best deal on tires to be Northern Tool, you'll probably need at least a 2000# rated tire, most likely a 205 75-15R, and make sure they are trailer tires, lt truck and or pass. car tires will not cut it, this happened to me this summer, my spare tire was a lt truck tire, I had a flat and had to use it, this happened on the highway at 70 mph. not fun.

Also service the hubs and brakes, towing that much weight you don't want those to fail.