On Thu, 03 Apr 2008 03:28:05 GMT, Winston
wrote:
Bruce L. Bergman wrote:

Please learn from my mistake.

--Winston


Picking on "Winston" section:

D'oH!

Don't worry, I'll be gentle. I'm here to "learn ya" and anyone else
who reads along might pick up a few valuable pointers for later. It's
simple to not abuse the equipment, just takes some forethought.

Enlighten us about your 'mistake', Winston - What kind of sedan,
what kind of trailer? Age, powertrain type and mileage on the car?

2000 Toyota Camry 4 cyl. 4' x 6' steel rental trailers.
3 speed automatic with overdrive. ca 120 K on the clock.

If it already had 150,000 miles on the typical automatic, the
transmission going out may well have been normal wear and tear, and
the trailer may not have had anything AT ALL to do with the failure.
Or you didn't know to TAKE IT EASY when towing at the ragged edge of
vehicle capacity, and killed it through abuse.

I now suspect that towing a trailer is abuse. Live and loin.

Well, you said elsewhere that the final drive gears ("differential")
went south. Those normally don't *ever* die. Who has been doing the
oil changes on the car - You, the Dealer, or (this is the one that can
be big trouble) the untrained teenagers at the local 'Spiffy Lube'?

Some of the Toyota front-drive cars are tricky, and I'm not sure if
yours is one of them - they use ATF in both the transmission and as
the gear lube on the differential compartment side of the case. So
you'd pull a drain plug and see red fluid coming out and figure it's
coming from the transmission... But there is a divider and an oil
seal between the two compartments, and a separate fill plug.

If they (or you) drained the ATF from the diff side and didn't know
they have to pull a pipe plug and fill the other side of that divider
with ATF too, your final drive gears could have been running dry - and
that most assuredly WILL quickly kill them.

Did you have an auxiliary transmission cooler on the car? The one
in the radiator is not enough if you are towing.

Ah. Now he tells me.

Heck, I've been screaming that one from the watchtower for decades -
the fluid-to-coolant transmission cooler inside the radiator is NOT
sufficient for towing, they can only get down to slightly above
coolant temperature, and that can still be 240 degrees on the cooler
output... You need a fluid-to-air radiator style cooler to dump the
mass quantities of heat you'll need to get rid of.

And every welding and hitch shop I've ever visited has big posters
up - of course, they're also /selling/ and installing the coolers, but
they make sure you know it really is necessary.

The only time the added cooler isn't needed is when the car already
has the factory towing package with the added cooler. And while a lot
of SUV's and trucks come that way, most small import sedans don't.

The other "Towing Package" items like the oversized radiator and
more aggressive fan & fan clutch you can live without - if you take it
easy and watch the temperature gauge like a hawk when climbing hills -
and back off if the needle starts climbing. And if you ever have them
replaced you use the HD parts.

Same thing with the HD alternator & battery for little utility
trailers like that - but not if you're driving a lot at night with the
added tail and stop light loads, or trying to power electric brakes
and recharge the 'house battery' on a travel or tent trailer between
overnight dry-camping stops. Then you do need an oversized alternator
to put out enough juice to get them both charged without starving the
car's starting battery.

(I had to change the transmission rear cover on the Corvair to a
Truck/Greenbrier rear cover to get the trans cooler fittings - Car
cases didn't have the fittings, just a bypass slot.)

Did the trailer you were using have brakes?

Never!

You have to ask for a trailer with brakes. On a rental, they are
likely to be hydraulic surge trailer brakes, with a controller/master
cylinder built into the tongue coupler. They work fine for normal
uses, and require no special equipment on the car.

Note that some rental equipment companies (coughU-Haulcough) are
notorious for (among *many* other things) renting trailers with non-
functional surge brakes, even after multiple reports from prior
renters that they don't work. Pop the fluid fill cap on the master
cylinder and it's dry as a bone - but the inspection sticker was
checked off last week...

If you want to test surge trailer brakes do not engage the reverse
lockout lever on the controller and try backing the trailer on an
uphill - unless it has the extra cost brakes that don't engage in
reverse (doubtful on a rental) it should fight you with much chirping
and chattering of tires. Or pull on the Breakaway Cable till it locks
and try driving forward, same fight. You have to push a latch to
release the breakaway lever.

Oh, and the breakaway cable DOES NOT EVER hook to the hitch or
bumper where you hook the safety chains - the whole shebang (bumper
hitch and brackets) can and does fall off occasionally, and if the
cable is clipped on the bumper the breakaway will never activate...

Tie the breakaway cable off to either a permanent 1/4" or better
forged eye-ring into the body (a nice place to "hide" a permanent one
in plain sight is to double holding on the license plate) or a heavy
nylon webbing strap tied to the trunk or tailgate latch assembly.

The ring or strap will snap too, the forces are too great - but it
has to be sturdy enough to snap only /after/ pulling that breakaway
lever into the latched position, or pulling out the breakaway switch
pin on an electric brake trailer.

It saves both the car's
brakes and the transmission if you were downshifting too much and too
hard.

Downshifting?

Trucker's Rule: You go down the hill in the same gear you go up it.
You can relax that rule in a passenger car or pickup, but not by much.
Especially if your trailer is near or at the maximum weight allowed
for your car.

On the flats or a slight uphill, if the engine hunts in and out of
OD, lock it out and stay in 3rd. And if it hunts in and out of second
or first climbing a hill, lock it in the lower gear and you can ease
off the gas a bit, get better fuel economy than when your foot is
planted flat on the floor. Repeated shifting under full load is bad,
heats things up a lot. Worse when the torque converter has to unlock
before the shift, the converter makes a LOT of heat when it slips.

Let compression braking keep you at a safe downhill speed, you drop
out of Overdrive into 3rd or 2nd to hold a steady speed, and you shift
at the top of the hill so you aren't slamming the gears and rapidly
zinging the engine RPM's up when the shift engages. If it's going to
be close, tap the gas and increase revs as you downshift so it drops
in easy, then remove the gas.

Keep your feet OFF the brakes going downhill, downshift and let the
engine do most of the work except for tapping the brakes to trim
speed. If you ride the brakes hard down the hills and get the brakes
red hot, and then need to make a full stop they May Not Work - heat
fade and/or boiling brake fluid may make the brakes go partially or
fully away.

Needless to say, This is Not Good - start looking around for the
"Runaway Truck Escape Ramp" signs at the bottom of the hill, you may
be learning how they work "up close and personal"...

(Pea gravel, two or three feet deep. Steer for the center. When
you come to a stop get the hell out of the car and on the other side
of the safety wall NOW, in case another truck comes in after you do.)

Not to mention when riding the brakes on hills you'll chew through
brake linings and rotors/drums at a frightening rate. If you hot-spot
or warp the rotors/drums they can't be turned, only replaced. They
ain't cheap, especially if you pay someone else to do the brake work.

If you don't have a tachometer to watch it, be sure you know the
maximum speed for each gear and never go faster down a hill than the
engine will let you accelerate in that gear - it IS POSSIBLE to
over-rev the engine to destruction on over-run, because the rev
limiter can only cut fuel - and going down a hill the weight of car
and trailer is pushing you faster without adding any fuel.

-- Bruce --