New trailer, tires too big, need adjustable hitch, towing 9mpg

Title is a jist of my post.

Bought a trailer in Oklahoma. Drove from FL to get it. Driving it to CO to visit family then back to FL. A long trip. Trailer was paired with a Jeep, think it's on like 33s (the trailer). I think I need new tires/wheels and an adjustable hitch to get this "right". I'm going to scavenge Denver CO Craigslist. What size tires though? I have a pretty stock Baja.

Trailer only uses Jeep tires, so what lug pattern? 5x5.5?

We are getting 9mg like this. Trailer weight is only 1300#, maybe #1500 with that RTT. I don't see an overdrive button for pulling on highways...

Someone please help

 

Interesting tailgate...

Anyways, just get a 4" raise tow ball (or start with flipping the tow hitch and ball over) and see how that goes. (fyi check that with a raised tow ball you don't dent the tailgate if you drop it while the trailer is attached)

That would even it out more and be cheaper than buying new tires and lowering the trailer.

 

Beat me to it lol

 

The guy I bought it from said a quick fix for now would be to flip the hitch/ball. Structurally, is that sound? I mean it was welded that way for a reason.

I'm also going to relocate that spare tire on the front trailer to the bed just behind rear window. As a start...

 

Yes, that is sound. And your tow hitch should not be welded to the ball... It is a large bolt under the ball, I can see if from your picture.

 

Yes, you should be fine. If you go to your local Uhaul and are looking to buy a hitch, the hitch will have those two measurements (rise and drop). They wouldn’t do so if they didn’t believe it couldn’t hold the weight

 

How windy was 70 from Oklahoma to Denver? You can get great to horrible mpg out in the plains just due to the wind, example being i day tripped to Casper for work and got 10-12mpg there and 18/19 back.

Also just get a new hitch that raises the ball up. Also put your shifter into 4th for taking it out of OD....

 

I would change the rear axle to 6 x 5.5 to match the toyota pattern, and use the same sizes tires as your truck so you dont have to carry as many spares (or have extra spares).

As crolison said - put the shifter to 4 (never tow in D unless you are going downhill).

 

People say this shit and it irks me.

You can tow in D (5th) just fine so long as you can hold torque converter lockup and are not constantly hunting between 4th, 4th lockup, 5th and 5th lockup. If you find its hunting, or is constantly popping out of TC lockup, move it down to 4th.


As far as MPG op... towing a brick behind your truck wont help, welcome to 4.0L towing mpg.


And like others stated, just flip the hitch, that will gain you ~ 4in of vertical which should level things out well, just make sure the tailgate clears everything when down... wouldnt want to dent that straight out of the late 90's / early 2000's diagonal frenched tailgate.

 

Meow. Clearly this guy is in a rush and doesn't have time to digest everything we tell him. If he is pulling a jetski - fine. if he is pulling a trailer weighing 3k +, he is not going to see many times he can switch it into 5th.

You want to be smart, get a tranny temperature gauge and use that to decide if you want to run in 5th gear or not.

 

Someone drank their Hateraid this AM lol


I get a lot of compliments on it...

 

Time to lift the baja!!!

 

and/or install a HC rear bumper with the receiver behind the license plate

 

Yeah, when we get back going to look at leaf packs, bags, etc...


By the way, wind WAS kicking us around a sht ton. We've geared it down to like 60mph.... Helping way more so we're not stopping as often. At this rate, we'll to CO next month lol.

Nah, be there in a couple hours. Denver,St least.

 

I can't see what wheels the trailer has from the pictures, but it shouldn't be too big of a deal to swap the hubs over to 6x5.5 assuming you can figure out who made the axle and what it's capacity is. If you want to match the trailer wheels to the truck wheels you need to keep in mind that your alloy truck wheels are most likely hubcentric while your trailer hubs are most likely lugcentric. I wound up going with a narrower axle and using Spidertrax wheel spacers to adapt from the lugcentric trailer hub to the hubcentric alloy wheel. If you're going with steel wheels then it's likely not a problem. Looks like you've got parking brakes on the trailer, which is handy, but it's also important to realize if you're going with new hubs that you'll need to make sure the new hubs have the parking brake. They're not as common as they should be.

I haven't done the official number crunching but looks like I averaged about 13 on the maiden trip with my trailer. I'll have to figure that out and update. I did avoid the freeways. The truck felt like it was doing best between 40 and 55. Up above 60 is where it really started to slow down. My trailer is about 1400lb empty, probably 1700lb loaded up. I had a canoe on the truck which probably didn't help much.

 

I don't plan on switching the hubs /lug pattern. It doesn't bother me that my wheels won't match... Seems like an unnecessary complication.

 

The advantage is not that your wheels match but that you don't have to carry extra spares for the truck and trailer since they'll work on either vehicle.

 

Yep, or in a worst case scenario, you can use the trailer wheels on the truck to get out.

 

I remember a little story about some guys also traveling from the east coast to Colorado, looking for better gas mileage...