Milk Truck

First time poster here:

I'm setting up a utility trailer to haul 300 gallons of milk in a stainless bulk tank 2x/week for a 45 minute trip fully laden. I want to talk out my setup and see if I get any red flags from you guys.

The only thing I have so far is the truck which is a 2018 Tacoma 4x4 v6 with tow package. I was conservative with buying a Tacoma because it's easier to handle, saves on gas, and has a great rep. We're going to be using this truck for other things besides milk hauling, like driving to farm markets, etc.

I'm having a Lamar tandem axle utility trailer built in a 10' length with 16" on center cross members. This trailer should weigh in at about 1025 lbs. give or take (give for the added cross members, take for for no gate).

Then there's the bulk tank. This is going to weigh 500-600 pounds unladen but I haven't devised the way I'm going to affix it to the trailer bed. I was thinking I'd have rails built for the feet to distribute the weight and bands made to loop over the top of the tank in two places. Ideally all this would get through-bolted to the frame.

The milk itself weight 8.6 pounds per gallon which makes that 2580 lbs.

so 1025 + 600 + 2580 comes to 4205 lbs.

I'm going to buy a brake controller since the trailer has brakes on both axles. The manual says I need a sway bar.

Am I missing anything? More regular maintenance? A load distribution hitch? (sounds cumbersome for short trips)

Have I thought this through correctly?

 

Welcome to TW. I dont have much knowledge in towing. It should do fine, but may sag in the rear from the tounge weight.

 

Welcome aboard. Sound like you have it well in hand. If you will doing a lot of hauling you may want a larger tranny cooler and monitor the tranny temps. Here's one to ya

 

So weight wise, its nothing.

One thing you may have missed, its not in your description.... If the tank has no internal baffles to keep the liquid from sloshing around, then you will only want to pull it if its either bone dry, or absolutely full to the brim. Having, say, 1500 pounds of liquid sloshing around WILL be dangerous.

 

Because you're having the trailer built and you have the benefit of having the same, predictable load and hopefully you can tweak the placement of the tank to get the right balance on the trailer. If you can get the milk tank situated so it is mostly being carried by the axles, that would be ideal and you would want about 500 lbs on the tongue of the trailer to make it tow well. Depending on how much squat you get with that kind of tongue weight, you may feel you need a weight distribution hitch but I wouldn't say it's a requirement. With a tandem axle trailer, if the tank is low meaning the whole set up has a low center of gravity, you might be able to slide more of the tanks weight over the trailer axles, slightly lightening the tongue weight. I would make sure you have at least 10% of the trailers total weight on the tongue to make it trail well at speed. Any less and you can get some really crazy and unsafe sway.

What's this business about a sway bar? The truck came with a sway bar up front, if the manual is telling you need another one in the rear, I'm not sure I'd buy that... The truck will handle that sort of weight just fine, especially so if it is a low height load.

 

It's going to be full to the brim, every time. For sure.

 

That's what I thought. I think it's one of those uhaul style bars that attach to the trailer hitch. Not convinced I'll be opting for that. Yeah, getting the weight will be tricky. I was going to fill the tank with water and see if I can get some marks set on the deck. Of course, I don't have the trailer (or tank) yet.

 

Do you all think a larger tranny cooler is money well spent? Seems to be a pretty cheap hedge but I don't know. 4500 pounds trailered for 45 mins 2x week? Not much real strain on the truck probably. There's some pretty gnarly driveways on dairy farms though. If I'm towing through mud in 4x....?

 

There were a couple other threads about the sway bar and it sounds almost like an add-on rear axle sway bar. For what you're towing, I wouldn't bother. You're not towing overly heavy and it's a low load so you won't be dragging something with a huge front area (that makes a huge difference when towing at speed). You may have to play with where the tank sets, but I'd imagine you could get dialed in and not need a weight distributing hitch or the infamous sway bar. A good brake controller will be needed and it sounds like you're planning for that. If you're towing frequently, you may eventually need to beef up the rear suspension as it is way too soft from the factory. Maybe some Sumosprings or Air Bags in the future if the rear suspension starts squatting out on you. Otherwise, keep your tires up at their max when towing and the you'll be fine. You're well within the truck's limits.

 

If you have the tow package, it should already have auxiliary coolers for the engine and tranny so I wouldn't bother with adding more. The slow speed stuff isn't usually too bad as long as you can keep the transmission off of the torque converter and make it stay locked in a gear. When the torque converter is unlocked, that's when the transmission can really build a lot of heat and you need to keep an eye on temperatures. Lots of mud on dairy farms just means you need to keep your radiators clean so they can do their job.

 

What's the torque converter? Does that get turned off if it's set to Sequential shifting?

 

The torque converter is the part that allows the engine to decouple from the transmission and stands in for having a 3rd pedal with a clutch attached to it.
Your torque converter has a lock-up mode that engages in high gears at low torque, but the torque converter is needed *every* time the transmission is engaged, and every time the gear shifts.

And torque converters make a shit ton of heat.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torque_converter

BUT, your load isn't extreme, so I wouldn't worry too much about cooling. Just follow sensible towing procedure and you'll be fine. For example, if you are going up an incline and you see the transmission going into an upshift/downshift/upshift/downshift cycle.... grab the lever and put it in a lower position to stop if from doing that.

 

Well, mostly I'll be below 50 mph on hilly, winding roads. So I would just keep it in s4, right?

 

You can keep it in whatever works best.