Towing 4000Kg

I've towed 3 and a bit tonnes behind my 90 V8 (a heavy trailer with a dead

109 and some spares piled in) and it performed surprisingly well. Used high ratio but had to drop down to 2nd for some hills but it still maintained 40mph. You need coupled brakes to tow 4000kg with a LR or over-run brakes up to 3500kg. The advantage of LR's is that they are one of the few 4x4's where you can use low-ratio on road if you need to, which can just save your life when towing heavy loads.

Having said all that, If you intend towing that weight frequently or a long way there are better solutions that a LR.

On or around Mon, 26 Jan 2004 13:20:26 +0000 (UTC), "J A Kirby" enlightened us thusly:

in the UK you can't legally tow over 3.5T on over-run brakes. Not that that stops people, I doubt.

you should have linked brakes. This can be done with an electrical hookup to the brake light circuit with electrically applied trailer braking.

pulling 4

braking.

I do not believe that this is legal in the UK, though I am open to persuasion. AFAIK the trailer brake in question has to be proportional to the force applied to the brake pedal. There is a company, the name of whom I forget, that specialises in air brake trailer kits for Land Rover and Toyota vehicles. The local Land Rover dealer will put Mr Kirby in touch with them. The conversion to vehicle and trailer is not cheap and is generally not cost effective for 500kg [or less, counting the potentially heavier trailer and brake conversion] extra payload.

Huw

I believe it is legal, but it's not simple. In America they are sensible about such things, and have all kinds of fancy trailer brake control systems (some have hand grips for activating trailer brakes - use your trailer to slow the car, if need be). It's also common to have brake control boxes which regulate the force with which the brakes are controlled.

So basically to be legal in this country electric brake wise you need a controller, plus a battery mounted on the trailer so it can work independently of the man vehicle electrics. I believe, but am not certain, that it is actually illegal to have a sane setup whereby you can have the controller on board the towing vehicle to give you more control of the combination.

I have plans for a nice large trailer, and when I was researching it what seems like a long time ago electric brakes were the way ahead - that's the conclusion I came to.

If anyone find to the contrary please post - I'd like to know if I'm wrong here. There's some double cab hire people who have adverts in some of the rags sell 5th wheel caravans - I believe they are electrically braked out of necessity due to weight. Definitely electrically braked, anyway.

I can imagine :(

That's the main reason I looked electric :)

Regards

William MacLeod

In november I drove my Disco 300tdi to Paris towing a 3t+ trailer. In urban areas no problem. On highway inclines of 3%-4% I was going 60 km/h in 3th gear with a lot of angry truckdrivers pushing behind me.

It was great fun using my 300tdi to its limits, at full throttle 90% of the time for about 7 hours but I wouldn't recommand going up to 4 tonnes on a regular basis. You really need a bigger engine for that. I have an envy eye on the 4l V8 diesel from Mercedes...

Jurjen

J A Kirby wrote:

I regularly tow 3.5 ;-) tons behind my naturally aspirated 110 and have done so up hill and down Welsh dale for 20 years next September. No problem. Rather slow up the hills, needing low ratio on any more than minor uphill gradients. Mind you, what I classify as 'minor' might well be called a 'mountain' in Holland.

Huw

Thats all the difference, what we call a farmersroad might there be a highway...;-)

In heavy traffic on European highways France it is important to maintain a speed of at least 95 km/h (60mph) Otherwise the trucks start to pass you and when their drag starts to pull your trailer, you'r in trouble..

Jurjen

September.

maintain

trouble..

Trucks only pull relatively light trailers with a large vertical surface area in my experience. In any case, around here there are few straights long enough for a juggernaut to get passed, let alone get passed at a rate fast enough to cause turbulence. The traffic in country area 'A' roads in the UK is generally much denser than the rest of Europe. In any case, not matter if I use the 67hp Land Rover or the 200hp Land Cruiser, the laden towing speed on the flat and downhill is about the same, limited not by the power available but by the safe stable towing speed. No matter what the power unit, I have found that I need to drive slower with the triple axle than with the twin. On both these small wheeled trailers, snaking is not so much of a problem as slow drift. Perhaps this could quickly change to dangerous uncontrollable snaking, but in 30 years of towing I have yet to find out and do not intend to in the future.

Huw

Gotta go with Huw here, I would never tow a cattle trailer above 40mph, its not safe for the cattle inside. Hills aren't really a problem here in the Vale of York, I've never had the 90 I borrow in the low box at all. On all the roads I would be using the vehicle on lorries are not a problem, either there isn't room for them to get past or the traffic is the limiting factor. The York ringroad at 7 till 8 on a Monday morning is a tedious place before I get on it, and the short dual carriageway lets any lorries easily get past.

Jon

On or around Tue, 27 Jan 2004 22:39:28 -0000, "Huw" enlightened us thusly:

FSVO light. typical full-weight artic trailer probably weighs about 25T or so...

but they do often have large areas - although many have those giant spoilers on the cab roof these days too.

I think he meant "Trucks only (affect) pull relatively light trailers with a large vertical surface area (being towed by cars)........." but I read it the same as you the first time

also the unit on a 44 t unit and trailer combination has an unladen weight of 8 to 9 t making the trailer 35t or so

Andy

gross 44t & unladen 35t = 9 tonne capacity! I think one of those figures is wrong........................

No the Max combination weight is 44 tonne the tractor unit weighs 9 tonne the laden weight of the trailer is 35 tonne

Andy

I meant in the context of the previous post. That is, an overtaking truck causing a light trailer, towed by a car, with large vertical area to be pulled out of line by a large lorry.

Huw

What really puzzles me is what is so special about a defender that it can tow 4T whereas a 109 is only supposed to take 2T ?

brakes, chassis, suspension.... e.g the way the tow hitch is braced to the chassis, not just a drop plate, which must apply some fearsom bending moments to Series rear crossmembers. Also the size, and implied strength, of the various bits that attatch the axles to the chassis - on a series motor this amounts to 8 rather weak (u) bolts on each axle - and the u-bolts can easily be snapped with a spanner. And the brakes - well, contrary to popular belief the drum brakes on a Series motor should be very effective, but being drums brake fade is inevitable (as 60/70% of braking is done by the front brakes, the rear drums on the early 90/110's makes little odds, certainly as far as fading goes). I'd venture that the LT77 gearbox is a lot stronger than a Series box too! Just some thoughts.....

Richard

My book about towing says 109's and 88's can tow 4t as well

Andy

On or around Fri, 30 Jan 2004 06:58:44 -0000, "Andy.Smalley" enlightened us thusly:

which tallies with my recollection of LR's adverts.

apparently, the newer daihatsus are rated to tow 5t.

'course, in practical terms they're all limited to 3.5t by the trailer brakes rules, unless you make a special effort to have linked brakes.

It's 2 tons on the "works plate" - and thats what counts!

Richard