RubiconRod

Wow. I just bought the new lance "ultra-light" weighing around 3700lbs. I have an '09 but have a superchips, exhaust and k&n drop in. Haven't pulled it yet as waiting for delivery on my Reese weight distributing hitch. The difference is my rubi has 4.10 gears. In your opinion, how much easier would it be with these gears? Also, I have a 6 speed and many think I'm nuts trying to tow a beast like that with a stick. Thoughts?

Freewill

I like the new toy hauler fine, but the empty hauler is already at the weight limit according to the factory. Its gonna be around half a ton over the limit with your bike, enough water, and personal gear. And the beer!

To be totally candid, I hope I'm no where near you on the freeway if you need to handle an emergency with that much weight and surface area behind you.

dognights

My first thought is you are crazy to pull something like that on any long trip behind your jeep. But I say that in the nicest possible way.

I do however think that with the proper modifications you could at least improve some of the safety while pulling something like that. Here is a list of a few things I would probably change first.

Add heavier springs in the rear of the jeep
Add an airbag system inside the coil springs
add a larger HD rear sway bar
Change out tires to E load tires
Find and install a Class 4 HD hitch reciever
Regear much tighter then 4.1....The difference between a 4.1 and 3.73 is only about one percent
Add an oil cooler...You are going to increase the load on the engine by alot more then it is designed for
Check current brake setup and at the very least change to different brake pads
Find a tuner that you can adjust A/F mixture for towing with using a less agressivie timing curve

I dunno that is all I can think of off the top of my head real fast. Im sure I would add a few other things to the list. My big question I guess would be why not just get a nice tandem axle tramp enclosed trailer that weighs 1000 pounds and build yourself a nice camping trailer? That would cost way less total and serve the same purpose and not over stress your equipment.

RubiconRod

You are making a lot of assumptions. Tongue weight for the trailer is within specs. 3700 lbs is a mere 200 lbs over the max for my rig. Class 3 receivers are rated at 3500 for normal setups and 4000 lbs when using a weight distributing hitch like I am. I agree braking is a big concern and made sure my trailer had brakes on all four wheels and bought one of the best brake controllers out there. Already have a tuner and new brakes. If I find my ass sags too much then I will bag it. Oil cooler is a good idea. Rear swaybar is already planned.

dognights

I really didnt mean anything negative by my suggestions at all. If I were going to tow something big that was just a list I would choose to follow to make it a bit safer. It looks like you agree or already have done a bunch of the things I would put on my list as well. I personally just think that is a big load to put on the little jeep engine myself. Heck going up most steep hills wihtout towing anything is a pretty big load for the little v6 really. Either way it looks like you are taking a bunch of precautions to tow your toys around and that is the best you can really do. The only thing I would caution looking into a bit more maybe is your reciever hitch. Most Class 3 rated jeep hitches are the same 4 bolt Class 2 frame recievers with heavier wall tubing. This is why most are still only rated at 3500 pounds instead of 5000 pounds. They make very heavy frame Class 4 hitches that integrate and strap to the actual frame rails that have much higher tongue ratings. Draw-tite has some nice hitches that are rated for up to as high as around 10,000 pounds. Hope to see you all out at the trails one day. Cheers

RubiconRod

No offense taken at all. Just realize its a touchy subject when discussing towing something a little over the max rating. My hope is that the jeep can do it, even if I have to spend a few bucks to upgrade it. I knew going in that if the jeep couldn't handle it I would have to trade it in and get something else. Heck my wife told me that if the jeep isn't strong enough to pull it I have her permission to supercharge it. I'm less concerned about the power then I am about the handling and braking. Brakes I can upgrade and I guess can deal with the handling up to a certain point. Since you brought up the engine oil cooler, you happen to know what would work with the JK.

Csharron

Good looking trailer

dognights

I know of two types of oil coolers I have seen used on a Jeep of some of my friends. The first was two small radiator fin type coolers that were mounted in front of the radiator behind the grill. I presonaly dont really like that idea because I think it has to affect the cooling of the radiator in some way. Plus I also dont like the idea that a stone can come up and tag it and leave you with a nice hot oil leak.

The other that I have seen is a cannister type cooler. It basically looks like a big long aluminum remote oil filter except it is bascially a big pipe with heavy thick heat fins around it. You literallly could take a hammer to it without doing damage to it. The one I saw was hanging along the side of the engine bay almost into the wheel well. It looked like a pretty good safe spot and seemed like it would get good airflow to it. Im sure it wouldnt cool as well as a radiator type but the added oil capacity combined with how sturdy it was seemed like it was a pretty safe insurance bet if you wanted an oil cooler. I wouldnt think it would be too super expensive either.

I thought of something else that you might want to look into that is easy and will actually save you a bit of money as well. Near where I live you can buy farm gas that has some anti wear additives added to it. It also doesnt contain ethanol. It is also about 50cents a gallon cheaper then regular with the same ocatane rating. It is cheaper because they dont charge DOT taxes on it because it is meant for offroad only. Around here most stations let any pickup or "offroad" looking truck/jeep fill directly to the gas tank without issue. Other stations may make you fill to jugs and fill your jeep up at home.

rob_engineer

I researched this extensively before making the decision to exceed the 3500 max tow. I had a thread on this a few weeks ago. A couple of things to consider. One is that the liberty is rated for 5000 pounds. There is no reason I can think of to justify why the JKU can't tow as much as the liberty. Also, the JKU built the same exact way as in the USA and exported to England, France, Germany, or Sweden is rated for 4400 pounds. The same JKU in australia is rated for 4800 pounds. All this info is available on the jeep websites in those countries. And as my first post stated, I am taking all precautions by having a great weight distribution hitch, anti sway linkage, and a great inertia load proportional brake controller.

lazerpunk

Nice looking trailer. I looked it up to see what you are really pulling there.
It shows a 3350lb dry weight and a payload capacity of 3270lbs and a GVWR of 7000lbs.

I Pull a 3200lb (wet,packed ready to go) 16' travel trailer all over the country. We currently pull it with a bone stock (mechanically) 2007 Sahara Unlimited, auto trans. and 4:10's. In 2007 you could get 4:10's without having to have a Rubicon. So all my comments are based on that vehicle experience. (We now have a '12 Rubi. with 4:10's but I have not pulled anything with it)

I'm not going to go into all the you "shouldn't do that because" crap. You already own it, so you are going to do it anyway. So instead I am going to suggest a piece of equipment that you should really consider before you have a seriously scary towing experience like I did. We almost rolled our rig heading to Colorado from Michigan. When we came out of a construction zone the trailer took a bad bounce from a large seam in the road. The trailer about swapped ends with the Jeep. But I got it stopped and we went about our business. I had a great hitch that was set up properly. I had taken it to the CAT scales a day before we left to check tongue weight and load distribution. I made some adjustments and we headed out. I made every effort to limit the chance of sway, but it still happened.

I see from your pic. your weight dist. hitch has the standard load bars with chain lockups. So the sway control you are speaking of must be a little adjustable "arm" offset from the ball. There are many good quality hitches out there that do a great job controlling sway. But all they do is control it, they don't prevent it from happening.

There is one style hitch that will not allow sway to happen ever. It's a "pivot projecting" hitch. It's design "projects" the trailers pivot point closer the rear axle. It now acts and pulls like a 5th wheel going down the road. The benefit is the trailer can never cause a sway condition. No more white knuckle 18 wheeler passing issues. Crosswinds are also never an issue. Too my knowledge there are only two companies that sell this type of hitch. The one I own is a Hensley Hitch (the Cub model for smaller trailers) the other is a ProPride hitch. They both operate exactly the same the way. They just attach to the trailer a bit differently and ProPride has a heavy adjustable hitch bar. (not necessary IMO if you only tow with one vehicle) They are expensive hitches, the Cub I have cost $1600 but when you add the cost of your trailer to the cost of the Jeep you pull it with. It's a small amount to pay for your safety and ease of mind when towing.

We have been on two large trips since we bought our Hensley. Utah in 2010 and California 2011 We have pulled our little trailer on just those two alone trips more than 13K miles. I can go on and on about how nice it is to pull our trailer with that hitch.

I would suggest to you since you are pulling at or above the rating of the Jeep to look into this type of hitch for your own safety. Watch the video's on You Tube, visit RV forums that talk about all the different types of hitches out there. But keep in mind most people that tow trailers do so with a large vehicle that is designed to tow trailers, We do not. So there opinion will not always apply.

One last thing. When you pull over your vehicles rated capacity, if for some reason you are in an accident and it's found you are over weight. You will be at fault! They don't care how much your trailer weighs when you are pulling it. They only care what the tags say, and they say you can't pull it.