Anyone tow with an RV?

I'm thinking about picking up an old 1984 Automate Royal with a 454. It's bitchen i know! Even has brown pin stripes. So, does anyone else tow with their RV? It's 33ft long, has a tow package. Am I fooling myself thinking it will haul my car trailer and Toyota? Most of my trips are over flat ground down 203 and hwy 2 to Reiter. I don't need to do 40mph up the pass I just need to make it there without blowing the tranny up or over heating. And I curently tow with my suburban with a 454 so I'm used to going slow.

Can you say, "party bus!" :cheer:

I tow with a 28'. Has a rebuilt tranny with towing upgrades because the first one didn't last, and 2 extra tranny coolers. I tow over the capacity which is 6500 lbs and my trailer/truck comb is over 9000. With trailer brakes working it works fine. It stuggles up big hills, but it get's there.

At the very least, put an additional transmission cooler in it.

The other thing to do is to get the hitch modified to handled the extra weight, if you're over weight. Several of the hitch companies like Tork Lift, cane modify the hitch to tie it in farther up the frame so that it can handle the weight.

This is my spring project since I already did new brakes and the transmission upgrade.

I've been thinking about it as well, for the long weekends...

Do it...


Cut the back off and flat bed it though. 13 foot camper, 20ft flatbed:redneck:

dirtygoat said:

I've been thinking about it as well, for the long weekends...

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If you have have a family that likes to come with you, bringing the motorhome is a real blessing. My family like it because we can stay the night and be warm and cozy. If they boy's want to go wheeling the girls can hang out and just relax at the campground. Even the traveling is more comfortable. My old tow rig was an 87 F250. It was a tight squeeze with 5 of us and enough gear and food to enjoy a day of wheeling now we bring everything we need and they can watch a movie on the DVD or play X-box. Not to mention if the weather is sour the motorhome is SO much more comfortable for a family.

We have have 3 kids and getting everyone into a camper just didn' work as well as a motorhome.

Gibby said:

If you have have a family that likes to come with you, bringing the motorhome is a real blessing. My family like it because we can stay the night and be warm and cozy. If they boy's want to go wheeling the girls can hang out and just relax at the campground. Even the traveling is more comfortable. My old tow rig was an 87 F250. It was a tight squeeze with 5 of us and enough gear and food to enjoy a day of wheeling now we bring everything we need and they can watch a movie on the DVD or play X-box. Not to mention if the weather is sour the motorhome is SO much more comfortable for a family.

We have have 3 kids and getting everyone into a camper just didn' work as well as a motorhome.

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That's exactly my thoughts on it...

I've been looking at them lately...

Darby said:

It's bitchen i know!

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:haha: :haha: :haha: That is exactly how you sound when you talk too!:haha: :haha: :haha:


I say do it. Mike (Iceman) from the WHORES tows with an RV, the mobile party unit as it's known, and loves it. He tows a Samurai on a trailer behind it, and has never mentioned any issues.....other than going sloooooooooow.


As mentioned above, the tranny and hitch issues are the things to take care of first.

Good advice Gibby, thank you. I think my family will be a lot more comfortable. Usually in the past I just get real creative with tarps. I just can't get over the length at 33ft, with my trailer being long enough to almost haul 2 rigs it's going to get real interesting when I find myself in the wrong place. I heard I need to watch the movie, About Schmitt

I have a 1985 27' allegro class A(mildly built 454) and while its not fast I have used it to tow my trailer and rigs (#6500) all over wash, ore, Idaho and Montana. The thing you really need to look at is the rear of the frame. Most class A's have a frame extension under the rear and they pretty much all need to be beefed up or they will fail. I also hooked up a draw bar that goes all the way up to the main frame for more pulling strength. This year I am thinking about adding a wheel to the hitch for those long trips. http://www.stingerhitch.com/

Mines 34', make sure and have two tranny coolers and don't get in a big hurry on hills.

I like that stingerhitch thingy!:awesomework:

Richie said:

Mines 34', make sure and have two tranny coolers and don't get in a big hurry on hills.

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Damn, that's a long bitch...

My boss does it. He has a toy hauler he pulls that can double decker ATVs inside it.
He has also hauled pallets of floor tile in it.
He uses a weight distibution kit to help the tongue bouncing.
By the way its a Lazy Daze with a Ford V10.
Good quality coach.

OH get this, He put a special puller fan on the exhaust. Its like a big stainless squirrel cage fan. He said Its awsome,and can pull grades in a higher gear now.

Fwiw Icemans rv is like a 23 footer or so. Most bitchen home on wheels for the woods.

I tow with a 35' it works good the tranny does not get hot.

longfield said:

I tow with a 35' it works good the tranny dos not get hot.

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You have the nicest, most heavy duty RV I've ever seen in person.

The difference in caliber of RV is very different between your's and Darby's.......very different.

I have a 86 holiday rambler 33' class A 454 th400 gearvendor over-under drive pulling I can do 70mph on flat ground and 40 to 50 on most grades around here..it has 3 tranny coolers tag along axle 19.5 tires/rims..I've thought about cutting off the back and making it into a flatbed toy hauler.
I say go get the rv and say bye bye to camping on the ground:awesomework:

No one has mentioned the best part of the R.V., laws are like a limo. Your passengers can drink as long as its not in the reach of the driver. Also if you take the family you have an onboard chitter so you dont have to pull over on long trips. Onboard kitchen so she can make lunch without trying to get your rig and trailer into a fast food joint in some unknown town, then figure out how to get back to the hwy. With all that saved time you can go really slow on the pass and still get there in good time.:awesomework:

I'm going to look at it some time today. I don't have all the cash so I'm giving up my 78 280z car in trade. I'm going to really miss that car but hopefully the RV makes up for the loss. Thanks for all the input fellas, i'll post up some pics if i pick it up.

We find that having the motorhome has become MUCH handier than we ever expected. The kids use it like a club house when their friends come over to play games. During power outages it's available to friends that don't have generator backup for their houses. When family came to visit, there's a nice private place for them to stay instead of putting them on the living room floor and we can haul 10 people around in one vehicle instead of 2.

We took a trip to Medford to visit the outlaws. With 3 kids all needing bathroom breaks at different times the trip would take us 10 hours. We took the motorhome, set the cruise at the speed limit and stopped only once for a drive pee brake and shaved 2 hours off the travel time. Not to mention how much more enjoyable the trip was for everyone else. Mom didn't have 10 bags stuffed at her feet, the kids weren't pushing and arguing being stuck in one place for 10 hours. The got to have a bit of an adventure on their first long motorhome trip, watch movies, lie down when it got late, play games, go to the bathroom whenever they want etc.

I added a couple of full time invertors that I hard wired in so that I don't have to run the generator while traveling. I do need a better battery bank on mine as it has only 1 coach battery. I strapped in an cheap DVD player and an old small flat screen TV that I wasn't using.

One of THE BEST changes we did, was to take out the queen size bed in the back with they typical camper mattress and put in a king size pillow top mattress. We had to cut out part of a closet but no major loss in storage. It fit's almost wall to wall but it's SO much more comfortable that the stock mattress. It's as nice as sleeping at home.