flatbed military trailer

[JH1]

The deuce tow rating of 10,000 pounds should be taken seriously, from an insurance standpoint. I'm sure the deuce will pull more than that if you are careful, and you can probably get some sort of insurance that allows towing, but if you ever get in an accident and your load was found to exceed the 10k limit, your insurance company will be dancing in the street, because they will be off the hook for any payout. Part of the low rating is because of the pintle being held on by one lonely nut. Another part is how far behind the rear wheels it sits. If you decelerate rapidly, the towed load will force down on the lunette eye, which will pivot the front of the truck upward, reducing your front braking.
JH1

 

[quickfarms]

Part of the low rating is because of the pintle being held on by one lonely nut.

The single nut has nothing to do with the tow rating. These type of swivel pintle hooks come with a typical rating between 15 and 50 tons.

 

[LowTech]

The military has two flatbed trailers with lunettes, air brakes and 24v lights: The m1061 and something called the xck2000e1 which is really an intermodal chassis for 20' iso ocean freight containers so you need a flatbed with pinlocks to use it. Both are sold by gl from time to time.

There are also these,
XM979: Chassis, Trailer, 5-Ton, 4-Wheel, Ground Emplacement Mine Scattering System (GEMSS)
XM1061: Trailer, Flatbed, 5-Ton, 4-Wheel
M1061A1: Trailer, Flatbed, 5-Ton, 4-Wheel
XM1073: Trailer, General Purpose, Flatbed,7½-Ton

It seems that these two have surge brakes, . . . "The XM979 and XM1061 have an inertia brake system which allows the trailers to be towed by
tracked vehicles and an air/hydraulic brake system that applies the trailer brakes when the service brakes of the towing
vehicle are applied."

 

[walkerhunter]

Because of the single nut? That's funny! Climb under any tandem axle dump truck and see what kind of pintle it has. SINGLE NUT

 

[clinto]

The deuce tow rating of 10,000 pounds should be taken seriously, from an insurance standpoint. I'm sure the deuce will pull more than that if you are careful, and you can probably get some sort of insurance that allows towing, but if you ever get in an accident and your load was found to exceed the 10k limit, your insurance company will be dancing in the street, because they will be off the hook for any payout. Part of the low rating is because of the pintle being held on by one lonely nut. Another part is how far behind the rear wheels it sits. If you decelerate rapidly, the towed load will force down on the lunette eye, which will pivot the front of the truck upward, reducing your front braking.
JH1

I can't remember where I found this, but one of the manuals has the load rating for the pintle itself-the NSN for the deuce pintle says it's (the pintle, not the truck itself) is rated for something astonishing like 15 or 20 tons. I'll look tonight and see if I can find it.

 

[Dipstick]

Thanks for the ideas. It looks like I will have to go with a commercial trailer. I'm only wanting to haul 6,000 pounds worth of truck. I've got a friend that flat tows an M1009 with a towbar without issue behind his truck but I don't like the idea of doing that for anything over a few miles. He doesn't even drop driveshafts but I have my doubts about doing that to my truck. I even have a Hunter Medium towbar. I may just get a standard hitch with an acceptable hitch height to hook a civi trailer behind my truck. I'm not really worried about weight. Anyone who has followed my posting will know that my truck can run 45 in the hills with 23,000 pounds of towed weight behind it.

Wow! My truck bogs down to 1500 rpm by it's lonesome on hills. That's why trailer/load weights concern me. I have a low hours whistler turbo motor. It seems to run great, but it doesn't like hills. How can your truck pull so much better than mine?

 

[Recovry4x4]

I've yanked my M1008 all over the place on the towbar without any negative results. While I don't remove the driveshaft, I do remove the rear axleshafts. I have steel block off plates and can swap them out in 5 minutes with my batt powered impact. I would much rather do this than crawl around on the ground to remove the shaft. Of course on the front I just make sure the hubs are unlocked.

 

[m16ty]

Do keep in mind that with air brakes, your trailer only has brakes with your deuce, but with electric brakes, it has brakes with your Ram 2500 and your deuce (once you've added a trailer brake controller).

That's the only down side I see with air brakes.

The deuce tow rating of 10,000 pounds should be taken seriously, from an insurance standpoint. I'm sure the deuce will pull more than that if you are careful, and you can probably get some sort of insurance that allows towing, but if you ever get in an accident and your load was found to exceed the 10k limit, your insurance company will be dancing in the street, because they will be off the hook for any payout. Part of the low rating is because of the pintle being held on by one lonely nut. Another part is how far behind the rear wheels it sits. If you decelerate rapidly, the towed load will force down on the lunette eye, which will pivot the front of the truck upward, reducing your front braking.
JH1

True but everybody flat tows deuces with deuces (13,000lb).

I've yanked my M1008 all over the place on the towbar without any negative results. While I don't remove the driveshaft, I do remove the rear axleshafts. I have steel block off plates and can swap them out in 5 minutes with my batt powered impact. I would much rather do this than crawl around on the ground to remove the shaft. Of course on the front I just make sure the hubs are unlocked.

Yes, it's much easier to just pull the axles than the driveshaft (unless we are talking about a M1009).

 

[datadawg]

The deuce tow rating of 10,000 pounds should be taken seriously, from an insurance standpoint. I'm sure the deuce will pull more than that if you are careful, and you can probably get some sort of insurance that allows towing, but if you ever get in an accident and your load was found to exceed the 10k limit, your insurance company will be dancing in the street, because they will be off the hook for any payout. Part of the low rating is because of the pintle being held on by one lonely nut. Another part is how far behind the rear wheels it sits. If you decelerate rapidly, the towed load will force down on the lunette eye, which will pivot the front of the truck upward, reducing your front braking.

If a 3/4 pickup can tow 10K, a deuce can surely tow more. I read somewhere the tow ratings are for off road duty, when you are driving on some grassy field that may be hilly, bumpy and full of microwave oven sized rocks. Plus, the military sets their specs for 18 year old grunts, who don't necessarily have the maturity and experience of dealing with towed loads. I bet the engineers at DOD build in plenty of slack in all ratings to account for stupidity and carelessness.

My 5 ton has a 15K tow rating, and that's a complete joke. It's rated to carry 5 tons in the bed, also a joke -- when I put several tons of wood and tile there, I did not even feel it. Interestingly, I had hired an excavator once and he towed his JCB backhoe on trailer (easily 16K load) using an F350 dually. Every day. The only concern I have towing more than "rated" weight on the plaque is trying to explain I'm legal if pulled over. That and dealing with insurance company in case of accident - as another poster said, they love to deny claims for any contrived reason.

 

[tobyS]

I like the 1061.