Driving 24'Gooseneck trailer with single axle truck in RAIN?

What can I do besides have my good BFG all terrain tires aired to 75 pounds on my F350? Maybe set the gain wheel on the trailer breaks up a little higher than the truck brakes to hold back on the hills? My truck breaks are perfectly new. I'm using good binders with 3/8 chain.

As T-bone mentioned your tounge weight is important also. With a fifth wheel you won't be real sensitive to too little (make sure you have some) However too much will get you in trouble also (can cause the front axle to lock up and lose steering).

A common rule of thumb is to go down hills in the same gear you would need to climb it. That has been modified now due to bigger engines and you should use one gear lower.

Use your head and you will get yourself and your new toy home in one piece. Oh yeah tie it down independently all four directions. AND FOR GOSH SAKES IF YOU ARE GOING TO POST A PICTURE OF YOUR CATCH DON'T TAKE IT AFTER YOU HAVE UNTIED IT AND BEFORE YOU UNLOADED IT, There are people here that will flame you to a cinder for that, Just ask Allen ;-P

jt

You left out the most important part of the question. Is the trailer rated to carry the weight of the tractor?

A JD730 weighs about 8000# wet plus the trailer weight approx 6000# plus the weight of the F350 about 7500#, puts you right at 22500GCW. That's a good sized load for a F350 SRW with a inexperienced driver pulling in the rain. You could also easyly add another 1000# too your gross weight for carrying rain water.

You'll need to adjust your pin weight so you don't exceed your F350 tire weight rating. At the above weights, that's getting close to not having enough pin weight for trailer stability control of approx 15% of trailer gross weight at the lightest recomend pin weight for GN trailers.

A good rule of thumb for attaining the correct pin weight is to measure your bumper height with the empty trailer attcached. Then drive the load weight forward until the bumper drops 2.5" from the empty measurement. This will be the correct pin weight for 99% of the TV/trailer combinations made.

When descending grades, I never use my brakes more than 3 times with-in the grade length or I'm in too high of a gear ratio. I use lower transmission gears to hold the load weight. Yes, even with a automatic you'll need to manualy select the correct gear for the grade. Error on the slow side.

I always use my trailer brakes first, period! I manually apply my trailer brakes then lightly apply my TV brakes. If you have a PSD, then you will need to use red line rpm for compression braking, approx 3400rpm max, then brake aggressively to 3000rpm, then let up on the brakes to return to 3400rpm then repeat. This keeps the brakes cooler rather than lightly riding the brakes. Using this method, I can get 100k miles out of my TV brakes.

Pulling in rain is just like pulling in snow. If the grade will let you run 30mph under dry conditions then I run at 15mph under wet roads. If there's any chance of ice or snow pack, then it's tire chains on all axles on grades.

T_Bone