shaft

A delivery truck (roughly weighed 25K lbs) at work was stuck in the delivery ramp (steep) due to a bad starter. His help was about 2 hours away so I decided to offer some help. The truck driver said "Are you sure? My truck is really heavy." I told him that my CTD will probably handle it rather easy. He was very skeptical. I got my rig warmed up, hooked up the chain to his truck and put my truck in 4 lo. To my disbelief, my rig just crawled right up the ramp barely touching the gas pedal. I towed the his truck to level ground, he then popped this clutch and the truck started right up.

The truck driver got out of his truck and said "I thought you're going to start spinning your tires when we were going up the ramp." Needless to say he was impressed.

This is my first diesel truck and I was really excited and had a lot of fun helping this guy out. This is not probably a big deal to the experienced diesel guys but I was for me since I have not done anything like this before.

Since there wasn't any weight on the back of my truck, is that why it was so easy to pull the truck out? What do you think? What's the heaviest tow you've ever done.

ten8fiftyone

Welcome to the wonderful world of "CTD muscle"!!!..Since you were in 4 lo you were sending drive power to the rear AND front. So, you were both pushing AND pulling the load and your truck. Diesel engines having amazing pulling power, particularly if you get the gearing/weight/traction ratio to balance. Just ask anyone who has owned a diesel farm tractor. My Bobcat 763 with a 46hp diesel, and only a forward or reverse gear, still amazes me sometimes. Yesterday I dead dragged a dirt covered red fir stump, about the size of a VW bug, 3/4 of a mile, up a slight hill. It dug a furrow in the gravel road deep enough to lose a calf in

Crimedog

Ha Ha! Isn't it fun to be in control of situations like that?! Within the first week I had my truck, some idiot ricer went in a steep ditch - on dry pavement - I asked them how he did it, and he said "Well, dude, jeeze man, I was just cruizin and I tried to pull the e-brake and whip my a$$ end around, and just went right in, man. Whooooah" This was my first pull with the truck, so I put it in 4 low, and it just idled it right out of a steep ditch. Didn't get any money out of that guy Now it's 10 bucks, the tow strap is in the toolbox, hook it up to your car, and I'll hook it to my truck I've already made 30 bucks

Sidewinder

I got to pull a brand new '04 DMax Crew Cab dually 4X4 out of the mud yesterday. We were out dirtbiking and he went into the swampy mud to retrieve a stuck Ford F150. So the Dodge got to pull out the GMC that pulled out the F150 that pulled out the Jeep Liberty.

I was amazed at how easy it was, I probibly didn't even need to use 4LO but my back tires are almost bald and I was in mud so I figured I would just be safe.

In all fairness I'm sure that if I went where the DMax was I would have been stuck too. I have no idea what the guy in the Liberty was thinking. He ended up stuck in a rut, sitting on both axles with only one front and one back tire spinning.

The dirtbiking was fun but rescueing the DMax was priceless.

Dodgezilla

I had a similar event with my 92 when it was new. We had a tractor and 53' moving trailer get stuck in the mud and everybody thought I was crazy when I said I would pull him out. Imagine the looks on their faces when I put it in 4 low and pulled him out with only a half spin of the wheels before it hooked up.


Now, on the other hand, every stinking time I tried to go off road in that truck I ended up having to dig myself out because it seemed to get stuck no matter where I went!!!

mstocktill

This winter I had the pleasure to be in the right place at the right time. My twelve year old son and I were tooling around in the latest snow storm when we came upon an armored car that had gotten high ended on the center median of a narrow street. The driver was not familiar with the area because they were filling in for all the people who had not been able to make it in through the unexpected storm. I told them that I could pull them off the median and they all just laughed. Then their supervisor, who just happened to be one of their crew for the day, came out of the truck and said that they wouldn't be getting any help for any at least two or three hours. I then again offered my help. The supervisor asked if I was serious, I said yes; and the tow was on. I carry some very large chains in my truck for pulling equipment around at worksights, so we hooked them up, I put the truck in 4-Lo...I shifted in Lo, cranked the CTD up, and pulled off easily. With very little wheel spin, we pulled their vehicle off the median and back onto the road surface. The guys couldn't believe that my 2500 could have pulled their rig off of that snow pack; but they were glad that we did. I did ask if they had any "EXTRAS" in the truck; but they ddidn't give us any. A couple of days later we did get a nice letter from their company along with some shirts and hats and models armored trucks.
Marks S.

thejeepdude

Reminds me of when we were running a Christmas tree lot and the delivery truck got stuck in the field. I had just purchased my Jeep and as expected it couldn't pull it loose. Neither could my buddy's Z71 Chevy. I tied my Jeep to his Chevy, blocked all 8 tires, hooked my winch up to the rig, and she pulled right out after dragging both our vehicles a few feet until the blocks wedged in good. I couldn't believe it... of course it was only sunk about 4" in the mud, but he was grateful as I'm sure it wouldn't have been cheap to get a semi-sized tow truck out there.

Dodgezilla

Well, on a sad note, last year I was still driving my 98.5 dually when we got about 15" of snow. We have some flatbed car trailers in our back lot at work and I needed to bring one around front. The plow man was nice enough to plow a 3' mound in front of the trailers. I said no problem and hooked a chain up to the front of one thinking I would jerk it over the mound. Well the rear wheels started spinning so I put it in 4wd. By the time I was finished I had made a nice slippery ice pack under all 6 wheels to where I could get out of the truck and watch all 6 wheels spinning. Now here's the sad part. My driver owns a Jeep Grand Cherokee and he did not hesitate to "Help" me and my big truck get out of our predicament. We hooked it up and all I needed was the slightest tug to get me on better ground. This guy will still not forget how his little jeep had to rescue my big dually truck..

twoshot

My Cummins has more torque, However back in 85 I was hauling logs in an 18wheeled Mack when I busted the tranny mainshaft taking off from railroad crossing up about 12-14 % grade my only choice besides sitting on the tracks was to roll back down hill off the main rd and into another rd blocking it. Late at night screwed! I was able to get wife on radio told to get in the PU and haul butt over and tow me off of road .She got there bout hr. later with my almost new 84 6.2 4x4 4speed 3.73s she pulled me back up and across tracks and up even steeper pitch into old mill site no spinning or anything .The best part was week later after towing to shop with peterbuilt and getting trans swapped I ran to dump where I weighed 112,000 # !!!!