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Old 11-16-2014, 08:56 AM   #1
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1995 31' Land Yacht LE
Kingsland , Georgia
Join Date: Nov 2014
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'95 33' Land Yacht towing?

Last year I bought a 33' 1995 Airstream land yacht. I have found out that it is built on a GMC C30 chassis, but I can not find anything about towing in any of the books. The owner I bought it from said he thought that it was about 1500 LBS and that if I wanted more the chassis would have to be modified. I have a 1999 VW Passat that I'm wanting to use a dolly to tow behind the RV. The other part to that is the Dolly is modified to hold my motorcycle (1983 Goldwing about 1000 LBS)

What I need to know is what is my towing limit right now?

How hard is it to increase the towing limit?

Is it something that I would be able to do or is it something that a professional needs to do?

Please I need help as getting ready for a long trip soon..
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Old 11-16-2014, 05:02 PM   #2
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1995 31' Land Yacht
Onalaska , Washington
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What little I can tell you is we towed a Prius C on a dolly last year. Car weighs about 2400#, dolly maybe 400#. We had no trouble. Hardly knew it was back there. Dolly has electric brakes, I'd definitely NOT tow without that. Our 95 30 ft LY has a 454 Chevy engine with the Banks booster system. It breathes like a marathon runner.
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Old 11-16-2014, 05:39 PM   #3
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2000 31' Excella
Ontario , Canada
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Don't know anything about your M/H but......
You should have a sticker on your doorsill or somewhere else on the the exterior of the m/h. It should give you the base weight, the loaded gross weight , and the combined weight of your m/h and the towed vehicle.

So if your base weight is 14,000 lbs and the gross weight is 18,000 lbs, you can add 4,000 lbs of food, clothing, water, beer, etc. That still leaves you with 3,000 lbs of towing stuff if the combined weight is 21,000 lbs. Enough to tow a small car. There is no additional weight if you tow 4 wheels down on the road to the gross weight. I would doubt that your towable weight is less than 3,000 lbs. Even if it was 3,000 lbs and you wanted to tow a vehicle of 4,000 lbs, you could do so IF you had the hitch reinforced, and if your engine and tranny and rear end, etc was capable of pulling the extra weight. There are many experts on this forum that have almost identical units as yours and could provide the authoritive info but this will have to do for now.
One further point. If your payload is only 2000 lbs (like mine) the difference between the base weight and the loaded weight of say (14,000 lbs + 2,000 lbs) 16,000 lbs and your combined weight of 21,000 will now give you a tow weight of 5,000 lbs again if your hitch, engine, tranny, etc is up to the task. And yes don't forget to have a supplemental braking system installed in your towed car. Its a must in myho.
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Old 11-17-2014, 08:24 AM   #4
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1995 31' Land Yacht LE
Kingsland , Georgia
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Well found the plate and it still did not make since to me. The first thing I learned was it is not a 33' it is only a 30' but then again I should have known as as there is no 33' land yacht LE... Oh well I only lost 3 feet...

Ok here is what the plate said

GAWR
Front 5300 Rear 10,000

GVWR 14,800

So that is 15,300 over all the axles but the max is 14,800, but there is no over all weight of the RV. So I guess my next stop will be to get the axle weights and the over all weight. Lucky for me there is a truck stop close by and that will tell me where I stand and if there is any room for me for me to tow my VW.
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Old 11-17-2014, 10:42 AM   #5
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2001 30' Classic S/O
2001 31' Land Yacht
Newport , Oregon
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We have a 01 30' LY and have towed a mini Cooper on tow Dolly and flat tow a Honda Element. The manual states a 3000# tow limit. The mini and Dolly are around the 3K Max and the Element is just slightly more. I have brake systems on both and have not had any concerns or issues pulling either through Cascade mountains, freeway, Hwy 20 or with wind. 8.1 handles load just fine but I generally do not hammer up or down the hills and use gear selector to help control rpm and speed.
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Old 11-17-2014, 11:14 AM   #6
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2000 31' Land Yacht
Central , Florida
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Check chassis to hitch connection, hitch type, besides numbers on plate, state rules for towing weight and length, brakes on tow most states require.
I tow either pu at 4000 pounds or honda fit at 2500 both with brakes, I can tell when the pu is there but not the honda.
Kingsland at about the same elevation as Inverness with mostly flat ground for miles, so you will be far from home when you encounter mountains. I pulled the pu north on 75 and didn't overheat or strain, but I wasn't doing any passing, just under the speed limit on the steepest inclines.
From all that I have read here, brakes are the most important item after you figure out which numbers you can tow, AS changed limits and early owners have beefed up the hitch connection point. Found in one writeup that mine was good for 4,000 pounds.
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