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I am finally bringing a 46 3/4 ton home approx. 1500 miles. Am planing to bring it on a uhaul tandem trailer as opposed to a dolly. A couple of neighbours think the dolly would be better. Other than new tires and dropping drive shaft what else would have to be done to bring it on a dolly (how hard is it to remove the drive shaft)? I have only seen pictures of the truck so am not sure of its mechanical realities.Should I not even be considering a dolly for this trip? Thanks ps there is one month till this trip happens

Hi Hydra 1/2ton

When i went to get my truck i considered useing a dolly to but i went with the tandem trailer from uhaul.It didnt really pull that bad and i went thru the hills of W.V. I to only seen pictures and that is why i leaned more to the trailer. Good luck getting it home and have a safe trip

I prefer a trailer myself. My trailer has good brakes on it and I know the tires to be good too, all the lights work. With a dolly, what do you have for brakes?

About the drive shaft, if it's a torque tube like mine (53) it may take a bit of finagaling to get it apart. JMO

Trailer the truck.it has a closed drive shaft.it's a pain to disconnect.Safer in the long run.good luck

Your neighbors are nuts. Use the trailer.

I would use the trailer,it will be safer .

This was just discussed last week. Lots of good advice here. (And some not so good)

I'd trailer it, but it most likely has an open drive-shaft.

Be very careful with rental trailers because most people abuse and overwork them and the rental companies don't repair them as often as they should. The other day I saw a Uhaul that's good for 1,620 lbs with a 7,000lb forklift in it. Inspect carefully before you pick one up.

If you wanted the rear wheels to move freely, you would just need to remove one axle on an open driveshaft setup. I definitely would not use a dolly for an unrestored vehicle that may have any number of mechanical problems.

With regards to a rental trailer, a very close inspection would be a good idea. U-Haul has a very bad reputaion in Canada.

The trailer idea is fine but I didn't see what transmission you have. If it is a standard transmission there is no need to remove the drive shaft. Just put in in neutral. The other alternative is to load it back wards with the drive wheels on the dolly and the steering wheel tied or fixed so it wont move.
I have towed cars for years behind my motor home and never had a problem except when I blew a tire on the bus and knocked the transmission on the Honda in gear. Ruined the transmission.

How long has this truck been parked? Even with the drive shaft dropped you have the rear diff and wheel bearings that need to turn freely if you dolly the truck. If its been parked for years assuming those are going to go 1500 miles without trouble is a risk.

Changing the lube and checking the bearings improves the chances of making it but if its got a bad wheel bearing and you brought a dolly you're stuck until you replace that wheel bearing.

Have you ever pulled with a dolly? Backing a dolly with a vehicle on it means managing two distinct pivot points and can be extremely difficult to do. To cover 1500 miles you're going to spend most your time going forward, but it could be hard to go that far never backing up at a gas station or other parking lot.

Plus the dolly won't have any brakes. The trailer will probably have a surge brake system. Assuming your tow vehicle is adequate for the job you'll have a much safer braking system pulling the trailer even though the trailer will weigh maybe 1500 pounds more.

The cautions about rented trailers are valid, but the context is comparing to a rented dolly that could easily have the same issues. The rented trailer still wins as far as I'm concerned.

As previous posts have said, I'd trailer it. Trailer has proper lights, brakes, etc. Not worrying about old tires going flat, or rear-end running dry. Need to watch U-Haul. When I tried to rent from them they had some sort of BS policy formula they used to calculate towed weight vs. tow vehicle - decided they would not rent me a trailer unless I rented one of their trucks as well. Needless to say, I rented from another source. My 5.9 Grand Cherokee didn't even know it was towing the '40 !

No question about it,trailer it.

I trailered my 39 3/4 ton truck 900 miles on a U-Haul, just tell them you are moving a "car"... sometimes they get antsey when you tell them you are hauling a truck.

Sounds like you have it handled. Give us a last post on how it turned out>

A friend and I attempted to tow dolly a '67 Barracuda to a buyer 200 miles away,unfortunately a tyre blew on the dolly about 75 miles from home,resulting in the collapse of said dolly.
Lets just say it was messy.
Thankfully no-one was hurt.
Although it did score very highly on the 'pucker' factor!

I did a 914 mile round trip to get my 50 1/2 ton,I used a dual axle trailer without a single problem, definately the way to go in my book,and as OldSub said,you're asking a lot from your 46s rear end and tyres with a dolly.JMO

Thanks for all the replies,called the uhual dealer in the same town the truck is coming from and they have seen the truck I am getting. Their tandem trailers have an open deck in the centre so will have to get the wheel spacing to make sure it works.Anyone know the approx. weight of a 46 3/4 ton? Should be close to my 54 ,but ,can only find the loaded gvw so far. Murray

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Truck is now safely in Ontario,when I went to get the uhaul trailer they said the computer says it doesn't fit! So they put in that it was a 50. Had to let some air out of the front tires for the tie down webs to work. Maybe the computer knew it had 17 inch tires . Good thing they had 6 trailers to choose from,one was missing a ramp another had a soft tire already. After fixing a short in our towing truck wiring harness and repairing the same trailer tire twice(lucked out got repairs done without waiting one patch and one plug for a stone) we rolled in our laneway. Will post some pics soon.