200-4R any good for towing?

[Lazarus]

Hey just a fair warning. Would not consider it a boat towing vehicle. Depending on the ramp I suppose. Been boating since I was 5 never seen a wagon on the ramp. Did see a Focus hauling a jetski. Rest of us poor folk keep a $800.00 1/2 ton laying around. Personally keep a 94 Chevy 1500 and a 96 bayliner 19'. Makes me sick seeing $200k backing down the ramp. Suburbanites! If it were me I'd put a line lock on the rear brakes. Similar to the old Subaru wagons.

 

[pontiacgp]

Hey just a fair warning. Would not consider it a boat towing vehicle. Depending on the ramp I suppose. Been boating since I was 5 never seen a wagon on the ramp. Did see a Focus hauling a jetski. Rest of us poor folk keep a $800.00 1/2 ton laying around. Personally keep a 94 Chevy 1500 and a 96 bayliner 19'. Makes me sick seeing $200k backing down the ramp. Suburbanites! If it were me I'd put a line lock on the rear brakes. Similar to the old Subaru wagons.

I'm sure bonnewagon has far more experience than you assume

 

[ssn696]

The way I understand it it that it's not so much burning up the trans as hurting the locking torque converter. The lockup clutches in both the 200-4R and the 700R4 are small diameter and not meant to hold like a manual clutch does. They apparently do not put up with the heavy load of towing or lugging a heavy load uphill, and will slip until they burn up. There's no where to go for any junk that spalls off in the torque converter, so it just spirals around in the fluid flow and tears up the stator and rotor blades. Either trans will work perfectly fine in 3rd gear for towing, as if it's a TH350. I am not sure, but I think putting the shifter in '3' also prevents the lockup in 3rd.

Have you considered swapping in an S10 T5 with the 4:1 first gear (still has overdrive)? They don't handle as much torque as the 2.95 Camaro boxes, but if you still have tall rear gears, you could take off in second like the old-time truck 4-speeds. The World Class V6 cars came with a 3.35 first gear. Some tailhousing and shifter engineering is needed.

But there's a 200-4R listed in the For Sale section right now....

And Joe is makin' it happen on a 200-4R build not far from you...

 

[olds307 and 403]

I have towed with 88 CSC has a 2004R, pulling my 16 ft Vanguard shallow hull, open bow with a 50 HP Force outboard. I towed in OD with a near stock trans, BO billet servo, Transgo big shift kit, 2000-2600 high stall, hughes pan 700R4 filter, 2004R in OD with the 2400 flash stall converter locked up. Did fine, many miles put on. The bigger problem was keeping the Olds 403 cool. At good launches rwd or fwds is OK. I only use 4x4 now for launching, have to at our local reservoir. I do miss the Olds powered 1994 chebby 4x4 as my tow/winter vehicle. The Dakota will now get the job.

 

[Lazarus]

I see now... Great northern neighbors. Lol your government must do a better job of maintaining your recreation area's. Our local launches are frequently washed out or falling apart. Once took my 25' trailer to a muddy 15 foot ramp. Lost the trailer axle off the wash out. Bit of a panic attack lucky for us we had the wife's grand Cherokee with the quadradrive 4.7 my Silverado with its open diffs wouldn't of gotten out. I do take it out of OD every time. Camp is up on the mountains. 5 mile road 7% grade peak is 3300 ft so its a must. Otherwise it's trying to constantly shift down. My 94 Silverado has od/D/2/1 so that is the 700R4 Once in a great moon we take the truck off the mountain. With the boat going up I sometimes forget to shift. Then it bangs around and the truck starts shifting stupid then I down it into drive. Seriously though they sell the line locks that release under throttle. Wonder if that would be an alternative? Dad had a 84 SUBARU GL wagon. With the 5-speed he always would stop on a hill and take his foot off the brakes and brag up the hill holder system. Which was just a line lock.

 

[joesregalproject]

Mark, I don't blame you at all for not wanting to tow with a stick shift, I've done it myself in a '95 F150 with a 302 and a 5 speed and I personally found it miserable. Given I was towing a fairly heavy trailer, probably just under 4,000 lbs. For your application, I think a 200r4 with a good trans cooler will be no issue for you. Like others have said the torque converter is a bigger issue than the transmission itself. If you really want to be paranoid just keep it in 3rd to protect your OD, it'll cost you some mpgs, but I really doubt you'll have any trouble if you don't.

 

[ssn696]

If you are towing a boat, mileage is priority #2...

I remember ten years ago pulling in to a travel center in Flagstaff, AZ, and there was guy in an 80's Caprice wagon with a ginormous four-wheel utility trailer hitched up that he had enclosed in sheets of plywood and tarps. Looked like someone trying to 'make it work' with what he had - probably trying to keep his family together moving his worldly goods cross-country to a new job after losing one in California. Don't know what his actual back story was, but I remembering hoping that his transmission and cooling system got him wherever he was trying to go...Flagstaff is way up there in altitude on I-40....

 

[Bonnewagon]

Wow, thank's for all the replies! I have been towing various boats for 40 years and this wagon has towed plenty, but as Steve said I'm just tired of burning up my clutch at a ramp, and I am very particular which ramp I use and at what stage of tide. It's only a small 15 foot Whaler, whole rig probably weighs around 1000 lbs. Wagon has a 2:78 posi rear, 301 4 barrel and 4 speed Saginaw. If I use the 200-4R I will put a 3:23 posi in the rear. I just figured a 200-4R would pay off in mileage the rest of the year. Of course I could just slip a Pontiac 400 w/T-400 combo in there and never look back, but I'm not sure I want to go through all that.

 

[pontiacgp]

I had the 400 with the 400 transmission in my 74 GP with a 2.93 rear . Great combo but I think you'll have no problem with a 200 4R with the 301 and the 2.78 gears. The 3rd in the 200 4R is the same 1 to 1 you have in your 4th gear in the Saginaw.

 

[Bonnewagon]

Steve I use the 2:78 rear for top end mileage. The Saginaw has a 3:50 first gear so it has great take off. I get 60mph at 2000rpm. Probably not a good choice for overdrive though. The 3:23 would be a lot better I think. Way back in the Clinton years when gas was $1 a gallon, I had a 400, Saginaw with 3:11 first, and 3:23 rear in my Malibu wagon and it actually got 16mpg highway. Don't ask what it got around town.......