I have a 2001 F150 supercab with 4.2 automatic, 3:55 and have just purchased a travel trailer. Dry weight 3600 lbs, tongue weight 410 lbs.
How can I expect the power to be towing this trailer and roughly how will fuel mileage be. Any help or towing tips will be appreciated.

 

It'll move down the road... Won't win any races up the hills that's for sure..

Those 'dry' specs are about what my TT was, but now that it's been loaded up and in use, it's closer to around #5000 with a #600+ tongue weight..

I get about 10mpg while towing and I would expect you to get about the same for the most part.

As long as you don't have 'oversize' tires from stock, you should be okay with the 3.55 gears.. Anything more then a 32" tire, then you'll know it..

Does your truck have the factory 'tow package'? You can tell if it has the factory hitch and a 7 pin round trailer connector. You'll want the 'tow package' trans cooler at the minimum.. If your truck didn't come with the factory 'tow package', then you won't have an aux trans cooler.

How much and how far are you planning on towing this? Couple times a year for a couple hundred miles and you should be fine as long as it's not all hills... More then that, and you may not like the towing performance over the long haul.. The truck will have more wear and tear as well. You'll be maxed out for sure with that drive train combo so you'll just have to deal with it accordingly.

Good luck!

Mitch

 

make sure to have a aux trans cooler, i pulled my 18ft heavy ace boat with my 97 4.2 and it melted some part inside of the tranny, long story short i lost 3 and 4th gear. the local transmission shop said the truck had a similar transmission to what was in mustangs and it wasnt designed to pull. i heard some where they had fixed this problem in later years though.

 

That 6 cylinder is gonna be screaming trying to haul that load, loaded up. Empty it will be felt.

 

I'd put some 4.10 gears in it. Expect 10 to 12 mpg.

 

An old formula that I have used for years (35 plus years, but who is counting) regarding how much weight to tow comfortably is this:

GCWR = Engine CID x 30 to a maximum of 35 for gas engines.

Let's consider your situation.

256 CID x 30 = 7680, rounded up to 7700 pounds Gross Combined vehicle weight.
256 CID x 35 = 8960, rounded up to 9000 pounds Gross Combined vehicle weight.

Considering a truck weight with driver of about 4600 pounds, you could safely add 3100 to 4400 pounds of additional weight before you get past what I would consider a safe Gross Combined vehicle weight.

Now lets get practical here for a moment.

Personally, I would not go over 7000 pounds Gross Combined Vehicle weight with the 4.2L (256 CID) V6 without going to 4.10 rear gearing and a heavy duty auxillary transmission cooler. And I certainly would not consider using this combination in pulling up any hills of any consequense (such as 2 plus miles of 5 to 6% grade), as that V6 would be screaming for mercy, and you will certainly not win any speed contests going uphill.

Although I personally have experience towing loads with the 4.2 (my previous vehicle had the 4.2 and 4r70w in a 2wd regular cab), I NEVER added more than 2000 pounds extra in trailer and gear to it when I would head north from Phoenix to the Arizona high country over I17, which has 2 good grades between Phoenix and Flagstaff. Pulling that load over those grades is the main reason I sold the V6 and now have a 4.6 V8 powered F150 to tow with. This summer will test the V8, and I think it will do much better than the V6, especially in pulling up grades.

P.S. The formula I used is one that was used by the technical staff at Trailer Life in the '70s to determine the maximum towing ability of tow vehicles before there were standard tow ratings. It has always been a good rule of thumb to use regardless of engine displacement or style.

 

The official specs for your combo are 5500# towing, not to exceed 10k GCWR.