towing with 1/2 ton towable trailer.
I have a Cougar lite that weighs 7,000 lbs empty. I load it up to another 800 lbs, so I'm around 8,000 including myself. The hitch weight is around 1200 factory, but I'm sure that's up to 1800 by now....
Forum Discussion
goducks10 wrote:RustyJC wrote:
One aspect that never seems to get mentioned on 5th wheel towing with 1/2 ton pickup threads is that 1/2 ton pickups normally have semi-floating rear axles whereas 3/4 ton and up trucks have full-floating rear axles.
Rather than try to explain the critical differences between the two, I'll link to the following WEBPAGE that explains and illustrates both axle designs.
A key difference not mentioned is that breaking a semi-floating axle shaft outboard of the bearing can result in the axle hub and wheel becoming detached from the vehicle, whereas breaking a full-floating axle shaft results only in a loss of drive to that particular wheel which is retained by the hub and bearing arrangement.
Rusty
While I agree on 1/2 tons not being built as strong, when's the last time you read about a newer 1/2 ton axle breaking? JMO but most 1/2 ton RV'ers are weekend warriors. I highly doubt they put 10,000 miles a year towing as full timers.
It's not so much the axle breaking (although that possibility always exists and bears mentioning), it's more about chewing up axle bearings (and the axle shafts themselves, if the manufacturer omits an inner bearing race for cost reasons and elects to run the bearing rollers directly on the axle shaft) under high rear axle GAW conditions such as can be encountered towing a 5th wheel.
Rusty
