Bank of Dad,
You have some real good quality responses here. There is no one size fits all answer. Here are some things I do to help the situation. They align with a combo of many of the responses.
1st. you have to have good mirrors that stick out and have the blind spot mirror on both side. If the trailer is 8 feet wide, between your mirrors needs to be a minimum of 8 feet.
Learn the turning radius of your truck and trailer. This is easier for those who know distances by just looking. Since I deal with distances for a living, when I state 3 feet etc I can spread hands apart and create ~ 34 to 38 inches targeting 36. When I want 8 feet, I can visualize 8' on the ground within ~ +/- 3in. Using that to my advantage,
After trial and error, I know my long wheel base TV turning radius and how it reacts to the longer camper length. This took time and practice. You have to learn this. Go test it in a parking lot.
When approaching the campsite I watch the right side camper wheels in relation to the site pad. I position the camper and the truck when approaching the site as close to the edge of the road on the right side. Need this so when the back of the truck swings left when backing up I have road left.
I have figured out I need 8 feet from the down stream end of the site, past the rear camper tire and then start backing up. Until I mastered this, everything else was all screwed up.
For my rig I can crank the truck hard at the start at the 8 ft past mark and go slow. Soon the right truck mirror will be covered by the trailer and I am totally blind until the camper side starts showing up. This is about 6 to 7 foot of road distance straight back for the truck
Once the side of the camper comes back in view, I hone in on the TT tires and look where they are in relation to the downstream side of the site pad. Once I mastered it was 8 feet of distance I needed to pull past, my rear tire is about 1 to 2 foot short of just following the site pad in on the down stream side.
Then keep watching that right side trailer tire in relation to the side of the pad. I can tell when I did not turn sharp enough and make another go of it before I get 3 to 4 feet down the site.
If you do not get the trailer started correct going into the site, stop then and correct. Once you advance from here you are going into another total blind area as the truck swings around and then you can use the left side to guide in and the right.
- You have to be able to see the trailer tires to get started correct.
- You need to know how far past the campsite to pull ahead before backing up.
- Need to find out when in the backing process to crank it hard.
I do this in the total dark on Friday night campouts. It for sure is the best teacher.... My wife is the spotter and all I have her do is point the flashlight straight down at the edge of the site pad to the road on the down stream side. And once I swing around, she goes to the back of the site to spot straight down on the edge and end of the pad.
We almost gave up on the walki talkies. She has a hard time remembering to press the button before talking so I get nothing or part of a word. So I had to change, if I hear "anything" I stop. Her job it to mark the site with the light and make sure I do not hit anything. It works. It takes a while to figure this out. She can not judge distance well and had no way to tell me home much to shift left to right or front to back. I needed to find what worked for her and me. We do have to pull out the walki's every now and then at a gas station, patience on both of us get us through it... I have to not over react.. and just "listen"...
Good luck and hope this helps
John
