I'm thinking this is likely a bad idea all around...but I've been known to be wrong before, lol. I'm in a bit of a pickle. My current set up is a Ford F350 diesel dually 4x4 truck, hauling a Lance LC980 camper, and towing my Suzuki Samurai on a trailer with a loaded weight of around 6,000lbs. By factory numbers, yeah, way overweight, but the truck handles it beautifully. That truck is now off the road due to needed repairs, and not likely to go back on the road. My plan is pull the engine/trans, and swap it into my old International truck as a custom hauler project. But given my current project overload, I'm probably looking at a year plus time frame on that. My current daily driver is a 1996 Chevy K2500 6.5 turbodiesel SRW, that is not currently set up for hauling a camper at all. I thought about adding tie downs and suspension upgrades to it, but given how this truck performs empty, my gut feeling is that loading it down with the camper AND trailer is going to be a bad idea all around. Though that said, I've yet to even hook up my trailer to it, so at this point I'm not really sure how it will work with a load on it. I've been waiting until I can get my EGT and trans temp gauges in it first, and that's going to be a while still too, as I recently broke my hand. So I figured I'd ask here before starting to look at replacement trucks or alternative camping solutions...

Don't even consider it!! The truck will be overloaded before you hook the trailer to it and you will learn to hate the underpowered 6.5. F-350 is the bare minimum but more would be better.

^What he said. Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s enough truck for the camper and tongue weight and I wouldn’t trust a 24year old 6.5 doing that duty headed west to Glamis much less East or North to the mountains for wheelin. Just my opinion, but I think you answered your own question anyways. I know enough about the 6.5s to not trust them. They make good runaround engines if you know how to keep em running, but they’ve got to be the most awful conglomerate of “technology” of that decade. I’d actually feel a bit better about your idea if it was an older mechanical injection engine.

So, just as I originally figured...on to plan B!

If you put wheels and tires on it that can take the weight, the rest of the truck will do it. It’ll be slow. And if it’s an automatic (which I assume because you mentioned putting in a trans temp gauge), it may have a hard time ever getting going from a stop on a steep hill. If it’s 4WD then low range will save you. This is from my experience with a Chevy with a 6.2 and Ford with a 6.9 automatic, which I once had to back down a hill against traffic the wrong way on a busy downtown Seattle street when it absolutely wouldn’t do anything trying to start on a hill but smoke the trans. On the Chevy I solved the problem by yanking the diesel and putting in a Caddy 500, and even that once refused to back up on a steep hill loaded heavy with no low-range.However I do have an ‘80s Chevy 4x4 crewcab dually, manual trans, that will walk up any hill under a huge load with just a stock and tired 454, because of gearing. I think the auto trans is your biggest worry on your truck.

1996 Chevy K2500 + Lance LC980 + 6,000lb trailer?

14 Replies

Grit_dog
Navigator
Feb 27, 2020
You can get over the tire/wheel thing with a set of newer takeoff 18 or 20" Ram wheels (idk if GM made any 18s before they switched lug patterns). Beef up the suspension, make sure them 24 year old brakes are top notch and haul your combo in relative safety if you trust the condition of the truck.

But that 6.5 will still suck wind worse than a _____ with no front teeth. I know my way around those engines and they're a bigger abomination than 6.0 and 6.4 Powerstrokes with half the power in their stroke.
jaycocreek
Explorer II
Feb 26, 2020
The Lance 980 and the Lance 1030 weigh all but exactly the same(2770#)according to the Lance brochure even though the 980 is longer...My Lance 9.6 weighs 2660 according to Lance and almost two feet shorter...Each older Lance model weighs different like the Squire/Squire Lite/Lc series and just the regular Lance being the heaviest from what I can tell by there brochure...

So like Specta's 11.3 ft and my 9.6ft there's only like 200 or so pounds difference in there brochure weight....Amazing huh..lol
Eric_Lisa
Explorer II
Feb 26, 2020
Yeah, uh, no. I have a 1997 K2500 gasser which should have the same suspension as your 1996. I added air bags and a rear anti-sway bar, along with the highest weight rating tires I could find. I am right at my weight limit with my Lance 1030. The 'weakest link in the chain' being the carrying capacity of the tires.

I looked up a Lance LC980 - that is no small camper. I suspect you will be at or over the weight limit of the tires with just the camper, much less with the trailer tongue weight. You really need a dually haul that combined load safely.

That said.... "Could" you do it? Sure. I see overloaded SRW's with campers & trailers all the time. I cringe a bit and give them some extra space - not something other drivers realize they should do. Just because the diesel under the hood can move the weight doesn't magically increase the carrying capacity of the tires.

Am I here to be the "Weight Police"? Nope, but you did come here for advice. You do what you want. Good luck!

-Eric
urbex
Explorer
Feb 26, 2020
Well, to be fair..my situation would involve the camper AND the trailer. That's my real concern, as 99% of my camping trips are related to off road runs with the Samurai.
jaycocreek
Explorer II
Feb 26, 2020
This guy only added air bags to his 2500 Dodge with the LC-980 onboard..Some people on here freak out when they here 11.3 ft TC on a 3/4 ton truck when infact,the older 11.3 Lance truck campers(2700# ish) are lighter than the new 8ft campers..They have no idea about older Lance campers..(My favorites)LOL
urbex
Explorer
Feb 26, 2020
jaycocreek wrote:
burningman wrote:
If you put wheels and tires on it that can take the weight, the rest of the truck will do it.
It’ll be slow.

This is correct..The 980 is listed as a 2700#(Dry weight) TC by Lance..Your truck with a full floater will handle it and you will be less overweight than some here..The 6.5 is a dog for a diesel,I owned one but never hauled anything with it opting for my 454 at that time for the 35ft Jayco trailer..Only issue I had with it was glow plugs..Fairly good mpg also..

Funny thing, when I went shopping for both the Ford and the Chevy, I went out specifically looking for big block gas trucks, and didn't want a diesel. At the time, I wasn't using the truck as a daily, and didn't see the MPG gain as enough to offset the increased maintenance costs and hassles for something I wasn't driving often. At the time, even something that got 5mpg wouldn't have been an issue as I would typically go several months between fill ups on it. Both times, I found the diesels as deals too good to pass up, and they came home with me. I could have sold the front axle alone out of the Ford, and ended up making money on the deal.

That said, despite my 7.3 also being an IDI, with the Banks turbo on it, it would definitely embarrass the 6.5 in every way. For that matter, the one time I had issues with the wategate not closing and never building boost, it still felt stronger than the 6.5, lol. But then, I don't recall GM ever marketing these engines as powerhouses either..it was always about the higher MPGs. But the only issue I've had with it was a recurring code for the wastegate solenoid, which was easily fixed by ditching the factory vacuum set up and going to a DIY Turbomaster set up. PMD was already relocated when I got the truck. Other than that, it's been a solid truck for me.
jaycocreek
Explorer II
Feb 26, 2020
burningman wrote:
If you put wheels and tires on it that can take the weight, the rest of the truck will do it.
It’ll be slow.

This is correct..The 980 is listed as a 2700#(Dry weight) TC by Lance..Your truck with a full floater will handle it and you will be less overweight than some here..The 6.5 is a dog for a diesel,I owned one but never hauled anything with it opting for my 454 at that time for the 35ft Jayco trailer..Only issue I had with it was glow plugs..Fairly good mpg also..
urbex
Explorer
Feb 25, 2020
It's an 8600..full floating 14 bolt in the rear. Doesn't have anywhere near the suspension that my Ford does though, and I think it rides pretty dang nice for a truck. Just me climbing up into the bed makes it bounce a bit, whereas I can jump on the bed of the Ford, and it doesn't feel like it's moving at all (it's not seized..driving my K5 up on the trailer behind it definitely makes the rear drop down a bit.)

I live in Phoenix, Arizona. Only salt we see here is on the supper table, lol. Heck, even my '59 International 2 ton truck only has a very small amount of rust in the floor boards.
mkirsch
Nomad II
Feb 19, 2020
Which 2500 is it? GM made a 7200lb GVWR and an 8600lb GVWR model. The 7200 GVWR model was a 6-lug semi-floating axle setup.

Dad had a 1989 8600lb GVWR model and it was seriously overbuilt. 4000lbs in the bed was where it started to ride nice. Of course after 11 years of road salt there was not much left, so you need to keep that in mind with your now 21 year old truck.
burningman
Explorer II
Feb 19, 2020
If you put wheels and tires on it that can take the weight, the rest of the truck will do it.
It’ll be slow. And if it’s an automatic (which I assume because you mentioned putting in a trans temp gauge), it may have a hard time ever getting going from a stop on a steep hill. If it’s 4WD then low range will save you.
This is from my experience with a Chevy with a 6.2 and Ford with a 6.9 automatic, which I once had to back down a hill against traffic the wrong way on a busy downtown Seattle street when it absolutely wouldn’t do anything trying to start on a hill but smoke the trans.

On the Chevy I solved the problem by yanking the diesel and putting in a Caddy 500, and even that once refused to back up on a steep hill loaded heavy with no low-range.

However I do have an ‘80s Chevy 4x4 crewcab dually, manual trans, that will walk up any hill under a huge load with just a stock and tired 454, because of gearing.
I think the auto trans is your biggest worry on your truck.