mkirsch wrote:
As far as hauling the camper in your truck, remember that you have put NOTHING in it yet, and do not have any of your family members along for the ride. Plus you are planning on adding the weight of a trailer tongue. By the time all is said and done you will have over double the weight of the empty camper on the truck.
You CAN do it, meaning nobody will jump out of the bushes and tackle you to the ground, and people have done it. Airbags to get the rear end up. WD hitch to get the front end back down. As long as the truck is in good repair and maintained, you will be as safe as anything. The load will dictate that you change your driving style to a presumably more careful and deliberate mode. But you may not like it when all is said and done. It really sucks when you go to all this trouble and expense, only to find out that you HATE driving your beloved truck with all this stuff on it. Then you have to see if throwing more money at it will fix the problem, trade trucks, or give up.
Well yeah, there's nothing physically stopping me from pulling this mess around with a '85 Ford Escort either :B I know full well CAN and SHOULD are often two completely different things.
I built my current trailer from scratch, and set it up specifically to do this type of planned set up. Of course, there were still assumptions to be made, as I didn't have a camper at that point in time to base weights off of, so I assumed a camper weight of 2500lbs. Though, to be completely honest, I made a lot of weight assumptions back then that I regret now. I really should have scaled things....I may end up a wee bit boned if this thing turns out to be too light, lol (bet that's a complaint not heard often around here! :D)
But even assuming heavy, depending on what 4x4 I'm dragging around, I'll end up with a loaded trailer weight of 7700-9000lbs, ending up at the upper limit of rated towing capacity on my truck. Although knowing there still isn't a standard adopted on factory tow ratings, I'm not even sure how applicable factory ratings even are....again, I know I really need to scale my truck and equipment to be sure, and I will certainly do this before setting off on a fully loaded trip.
Hence, my plan _should_ be OK with the camper on the trailer. I don't see myself loading the camper heavy, as my goal was basically to keep doing things as I've been while tenting just with more weather resistant hard sides and a better organization scheme than my current two Rubbermaid containers to hold the gear. Again, assumptions being made here, but even including my current refrigerator and typical water/food load, I doubt I'm carrying more than 250lbs of gear total. The vast majority of my trips are just me, and I don't have a family or pets that go along.
At the end of all this, if it ends up being too much, then it's time to accept that I need a bigger truck to do what I want to do.
