Over weight? Does it bother you?

NRALIFR wrote:
Does it bother me? No, not now.

My previous truck that hauled this camper was a 1995 F350 CC DRW with a GVWR of 10K. It scaled at over 12.6K with all our gear loaded for a long trip, and as shown in the pic below, I wasn’t worried about it either.



The truck by itself weighed 7280 lbs with two people and full fuel tanks. With the camper loaded, the front axle weight went up by less than 50 lbs. But at least it went up, not down.



There’s a lot that can’t be seen in the picture though that contributed to my “no worries” attitude. In addition to the Alcoa Hotshot wheels and Michelin XPS tires that you can see, the inner wheels on the rear axle were higher rated Accuride steel from the F450 van of that generation. I had two extra leafs in the overload springs and airbags, plus Rancho 9000 shocks. The brakes had been improved somewhat, but there was only so much you could do with the rear drum brakes. I put a US Gear exhaust brake on it to keep from using the service brakes so much on long downhill grades.

Before doing all that (and many more performance upgrades), I was looking at newer trucks. Ford was in the 6.0 Powerstroke era by then, and I chose to sit it out. When the F450 pickups came out, I jumped on one as soon as I could afford to because as far as I was concerned they had everything I was wanting on a heavy TC hauler and then some. Higher rated axles, better brakes, 19.5’s, exhaust brake, and a much tighter turning radius. The only thing I didn’t like about the 2010 was the 6.4 Powerstroke, which is why I have a 2016 now.

:):)

Thanks for posting that on your old '95 Ford DRW..I have basically the same thing and the axle rating from Sterling is 8250# for the second gen 10.25.Easy enough to upgrade to the 10.5 gears but I have been curious just how large of a TC I could put on it without exceeding the 8250 by much..My guess was an AF-990 would just about do that and your Lance 1121 would put it over by 450#...I am only 6000# even now with my 9.6 non-slide..

The wife has me looking for a larger TC but I'm fighting tooth and nail not too for the ease of backcountry camping...LOL