Payload, is there a right answer?

Kayteg1 wrote:
You will find endless list of factors when it comes to TC.
I just ended maiden voyage with my old camper and new truck.
Had it weighted before and surprize, the camper that was 4300lb when I bought it winterized, now is 5600 and I did not load beer yet.
Than driving it for 2 days I had some handling issue. At the time I had 15-20 gallons of gray water in rear tanks.
On day 2 morning I dump the tanks and drove it all over Mojave and Baker grades with excelent handling.
Amazing how the +- 150 lb of weight removed from the rear of camper can change everything.
Now I am thinking about deleting spare wheel.....

I removed my spare wheel and tire from under the back of the bed. It was a heavy steel wheel and tire assembly and removing it certainly made a noticeable handling difference that I could feel in the seat of my pants.

Having said that, I bought a forged aluminum wheel to match my road wheels, fabricated a class 5 receiver hitch for the front of the truck and a spare tire mount and now the polished. forged aluminum spare is on the front of the truck, instead of underneath where it was not only hard to get to, but got grungy and was hard to check the air in the tire.

In as much as I own a fab shop, I copied the front spare tire mount that is comercialy available that swings down to ground level for dismounting the spare. I see a good design, I'm not adverse to copying it.