Introduction and Hello

Welcome. Nice rig!

Welcome.
There is no such thing as Stupid newbie questions, just ask away :)

Just a side note the TT seems to be a little high on the front end?
Also, is that a new model TV with double windshield, cool or is it what they call 'cab forward'? Just joking, lol

Welcome & congrats on your rig!

The only dumb question is the one that goes unasked... :)

Welcome, Len! (I'm taking the liberty to welcome you, even though Mrs. S. and I are only about a month ahead of you.) I could have written almost the same thing a month ago except we moved up to our new TT from a popup.

Like you, I've been enjoying the forums here.

-Speak

Welcome to the forum. Congrats on your rig, you will love it.
Don't hesitate to ask questions. At one time none of us knew anything about RV's.
Enjoy your travels.

Welcome and congrats on new purchase.....have fun making memories with it!!!

Good morning everyone, and thank you for the welcome.

icanon - Yes, it looks that way to me also. I asked about the nose high appearance after the dealer set up the hitch and was told that a) it's an optical illusion and the trailer/truck are level, and b) everyone else is doing it wrong. :h

I can tell you that it follows wonderfully at 65mph with no sway or bouncing. The truck rides quite a bit better with the trailer on than it does empty. It may be that the hitch and sway bar are covering up a set up that would wag all over the place with a standard hitch.

My plan is to spend some time experimenting with the hitch height after loading the truck and trailer to see what actually works best. I'll try it this way for a bit to establish a baseline and then drop the hitch down a notch and reset the tension with a tape measure.




My first real question is about the brake controller. My dad taught me to pull a trailer by setting a full coffee cup on the dashboard and throwing a fit if any of it spilled. This was in a '71 Mercury station wagon towing a trailer with surge brakes. The result is that I use the gears to slow down as much as possible and the throttle/brake transitions are very smooth. I have to have the Prodigy P2 dialed up to 6.5 and set to B3 in order to get the brake feel I like. Is it possible that the smoothness of the transitions are "fooling" the inertia mechanism in the Prodigy and requiring what appears to me to be a setting higher than normal on the controller?

By the way, the trailer brakes will stop the entire rig without using the service brakes on the truck if I hit the panic bar on the controller, so they seem to be fine.

Welcome aboard. There is nothing wrong with your rig being level. It looks great IMHO. Yes you will see a lot of people towing " wrong" when it comes to that. Some just won't make the changes to lift the trailer or truck to accomplish that. End result is not tracking correctly and putting more stress on the tires and axles.

We have had two travel trailers and four fifth wheels and towed with every thing from a jeep, 1/2 ton, 3/4 ton and a one ton dually. I can tell you I could never get the brake controller set to be exactly the way I liked it. It was one of my pet peeves back in the day. We now own a MH and the worries are gone.

Great looking setup ... Have fun!!

Len,

To date, I have had, used and driven an armload of electric brake controllers. The last one I really liked was the Kelsey Hayes that had to get tied into a brake hydraulic line. That was late 60s.

I hope you find a setting that you like, but remember that they are adjustable because they can't always be right.

You have the LDS (load distributing hitch) often still referred to a a "Reese" hitch though they were not the first, just the most marketed - set up about right. The ride of many TVs gets better with those and I am glad that they are now so popular.

Matt

Looking good... I like your trailer choice which is just the right size... You should be able to pull this trailer all over North and East Arizona in the high country camp spots..

Like you I did many TENT camping trips in the 60s and 70s in my case with my trusty ole Jeep pulling a utility trailer with all my Tent and supplies. We really had fun when several other Jeeps doing the same thing joined us... Tent camping around the Sedona Red Rocks was a sight to see waking up with the sun just hitting the red rock canyons there... My real love for camping was the Flagstaff areas. I would stay for a couple of weeks at time around there...

We eventually moved out of the Arizona area and now live on the East side of the USA. Our love is our OFF-ROAD POPUP trailer and have pulled this trailer all over the East and South coast areas and as far West as Texas and Oklahoma. We camp alot in the local SKYLINE DRIVE and north end of the Blue Ridge Parkway... The high country just West of Harrisonburg along the wooded high country of Virginia and West Virginia state border line is perfect being just a close drive away from us here in Northern Neck Virginia country.

You can always spot the old tent campers haha... They all have the best camp spot setups with outside living in mind...

I consider myself an RV CAMPER and never got into RV TRAVELER mode... My working years filled all of that gap which covered Georgia to California working on Electronic systems for the DOD. This got me back to Arizona many times as late as October 2010... We always rented Jeeps or Trucks when working in Arizona so we could do the high country camping on the weekends...

Have fun with your new camper and on your next trip to the Apache Trail head think about us haha... Your trailer will look great sitting in the Lost Dutchman State Park and Tortilla Flat areas... However going down the Fish Canyon and winding loop back dirt roads north of all of that you are on your own haha... That almost qualifies as JEEP country...

Roy Ken