Introduction and Hello

Our first trip is going to be here: Tilted Earth Wine & Music Festival

Yesterday's additions were a portable front yard (6x8 piece of astroturf), an outlet polarity tester, and a stack of bins and totes to put little stuff in.

Today's newbie question: should the water heater be drained prior to traveling to reduce strain on the water heater mounts? It's only a 6 gallon unit, but that's still almost 50 pounds of water.

You'll really enjoy the trailer. Your first trip needs to be up in the Arizona Rim Country to get out of the Phoenix heat! :)

Thanks John - Good catch on the breakaway cable. I didn't think about the hitch itself coming off. I'll have to move the control box closer to the hitch in order for the cable to reach the truck, but that's not that big a deal. I'll make it part of the project to upgrade from a single battery to dual batteries.

We went driveway camping last night and spent our first night in the trailer. It's just like home....my wife was hot, I was cold. Situation normal.

Today was The Great WalMart Run. Two carts and $500 later we have everything on the first list. At the moment it's all just piled into a couple of the storage spaces. The plan is to make a weekend trip to Cottonwood in June and sort everything out as we use it.


Have a great week!

If it were mine I'd change the location of the break a way cable (the red coiled cable)I'd attach it to the truck if for some reason the hitch came off or broke nothing would put the trailer brakes on. I'd attach the safety chains to the truck and pull ahead till they were tight. Then adjust the break a way cable to pull the pin 2 " before the chains were tight. Then If some thing happened the trailer brakes would come on slowing the truck and trailer before the trailer tongue dropped to the road .
I do the same thing to my toad I pull behind the MH then the toad brakes are on and the toad is not running into the back of there MH if the toad came undone

Our first TT was a Pioneer 19T4 back in 2003. It was a great trailer. I really liked the quality Fleetwood built into an "entry level" trailer. Especially enjoyed the large tanks, enclosed belly and large bathroom. Ours had a dresser that went all the way across the front of the trailer which provided lots of storage. The only thing we didn't like was no inside seating besides the dinette. Here in the Great Northwet we sometimes have days where we have to be inside, especially in the Fall and Winter. Hopefully this will work out well for you! Congrats!

Welcome to the forum and you're going to have a lot of fun. Looks like you've got it set up about right without getting into all the exact measurements. Also disregard us if we get cranky on here sometimes, it is an opinion based forum.

Congrats on the new setup. Sounds like your setup is perfect for now, good braking and tows well. That's all that matters.
Trailer being parallel to the road....or level is only super important if you have torsion spring axles on the trailer. If you have leafs, a little up or down is not a big deal.
Your truck should handle that to due weight easily and without much or any weight distribution, so good job. Throw some bacon and biscuits in it and go camping!

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

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

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!!