Towing 5th wheel with a 4 inch lift?

[roadtriptoforev]

I am looking into buying a truck and verbally committed myself to a F-350 diesel with a 4 inch lift. I am towing a rather heavy 5th wheel toy hauler and do fall just within the maximum weight fully loaded (it will probably never be fully loaded but tow rating on truck is 16,300, toy hauler is 12,000 dry and rated for 16,200 if loaded with toys)

I don't want to buy it if it's going to be a safety issue or less reliable.

Thanks

[tinner12002]

I'd say before I got too excited one way or the other I'd get a tape measure out and start taking some measurements. I would figure no less than 6" between bed rails and bot of camper at its closest point. Towing unlevel with front end high isn't a big deal as long as your not talking about a 8-12" difference front to back. I towed one for a year with about 7" diff in 30ft...no issues. I've since raised the 5ver up about 2.5" but it hasn't made any diff in the way it pulls. As for the lift installation, look and see that its been installed properly, if you can't tell take it to someone that can.

[DirtyOil]

kofire wrote:

Cummins12V98 wrote:

kofire wrote:
There's so much nonsense in here it's ridiculous. Old people like my dad say all the same things. It's unreliable, unsafe, premature wear on parts, hard on the tranny blah blah blah.
I would say at least half of the trucks and taoyhaylers in California are lifted trucks towing fifth wheels or bumper pulls with zero problems.
I will speak from experience here. Yes it is expensive to do it right - brakes, gearing, tranny coolers and good quality lift components. Plus you will usually need to flip the axles on the trailer.
I currently tow a 38' weekend warrior with flipped axles and associated frame reinforcement. I tow that with a diesel truck lifted 8" on 37" tires. Guess what it tows amazing. It hardly moves around at all and have never felt unsafe. I have literally put thousands of miles on this combination all over and up and down the Cuesta grade, grocer grade, tehachapi grade, cajon pass, the bishop grade into mammoth. The list goes on and on. Never have I been uncomfortable. The truck has a lot of upgrades for towing but the trailer is 14k dry so I had to.
The lift and rims I have are way overbuilt compared to stock. This combo has 167000 miles on it and has been great.
All these geezers talk about this nonsense with nothing to back up their claims. You know what's really unsafe? 80 year olds driving 40' diesel pushers. Now that's scary.

I am guessing you have never seen the carnage along I-10 PalmSprings where all the wind mills are. I have, plenty of these "safe" lifted trucks AZZ dragging bouncing down the highway with their BIG tires looking so "BAD AZZ" it really is a shame to think the innocent kids and wife's are possible victims of too much Testosterone!!!

I have actually. I travel up and down hwy 14 frequently. When we get wind events semi trucks have been blown over on a regular basis. It's so bad at the exit in Mojave they had to put up a large wind screen the entire length of the overpass.
I have pulled over and into the wind during one such wind event to wait out the storm. It was unsafe for any combination of tow vehicle regardless of height. People were only talking a matter of inches here.
My 37" tires are rated for 3750 a piece and the 20" rims far beyond that.
I carry my family in my truck. I would never do something to put them In harms way.
Having a stock height tow vehicle does not mean you are any safer then my setup.

I've towed with the old, 2005 3500 Dodge, with a 6" lift and 35" tall tires, pulled TT, goose neck and fifth wheel. I now pull TT, goose necks and fifth wheels with 2013 Ram at stock height and OEM sized tires, no difference in ride or driving issues. My 2005 did get better fuel mileage though.

[BenK]

Hey Barney....Proverbs26:4 and blocked a new one to add to an older one... :C

Won't be seeing their posts, so won't be tempted or even by accident respond to
them...to add to your load here on this forum... :B

[kofire]

Cummins12V98 wrote:

kofire wrote:
There's so much nonsense in here it's ridiculous. Old people like my dad say all the same things. It's unreliable, unsafe, premature wear on parts, hard on the tranny blah blah blah.
I would say at least half of the trucks and taoyhaylers in California are lifted trucks towing fifth wheels or bumper pulls with zero problems.
I will speak from experience here. Yes it is expensive to do it right - brakes, gearing, tranny coolers and good quality lift components. Plus you will usually need to flip the axles on the trailer.
I currently tow a 38' weekend warrior with flipped axles and associated frame reinforcement. I tow that with a diesel truck lifted 8" on 37" tires. Guess what it tows amazing. It hardly moves around at all and have never felt unsafe. I have literally put thousands of miles on this combination all over and up and down the Cuesta grade, grocer grade, tehachapi grade, cajon pass, the bishop grade into mammoth. The list goes on and on. Never have I been uncomfortable. The truck has a lot of upgrades for towing but the trailer is 14k dry so I had to.
The lift and rims I have are way overbuilt compared to stock. This combo has 167000 miles on it and has been great.
All these geezers talk about this nonsense with nothing to back up their claims. You know what's really unsafe? 80 year olds driving 40' diesel pushers. Now that's scary.

I am guessing you have never seen the carnage along I-10 PalmSprings where all the wind mills are. I have, plenty of these "safe" lifted trucks AZZ dragging bouncing down the highway with their BIG tires looking so "BAD AZZ" it really is a shame to think the innocent kids and wife's are possible victims of too much Testosterone!!!

I have actually. I travel up and down hwy 14 frequently. When we get wind events semi trucks have been blown over on a regular basis. It's so bad at the exit in Mojave they had to put up a large wind screen the entire length of the overpass.
I have pulled over and into the wind during one such wind event to wait out the storm. It was unsafe for any combination of tow vehicle regardless of height. People were only talking a matter of inches here.
My 37" tires are rated for 3750 a piece and the 20" rims far beyond that.
I carry my family in my truck. I would never do something to put them In harms way.
Having a stock height tow vehicle does not mean you are any safer then my setup.

[kofire]

BenK wrote:
Okay...I qualify as an old geezer at 67 and closer to 68 than not...

Tell me how you managed your Z-Angle for your lift?

It is an old, old and known attribute for U-Joints AKA Cardan Joints (originator
of this new fangled thing and IIRC...invented around the 17th Century)...but The
Laws of Physics seem to have no age limit...though new ones are found almost every year...

That a single on one end must be sync'd to the one on the other end
of the stick? That is called phasing by some. That to have a constant
speed (RPM) is to have two of them at each end and phased correctly.
That is AKA CVJ or constant velocity joint and that also begets or
allows for higher Z Angles in it's spec (before they become overly
stressed...AKA failure point)



and this is the RPM curve of which the above Z-Angle speaks and the
hint from the CVJ...constant velocity thing...



Oh...going to lose this youngster with my old geezer talk...so am assuming knows little
to nothing in the tech world with his type of verbiage...so depends on 'buying
it' from vendors and it does have a correlation to their price...

Note that this is an free open forum and the advice is worth the price paid...

That many do NOT understand the stuff of this site...mainly the technologies
plainly stated on specifications or implied therein...that there is
a 'R' in most specifications and the understanding or the meaning of
that 'R' is lost to and on them...

Does everyone know what level of kit (bad, good, great, etc) the
previous owner put in on this vehicle the OP is considering?

Were they as knowledgeable or better way to put it...willing to pay
for the best as the last poster/comment above? Or did they just
buy the cheapest kit available at that time?...that did not have
any or enough engineering thought in their design...

What matters is real life experience. Did you miss the part where the truck has 167k miles on it ? The carrier bearing I'm guessing has been replaced at some point but what truck doesn't need parts after that many hard towing miles. It was never re geared when the 37" tires we're put on. I changed them to 4:56 when I purchased it. Still on the original tranny, leaf springs, axles etc. etc.

[BarneyS]

Let's try to keep on topic. 🙂
Barney

[Cummins12V98]

kofire wrote:
There's so much nonsense in here it's ridiculous. Old people like my dad say all the same things. It's unreliable, unsafe, premature wear on parts, hard on the tranny blah blah blah.
I would say at least half of the trucks and taoyhaylers in California are lifted trucks towing fifth wheels or bumper pulls with zero problems.
I will speak from experience here. Yes it is expensive to do it right - brakes, gearing, tranny coolers and good quality lift components. Plus you will usually need to flip the axles on the trailer.
I currently tow a 38' weekend warrior with flipped axles and associated frame reinforcement. I tow that with a diesel truck lifted 8" on 37" tires. Guess what it tows amazing. It hardly moves around at all and have never felt unsafe. I have literally put thousands of miles on this combination all over and up and down the Cuesta grade, grocer grade, tehachapi grade, cajon pass, the bishop grade into mammoth. The list goes on and on. Never have I been uncomfortable. The truck has a lot of upgrades for towing but the trailer is 14k dry so I had to.
The lift and rims I have are way overbuilt compared to stock. This combo has 167000 miles on it and has been great.
All these geezers talk about this nonsense with nothing to back up their claims. You know what's really unsafe? 80 year olds driving 40' diesel pushers. Now that's scary.

I am guessing you have never seen the carnage along I-10 PalmSprings where all the wind mills are. I have, plenty of these "safe" lifted trucks AZZ dragging bouncing down the highway with their BIG tires looking so "BAD AZZ" it really is a shame to think the innocent kids and wife's are possible victims of too much Testosterone!!!

[BenK]

Buddy cheated by counting his revolver 'cylinders'.... :S

Lawn mower, line trimmer, rototiller, portable air compressor's 5HP,
blower, model airoplane, portable generator, fixed generator, chain saws,
etc...almost bought the 2 cycle drink mixer...but married at that
time and she didn't want me to...part of why she is now the 'ex'... :B

Sold the boat, so lost 12...but can't change sig without tossing
much...as the new rules says less characters allowed...

[azrving]

Lol. Prepare for lift off. This thread has lots of life left. 🙂

"51 cylinders in household"
When I was working and the bs would get rolling it was always important to have a good "cylinder count" on hand when things got hot. Lol. I'm down to 17 now. We did not allow junk engines laying out in the yard. They had to be running 🙂

[BenK]

Okay...I qualify as an old geezer at 67 and closer to 68 than not...

Tell me how you managed your Z-Angle for your lift?

It is an old, old and known attribute for U-Joints AKA Cardan Joints (originator
of this new fangled thing and IIRC...invented around the 17th Century)...but The
Laws of Physics seem to have no age limit...though new ones are found almost every year...

That a single on one end must be sync'd to the one on the other end
of the stick? That is called phasing by some. That to have a constant
speed (RPM) is to have two of them at each end and phased correctly.
That is AKA CVJ or constant velocity joint and that also begets or
allows for higher Z Angles in it's spec (before they become overly
stressed...AKA failure point)



and this is the RPM curve of which the above Z-Angle speaks and the
hint from the CVJ...constant velocity thing...



Oh...going to lose this youngster with my old geezer talk...so am assuming knows little
to nothing in the tech world with his type of verbiage...so depends on 'buying
it' from vendors and it does have a correlation to their price...

Note that this is an free open forum and the advice is worth the price paid...

That many do NOT understand the stuff of this site...mainly the technologies
plainly stated on specifications or implied therein...that there is
a 'R' in most specifications and the understanding or the meaning of
that 'R' is lost to and on them...

Does everyone know what level of kit (bad, good, great, etc) the
previous owner put in on this vehicle the OP is considering?

Were they as knowledgeable or better way to put it...willing to pay
for the best as the last poster/comment above? Or did they just
buy the cheapest kit available at that time?...that did not have
any or enough engineering thought in their design...

[kofire]

There's so much nonsense in here it's ridiculous. Old people like my dad say all the same things. It's unreliable, unsafe, premature wear on parts, hard on the tranny blah blah blah.
I would say at least half of the trucks and taoyhaylers in California are lifted trucks towing fifth wheels or bumper pulls with zero problems.
I will speak from experience here. Yes it is expensive to do it right - brakes, gearing, tranny coolers and good quality lift components. Plus you will usually need to flip the axles on the trailer.
I currently tow a 38' weekend warrior with flipped axles and associated frame reinforcement. I tow that with a diesel truck lifted 8" on 37" tires. Guess what it tows amazing. It hardly moves around at all and have never felt unsafe. I have literally put thousands of miles on this combination all over and up and down the Cuesta grade, grocer grade, tehachapi grade, cajon pass, the bishop grade into mammoth. The list goes on and on. Never have I been uncomfortable. The truck has a lot of upgrades for towing but the trailer is 14k dry so I had to.
The lift and rims I have are way overbuilt compared to stock. This combo has 167000 miles on it and has been great.
All these geezers talk about this nonsense with nothing to back up their claims. You know what's really unsafe? 80 year olds driving 40' diesel pushers. Now that's scary.

[hotpepperkid]

Old-Biscuit wrote:
I had to raise my 5vr 2" to get bedrail clearance and have 5vr tow level.
Overall height of my 5rv is now 13' 4"

And I don't have a 4x4 OR lifted truck.

Had to over mount (flip the axels) on my 5er to get bed rail clearance and I have a stock truck.

[BenK]

roadtriptoforever wrote:
I am looking into buying a truck and verbally committed myself to a F-350 diesel with a 4 inch lift. I am towing a rather heavy 5th wheel toy hauler and do fall just within the maximum weight fully loaded (it will probably never be fully loaded but tow rating on truck is 16,300, toy hauler is 12,000 dry and rated for 16,200 if loaded with toys)

I don't want to buy it if it's going to be a safety issue or less reliable.

Thanks

It will be less reliable for sure if suspension lifted

The 'Z' angle for the U-Joints will be greater, therefore more stress
on the U-Joints and the rest of the drive train.

Along with the over sized tires (less rev's per mile than stock), which
begets a change in effective diff ratio (lower numeric) to a higher or MPG ratio

As others have mentioned...check if the ICE has been tuned, as the type
that would lift typically (not all) has a heavy foot.

All reduces longevity and reliability, IMHO

[Miles_Away]

NOT A GOOD IDEA! Will create too many issues relative to overall height and proper leveling while under tow.