Sometimes small systems are plenty
Friday my wife suddenly got the urge to camp. Immediately. All the TT has is the original Group 24 battery, 5w solar to maintain it and a 700w/1500w inverter I've never even run under significant l...
Forum Discussion
Mena,
I'm sure you're aware of the physics of weight up high no matter what one does with the suspension and tires in the truck - there's virtually no way around the physics of up-high weight versus down-low weight. That's why military Hum-Vees and race cars are low and wide ... in addition to their fully engineered best-there-is suspension systems.
Of course wide stance duals absolutely help ... over and above what one can do with suspension systems. However, not all dual stance widths are the same. i.e. I'm pretty sure your Class A MH has about an 101-102 inch wide coach body ... as does my Itasca Class C. The spacing of our outer rear duals is probably about the same. However, this is only the case because I did not buy our Class C on the stock and otherwise adequate E350 chassis, which has a 4.5 inch narrower rear dually stance than the E450 chassis. I'll bet 1-ton dually pickups have a rear stance about the width of that of the E350, not that of the E450 and your chassis. Hence you and I are getting the stability physics benefit of the wider stance rear duals over both an E350 chassis and a 1-ton pickup chassis. For a huge TC of roughly the same height and weight as my Class C - of course on a 1-ton dually pickup - the lateral stability would suffer as compared to yours and mine because of the narrower rear tire stance of a stock 1-ton pickup.
Also, there's no way that a TC's grey tank, black tank, fresh water tank, propane tank, coach batteries, and generator can be as down low as those on your Class A and my Class C ... on our MH Winnebago has built them in way down there very close to the height off the ground as the Ford's frame rails. On a TC everything of course sits on the bed and above the truck's frame rails, hence a TC will always have a higher center of gravity than your Class A and my Class C.
The above physics are why I rate a Tiger as a superior offroad boondocking rig as compared to a TC - assuming both would be based on equivalent base truck chassis starting points. I'm sure Tiger could/would custom fit larger tanks in one of their models if one was to order a new one that way. FWIW, one poster in these forums has a Class C with and additional 100 gallons of water carried in one or more tanks mounted up in between the frame rails in the voids not occupied by the driveshaft.
Capacity and comfort wise, a Class A can be an excellent medium-long term boondocking rig ... except for one type of boondocking ... the type where their length, height, and ground clearance is a gotcha. Something smaller and higher will always trump a Class A for out-in-the-middle of nowhere camping via rough roads.
I'm sure you're aware of the physics of weight up high no matter what one does with the suspension and tires in the truck - there's virtually no way around the physics of up-high weight versus down-low weight. That's why military Hum-Vees and race cars are low and wide ... in addition to their fully engineered best-there-is suspension systems.
Of course wide stance duals absolutely help ... over and above what one can do with suspension systems. However, not all dual stance widths are the same. i.e. I'm pretty sure your Class A MH has about an 101-102 inch wide coach body ... as does my Itasca Class C. The spacing of our outer rear duals is probably about the same. However, this is only the case because I did not buy our Class C on the stock and otherwise adequate E350 chassis, which has a 4.5 inch narrower rear dually stance than the E450 chassis. I'll bet 1-ton dually pickups have a rear stance about the width of that of the E350, not that of the E450 and your chassis. Hence you and I are getting the stability physics benefit of the wider stance rear duals over both an E350 chassis and a 1-ton pickup chassis. For a huge TC of roughly the same height and weight as my Class C - of course on a 1-ton dually pickup - the lateral stability would suffer as compared to yours and mine because of the narrower rear tire stance of a stock 1-ton pickup.
Also, there's no way that a TC's grey tank, black tank, fresh water tank, propane tank, coach batteries, and generator can be as down low as those on your Class A and my Class C ... on our MH Winnebago has built them in way down there very close to the height off the ground as the Ford's frame rails. On a TC everything of course sits on the bed and above the truck's frame rails, hence a TC will always have a higher center of gravity than your Class A and my Class C.
The above physics are why I rate a Tiger as a superior offroad boondocking rig as compared to a TC - assuming both would be based on equivalent base truck chassis starting points. I'm sure Tiger could/would custom fit larger tanks in one of their models if one was to order a new one that way. FWIW, one poster in these forums has a Class C with and additional 100 gallons of water carried in one or more tanks mounted up in between the frame rails in the voids not occupied by the driveshaft.
Capacity and comfort wise, a Class A can be an excellent medium-long term boondocking rig ... except for one type of boondocking ... the type where their length, height, and ground clearance is a gotcha. Something smaller and higher will always trump a Class A for out-in-the-middle of nowhere camping via rough roads.
