2003 lance 1171 and 2017 Srw f350 am I asking for trouble?

[Taphillip]

I’m looking for real world experience. I just bought a 2017 srw 6.7 F350 diesel. A local guy has a 2003 lance 1171 with one slide I would like to buy. It’s 3700 lb dry weight.

If it’s not glaringly obvious, I’ve never owned a truck camper. I keep finding conflicting info. The guy with the camper has used a 2008 6.4 diesel F350 to haul this camper. He has airbags, frame mounted tie downs etc. he says it can easily handle the load.

My new truck is rated 11500 gvwr. I weighed it at a DOT scale at 8380lbs.
The sticker inside my door panel says 3296lbs as max passenger and cargo load.

Am I asking for more trouble than it’s worth, especially if I’d like to tow a trailer with a couple four wheelers on it? The ford dealer told me I didn’t need a duelly but now I’m wondering.

Thanks for any insight you can provide.
Cheers!
Terry

[skipbee]

This my experience not opinion. We have a 2005 Lance 1121 on a 2004 F-350 diesel 4X4 SRW crew cab LB. We added 19.5" H rated wheels and tires. and have traveled 100.000 miles from coast to coast and from Key West to Alaska with no problems. Weight is around the same maybe a little heavier when fully loaded. The airbags are very helpful leveling fore and aft and side to side. Replaced the tires at 70,000. Will do a second brake rebuild shortly.

[burningman]

Your camper is as wide as the rear fenders of a dually and your mirrors are wider.
I think people make too much artificial drama about how much wider duallies really are.

[SidecarFlip]

jaycocreek wrote:

For years I had a Lance myself. I always hauled it on my vintage 1997 F350 4x4 diesel long bed. It was a 915 with no slide and it was heavy. Sticker said (Lance lies like a good politician) 2950 camper weight. It actually weighed 3500 empty (water and propane). Was I heavy, sure was and I knew it in every curve and every stop sign and traffic light. Loaded up with all out stuff, food, clothes, lawn chairs, fishing poles, coleman lantern and everything my wife likes including all her pots and pans, I bet I was pushing 4500-5000 pounds and thats no slide.

I have basically, the same camper(Lance 480/9.6ft)..The sticker on mine is like 2700? and loaded ready to camp completely full of everything with the wheel wells full of extra batteries and tools,it weighs in at roughly 3700 pounds.I run it on a '94 F-350 DRW..Rides like a champ with none of the sway that pickup campers give on most of the SRW units I have had them on.

I am split for an opinion for the opp..Years ago my buddies dad had a 10ft camper on his 1966 Chevy 1500 light duty truck.He used to borrow the truck and we would cruse around. It felt like it was going to tip over on every corner..I just new my friend would role that combo sooner or later being a young dumb kid..He never did..He never broke an axle/wheel bearings/shocks or anything to my surprise and his dad took it on some nasty roads camping..Infact,Myself personally,I have never seen any pickup suffer axle/wheel bearing/springs or shock failure due to carrying a truck camper and I have had and seen some Darwin candidates for it.

So from that experience and some others,I think the opp would be okay with that setup for the most part..Like I said,I am split in my thinking on it.

We all buy truck campers for different reasons..I bought a dually,not for carrying a huge heavy TC, but for stability on the windy mountain roads I travel and to pull a trailer full of whatever I take for a lengthy stay.

You are correct, we all buy different TC's for different reasons. I went lighter this time because I run off road and I wanted a lower vertical CG and overall transport height and I wanted to loose that sweaty palm driving experience on the freeway in the wind and when passing big trucks...and I did plus a dullay would not work for me anyway, too wide to negotiate the seasonal roads I frequent. I always take a pruning saw and loppers along (plus a chainsaw just to open tight roads up with. Some of the seasonal roads I've been down are extremely tight and my camper has many scratches on it from entoaching limbs and bushes but something I knew would happen anyway. Part of how and where I camp.

[Kayteg1]

Some people just can't handle the numbers or can't tell the difference between tire and axle.
Pass the popcorn Flip?

[SidecarFlip]

I have my hot buttered popcorn handy... carry on....

[Grit_dog]

^ Youre still not getting it.
A rear gawr of 7200lbs is limited by tires and/or gvw rating, subtracting a theoretical minimum on the front axle from the class 3 srw gvw mandated Max rating.
The axle and the rest of the truck with the right springs and tires/wheels will handle around 10klbs on the rear axle. (not in factory form, but without major modifications)

Buzzcut1, I believe Ford actually has 3 different rear ends under the 250, 350 and dually now, but nonetheless both the srw models still have 10,000lb axles, so you’re correct.

Now I still would not prefer 3tons plus on a srw.....if it really weighs that much.

[Kayteg1]

You missed OP posting
rear GAWR of 7230 @80 psi cold

[Buzzcut1]

Kayteg1 wrote:
in tires safety margin?
Don't think so.

let me clarify this for you. the F350 SRW and DRW use the same axle

with the same tires on each vehicle the SRW can carry 6500 of tire load on a 10k axle the DRWs tires (derated to 2800 for the DRW) can carry 9600 on a 10k axle.. so yes there is a big difference. now you could go with 245/70R19.5 and vision wheels and get yourself 9000 pounds of tire capacity (wheel limited) on an SRW

[Kayteg1]

in tires safety margin?
Don't think so.

[Buzzcut1]

Kayteg1 wrote:

Buzzcut1 wrote:
Actually in the case with the stock tires the real world capacity is the tire rating x2 minus weight of the unladen trucks cat scale rear axle number which is going to be less than the axle rating minus the truck weight. Don't overload the tires and wheels.

The tires on my 9900 lb axle are good for 11,840lb and I've never heard about Ford putting undersized tires on their axles.

you have a dually he has an SRW big difference

[jaycocreek]

Taphillip wrote:
I’m looking for real world experience. I just bought a 2017 srw 6.7 F350 diesel. A local guy has a 2003 lance 1171 with one slide I would like to buy. It’s 3700 lb dry weight.

If it’s not glaringly obvious, I’ve never owned a truck camper. I keep finding conflicting info. The guy with the camper has used a 2008 6.4 diesel F350 to haul this camper. He has airbags, frame mounted tie downs etc. he says it can easily handle the load.

My new truck is rated 11500 gvwr. I weighed it at a DOT scale at 8380lbs.
The sticker inside my door panel says 3296lbs as max passenger and cargo load.

Am I asking for more trouble than it’s worth, especially if I’d like to tow a trailer with a couple four wheelers on it? The ford dealer told me I didn’t need a duelly but now I’m wondering.

Thanks for any insight you can provide.
Cheers!
Terry

I would ask him to take his pickup and camper for a ride so you get an idea on how the camper rides.At the very least,ask him to take you for a ride in his truck and camper..That will tell you alot knowing the modifications he has done to make it ride that way.Then you atleast have an idea how it would ride on your truck with mods.

[Kayteg1]

Seeing semi-trucks on autobahns doing 130 mph, I think the issue is not the weight, but vehicle design.
I drove several luxury DP and lot of them had brakes working "let's push it and see what happen".
It took Prevost with DD3 system (drums not rotors) where I was confident to stop "on a dime" regardless over 16 tons of weight.
I hope never to test it, but I think on my F350 brakes are way stronger than camper ties.
But real issue is how the combo would handle emergency avoiding maneuver.

[Grit_dog]

What Jaycocreek said!
Throwing the blatantly irresponsible aside (like an 1171 on a half ton), a person's knowledge, abilities and comfort level come into play as much as the OE ratings.
OEMs are required to tailor to the least common denominator for liability reasons. Think "don't use in shower" stickers on hair dryers and the "you'll cut your hand off" stickers on lawn mowers.
For someone with limited knowledge, they will generally be safe staying within mfgs published ratings.

[SidecarFlip]

Having haules steel for years over the road and being stupid heavy on occassion (and avoiding the scales). I know what happens when you are heavy. Your ability to stop quickly becomes a fantasy and you'd better anticipate every stop well in advance. Having said that, there is always the chance someone pulls in front of you or the little old lady jaywalks in front of you and your chance of stopping in both instance is also a fantasy.

I prefer to be loaded at less than my truck's designed capacity just foe thbose events.

You can never control what another person does that may impact you in a negative manner. I sure as heck don't want to cream an old lady or smash into another vehicle because I was unable to stop because I exceeded the limits of my brakes and/or be unable to avoid a person or vehicle through an evasive manuver because my camper would put me on it's side.

Not me. I like to err on the side of safety, especially knowing first hand what being oveloaded entails as far as stopping in a safe distance.

I had a lot more braking power available than a 2 axle pickup truck. I had brakes on every axle, big brakes and I typically ran a truck with 11 axles x 2 brakes on each axle. Thats 22 sets of brakes and when heavy, that wasn't enough.