Are the older campers a whole lot lighter than newer ones?

[urbex]

Recently picked up a '75 Six Pak short bed camper with the intention of making the redneck toy hauler - TC on the front of a stupid long flatbed trailer giving me room to put my Jeep behind it.

I went to pick it up with my '05 Ram 1500 quad cab with Hemi and towing package, and based on what I read here, I expected a comical white knuckle nightmare trip home on the rear bump stops because I don't have air bags or the like back there.



To my amazement, while the camper noticeably sagged the suspension, it wasn't by a whole lot. It looked like the equivalent of a lowered leveling kit installed in the truck, and I barely even noticed the weight of the camper back there.

Now, this was a nearly empty camper - stove, sink, icebox and no water tanks at all so I know I'm going to add a few hundred pounds to it by switching to a refrigerator, adding a fresh and grey water tank, etc.

I haven't scaled it yet to know the exact weight, but it does have me wondering if these older, smaller, TCs are significantly lighter than modern campers? Based on suspension sag, I'm guessing it's currently under 1,000lbs.

[jmcgsd]

urbex wrote:
...

I was just really surprised when the weight of it didn't seem to affect my truck much at all, and actually makes me wonder if I couldn't get away with just putting it in the truck and pulling the trailer like normal. Would be nice to not have to drag a big ol' trailer around any time I wanted to go camping without the other toys...

Why not give it a try? You're probably flat towing the Jeep, so there's no tongue weight. Maybe you'll exceed the GCWR but find out.

[urbex]

mkirsch wrote:
As far as hauling the camper in your truck, remember that you have put NOTHING in it yet, and do not have any of your family members along for the ride. Plus you are planning on adding the weight of a trailer tongue. By the time all is said and done you will have over double the weight of the empty camper on the truck.

You CAN do it, meaning nobody will jump out of the bushes and tackle you to the ground, and people have done it. Airbags to get the rear end up. WD hitch to get the front end back down. As long as the truck is in good repair and maintained, you will be as safe as anything. The load will dictate that you change your driving style to a presumably more careful and deliberate mode. But you may not like it when all is said and done. It really sucks when you go to all this trouble and expense, only to find out that you HATE driving your beloved truck with all this stuff on it. Then you have to see if throwing more money at it will fix the problem, trade trucks, or give up.

Well yeah, there's nothing physically stopping me from pulling this mess around with a '85 Ford Escort either :B I know full well CAN and SHOULD are often two completely different things.

I built my current trailer from scratch, and set it up specifically to do this type of planned set up. Of course, there were still assumptions to be made, as I didn't have a camper at that point in time to base weights off of, so I assumed a camper weight of 2500lbs. Though, to be completely honest, I made a lot of weight assumptions back then that I regret now. I really should have scaled things....I may end up a wee bit boned if this thing turns out to be too light, lol (bet that's a complaint not heard often around here! :D)

But even assuming heavy, depending on what 4x4 I'm dragging around, I'll end up with a loaded trailer weight of 7700-9000lbs, ending up at the upper limit of rated towing capacity on my truck. Although knowing there still isn't a standard adopted on factory tow ratings, I'm not even sure how applicable factory ratings even are....again, I know I really need to scale my truck and equipment to be sure, and I will certainly do this before setting off on a fully loaded trip.

Hence, my plan _should_ be OK with the camper on the trailer. I don't see myself loading the camper heavy, as my goal was basically to keep doing things as I've been while tenting just with more weather resistant hard sides and a better organization scheme than my current two Rubbermaid containers to hold the gear. Again, assumptions being made here, but even including my current refrigerator and typical water/food load, I doubt I'm carrying more than 250lbs of gear total. The vast majority of my trips are just me, and I don't have a family or pets that go along.

At the end of all this, if it ends up being too much, then it's time to accept that I need a bigger truck to do what I want to do.

[jmcgsd]

My current '95 Lance 880 10'3" camper is about 800# lighter than my previous '05 Lance 981 Max (9'6" w slide.) There are many reasons why, but mostly the slide adds a bunch and there was more internal storage in the 981 with the basement. However, I prefer the lighter 880. I don't really miss the slide much in the TC, but that's probably because I also have a TT for longer trips.

[mkirsch]

cgrisham wrote:
Our '78 TC with full propane and water weighs in at 1200 lbs - according to the manufacturer. I haven't scaled it. I'll make note it does not have any waste tanks and I'm sure there is a bit of difference with those on, especially full. We have a thermal cooler in it which weighs about the same as the ice box it had originally and not a refrigerator like a new one would have.

Generally you don't travel with the fresh and waste tanks full at the same time, so the only extra weight you'd be carrying around is the weight of the tank itself, which isn't that much.

[DWeikert]

One minor point, up until SixPack stopped making campers a few years back they were one of the lighter campers in the market. It's entirely possible that was also true in the 70's.

[mkirsch]

urbex wrote:
I did notice this one seems a lot more cramped inside compared to newer stuff, but I figured given modern materials, construction techniques, the newer stuff would still be lighter anyways even with all the extra stuff in them.

Thing is, the materials and construction techniques have NOT changed. Most manufacturers still make the campers out of heavy wood, just more of it, to support all the extra stuff. On top of that they have replaced lightweight aluminum siding and roofing with this heavy "filon" stuff, and traditional heavy EPDM "rubber" roofing.

Even the ones that buck the trend and use materials like aluminum are HEAVY... The CampLite 6.8 "Ultra Lightweight" which would be comparable to your '75 SixPac lists a dry weight of 2023lbs, probably twice what your SixPac weighs.

Using modern construction materials and techniques would make the campers so expensive that nobody would buy them.

As far as hauling the camper in your truck, remember that you have put NOTHING in it yet, and do not have any of your family members along for the ride. Plus you are planning on adding the weight of a trailer tongue. By the time all is said and done you will have over double the weight of the empty camper on the truck.

You CAN do it, meaning nobody will jump out of the bushes and tackle you to the ground, and people have done it. Airbags to get the rear end up. WD hitch to get the front end back down. As long as the truck is in good repair and maintained, you will be as safe as anything. The load will dictate that you change your driving style to a presumably more careful and deliberate mode. But you may not like it when all is said and done. It really sucks when you go to all this trouble and expense, only to find out that you HATE driving your beloved truck with all this stuff on it. Then you have to see if throwing more money at it will fix the problem, trade trucks, or give up.

[cgrisham]

Our '78 TC with full propane and water weighs in at 1200 lbs - according to the manufacturer. I haven't scaled it. I'll make note it does not have any waste tanks and I'm sure there is a bit of difference with those on, especially full. We have a thermal cooler in it which weighs about the same as the ice box it had originally and not a refrigerator like a new one would have.

[urbex]

I did notice this one seems a lot more cramped inside compared to newer stuff, but I figured given modern materials, construction techniques, the newer stuff would still be lighter anyways even with all the extra stuff in them.

I was just really surprised when the weight of it didn't seem to affect my truck much at all, and actually makes me wonder if I couldn't get away with just putting it in the truck and pulling the trailer like normal. Would be nice to not have to drag a big ol' trailer around any time I wanted to go camping without the other toys...

[mkirsch]

Look at a camper from the 1960's or 1970's compared to now, and you can clearly see that they were lighter as a general rule.

For one thing, truck payloads were a lot lower and the campers had to be built lighter just because of that.

No slides. No basement. No granite countertop. No exotic hardwood cabinetry. Heck, no bathrooms in many larger campers where you'd expect one these days. Very basic wood stick structure with corrugated aluminum siding. Refrigerators and holding tanks were optional. Gray water drained out on the ground.

My neighbors where I grew up had large TCs through the 70's and 80's. They'd have to buy a different/new one every couple of years because the old one would be laying on a pile in the back yard the next spring. So, I'm not sure they were very well built, especially if neglected at all.

[gbopp]

I've notices older RV's of all types tend to make your wallet lighter.
Does that count? 🙂

[jimh406]

Some are lighter, and some are heavier. Obviously, a 11.5 new one is heavier than a 8.5 old one. Many of the newer campers are also taller. Taller means more material as well. The only way to know how much they are off is to weigh them. Slides generally add about 250-400 lbs each compared to a nonslide model. Other stats I've noticed is a ft is about 150-200 lbs with all else being equal. YMMV.

[Kayteg1]

My Fleetwood has aluminum frame, what suppose to make it "light"
Still with basement, attic, slide and lot of gadgets I scaled it at 4300lb winterized.
I think factory rating was 3900lb.

[Vinsil]

Yup, more options, bigger and heavier duty materials in some cases.

[tonymull]

I have a '98 pastime 8.5 footer. It weighs 1740 with full propane and water. I doubt you could find that now. I think fiberglass sides rather than aluminum are heavier. I can't see much else that is constructed differently but most newer ones have a bigger frig, slides, etc. and they are taller to allow for basements, and such.