Forum Discussion

Grit_dog's avatar
Grit_dog
Navigator
Jun 22, 2018

I just LoL'd a little...

Gettin the camper and boat ready to head out in the am, I was detailing the truck out. Wiping down the door jambs and I came across the dreaded yellow sticker:E

All this talk on here and I never actually looked at it. My half ton work truck has more payload I think. The ole Mega cab has a whopping payload rating of 1647 lbs!!

What should I do??? Camper is weighing in around a svelte 4klbs and the boat is prolly close to 7klbs with a tongue weight of ?? More than 2 healthy men could think about lifting. Guessing close to 20k gcvw heading out with full tanks and lots of non empty beers in the fridge and 2 wakeboards and 2 surf boards in the overhead.






It's ok though. I saw the tire loading sticker and it said 45psi light load for the back for the old 265 17s. I'm at a solid 80 psi, so should be fine!
Cheers all.
See a black Dodge with a black boat behind it and a big white whale in the bed around Pend Oreille, just Honk!
Truck Campers
  • Grit_dog's avatar
    Grit_dog
    Navigator
    Jun 28, 2018
    ^ True enough, rear tire blow out is probably the largest concern, but like you, after seeing years of truck abuse over 100s or 1000s of trucks, IMO it’s not super probable.
    Tires I got are pretty stout.
    Boat itself isn’t 7klbs. It’s a 20’ boat. Never scaled it, but lists 3575 lb dry weight without tower and other stuff.
    Tower adds at least 500lbs bare. Another 1000lbs in speakers, batteries, amps, accessories. 400lbs fuel. Couple hundred in sundries. Plus a 1500lb trailer. It’s between 6 and 7klbs.
  • Kayteg1's avatar
    Kayteg1
    Explorer II
    Jun 22, 2018
    Ditto on boat trailers having less tongue weight than other trailers.
    I figure out the boat aerodynamics prevents the trailer from fishtailing, you'd have with square trailer.
    I would love to see a picture of 7k lb boat behind TC.
    The heaviest boat I had was 25' cabin cruiser, 102" wide, with toilet and water tanks. That boat was less than 3600 lb, or about 5k wet on the trailer.
    I overloaded my SRW trucks with construction materials almost every day, but having tall TC on overloaded singles - I could not shake the vision what might happen after tire blow-up and bought dually within few weeks.
  • SidecarFlip's avatar
    SidecarFlip
    Explorer III
    Jun 22, 2018
    I never worry about tire loading, one can get tires with adequate load capacity. What always concerns me is, are the rims capable of carrying the weight. DOT requirements are that each rim must be stamped with it's maximum weight rating. What I go by. Some rims are stamped with the maximum capacity in simple to read numbers, some are encoded with factory gibberish, but all are stamped one way or another.
  • Grit_dog's avatar
    Grit_dog
    Navigator
    Jun 22, 2018
    jplante4 wrote:
    In general, tongue weight is 15% of the trailer load. You can change that by shifting the boat forward or aft. An aft center of gravity is less stable, so don't go nuts.


    For sure, not enough tongue weight is worse than too much.
    Mine isn’t adjustable, boats locked in to one spot but it tows great. V drive so a lot of weight aft and trailer axles are pretty far aft so no tail wagging.
    Gonna guess it’s 10% plus tongue weight
  • Grit_dog's avatar
    Grit_dog
    Navigator
    Jun 22, 2018
    jimh425 wrote:
    It was a mid 90s SRW. Probably just had an air bag go down. The right side was at least 6 inches lower.


    Oh snap!
  • camp-n-family's avatar
    camp-n-family
    Explorer
    Jun 22, 2018
    jplante4 wrote:
    In general, tongue weight is 15% of the trailer load. You can change that by shifting the boat forward or aft. An aft center of gravity is less stable, so don't go nuts.


    Tongue weights for boat trailers is much different than than an rv. Most of the boat weight sits directly over the trailer axles so the normal range is only between 5-7 percent tongue weight. The higher end for single axle, lower end for tandem.
  • jplante4's avatar
    jplante4
    Explorer II
    Jun 22, 2018
    In general, tongue weight is 15% of the trailer load. You can change that by shifting the boat forward or aft. An aft center of gravity is less stable, so don't go nuts.
  • jimh406's avatar
    jimh406
    Explorer III
    Jun 22, 2018
    It was a mid 90s SRW. Probably just had an air bag go down. The right side was at least 6 inches lower.
  • Grit_dog's avatar
    Grit_dog
    Navigator
    Jun 22, 2018
    From where I'm standin, that looks pretty good?
    I don't got a soggy butt truck but it takes 60psi in the bags and some wedges in the springs to keep it healthy looking!
  • jimh406's avatar
    jimh406
    Explorer III
    Jun 22, 2018
    I think you are fine. I saw his going down the road near Cle Elum last weekend. For those keeping score, it looked even worse from a distance. In this picture it looks almost level.

About Travel Trailer Group

44,030 PostsLatest Activity: Jan 20, 2025