Maiden Voyage

Well after a lot of cleaning and caulking and wiring and the such, I was finally able to get my Arctic Fox 1150 out on the highways to see how she rolled and I was to able get a weight. The overall drive was good. It had a pretty top heavy roll to her around corners and going up or down driveways with any tilt to them, so I need to address the rolling. I lowered the air pressure in the bags and that helped with the over all feel of the truck. I am debating on getting new shocks or a bigger sway bar put on the back and a new one on the front.

The beast weighed in at a total weight of 13621. 5371 pounds on the front axle and 8250 pounds on the back axle. That weight is close to the dry weight. I have a few things in there but no family food water cloths and the such. My truck solo was 9000 pounds. It is a F-350 diesel dually. The GVW is 13000 So I am over weight.

Now that I have driven it all I need to do is camp in it to officially become a member of the TC club.

Happy camping

Try overload spring bumpers. Energy Suspension Bumpers worked great for me for side to side rolling with a 4000 pound cabover. And then add air to the bags so the bumpers are just touching the overloads. Not sure about Fords, but it sure worked wonders for roll on a Dodge Ram. I seriously doubt you are over your four rear tires and dually rear axle ratings so being 600 pounds over gross is what you make of it. Fully loaded with water, people in the truck, dogs, supplies, and such you will likely come close to a load of around 5500 pounds more than your empty truck weight which is close to the rule of thumb of around 1000 pounds of stuff added to the camper's dry weight. So, you are in the ball park for camper weight for that unit.

You should have more than 12,000 pounds rear tire capacity so the real number is staying under the rear axle rating which it looks like you will be but probably not by much. With most other RV's the trailer or fifth has brakes that stop the coach and the truck has brakes that stop the truck. With a cabover the truck stops the whole thing so leaving plenty of stopping distance is well worth it. Gross weight is (in part) a function of how well a vehicle stops loaded to that weight. Going over gross proably has a deteoriating effect on stopping distance.

I suggest a rear Anti-sway bar, to have a major reduction in sway. If your air bags do not have a split air system, separate fillers will also reduce sway.

Wow, 13,600 without water and loading the camper. The Diesel engines sure are heavy. I guess the 1,000 lb reduction in carrying capacity for the diesel Ford list is pretty accurate.

Have fun and welcome.

Yes, the Beast! That's more than 3x the weight of my trailer!