New Truck, Soon new NL . How to prep the truck

[SoonDockin]

Finally got a truck. F450 King Ranch with everything but the Camper Package. Planning to get a NL 10-2 EX CDSE. Also plan to tow a enclosed 18-22 ft trailer that might weigh up to 8k. So extension hitch needed.

What do you recommend. I have a lift and can do all the work myself. Just looking for recommendations from people on what works well and what to avoid.

[TxGearhead]

I'm using a Harbor Freight engine lift to remove my tailgate. I have 2 lengths of light duty chain off the hook of the hoist with small 1/4 inch? shackles. On the end of the chains I use 1/4" add a links. I unhook the tailgate cables one at a time and connect to the add a links. I put a couple towels across the top of the bumper. Pump up the hoist and get the tailgate in its sweet spot and lift it off. Roll it wherever you're storing the tailgate. Put the towels on the floor to set the tailgate on.
Load the camper.
My 3rd back surgery was in 2017 I think. Whatever day the big eclipse was.

[SoonDockin]

Ya, I was imagining a bunch of suction cups to hang the tailgate from so I could save my back. Seems like a two person job with the integrated step though I have never tried to remove one from a late model.

[burningman]

I sometimes use my original gate, but I often use one of those louvered tailgates with the dropped down middle section they sell for 5th wheel haulers.
It’s a lot lighter and easier to put on and take off for the camper, plus it’s easy to reach over or step over from the truck bumper so I usually don’t even need to open it. It’s also way less stress about scratching it while taking off or putting on. I kinda’ like it. You might check that option out.

[SoonDockin]

Ordered, Superhitch Magnum, frame mounted tie downs and fastguns. Also NL 10.2 EXCDSELE Once UPS shows a delivery date, I will get my truck up on the lift and rip that brand new hitch off. As the truck will often be minus the camper, I need to hone my tailgate removal and replacement skills.

[trail-explorer]

Torklift frame mounted tiedowns
Torklift Superhitch
Torklift Supertruss of the appropriate lentgh, so you can make a really sharp turn and not have the camper jacks hit the front of the trailer

[SoonDockin]

Thanks all, I am smarter now! At least more informed.

[Bedlam]

Without weight in the back of the truck, towing with the extension is a bad idea as posted above. Once you have 3 tons or more over the back axle it reduces much of the negative effects.

I have told people they can make towing solutions that are less expensive than Torklift's, but they will not get the lifetime warranty or technical support that exceeds that savings. I also have more than one trailer I tow and other times I use a cargo basket off the extension. It would have been cumbersome and cost prohibitive for me to modify all the things I use so that I could connect directly up to the receiver.

As a rule of thumb, you should have enough cab height clearance if the underside of your cabover to the bottom of the camper is 4'. Don't forget to take the additional height of cab clearance lights and cab mounted antennas into your measurements if checking how clearance you need. I used 3/4" thick horse stall mats on my bed to clear gooseneck hardware that protruded up - These wear well but are heavy. There are lighter solutions if you need additional height to clear bed hardware or the truck cab.

[NRALIFR]

Back in the stone age when I had my first TC, I was towing an 18 ft flatbed with a 3400 lb car on it all over the place with my F250. The camper was 10’ long, weighed about 4000 lbs with my gear, and I was using a homemade 36” extension with a 2” receiver. There were no forums to get direction from, and no Torklift company that I knew of. I was doing it the only way my 25-30 year old self knew how.

Lengthening the three member tongue of that trailer would have been very expensive, and then very difficult to hitch up. The trailer was already too heavy to manhandle around. I would have had to hit the alignment perfectly, with no way to see what I was doing.

My point is this: by everyone’s standards today (including mine) I was overloading the F250 a lot. I wouldn’t do the same thing today, but one thing that IS relevant to this extended hitch discussion is the way the whole thing behaved. Towing the trailer with the TC loaded was a totally different experience from towing with the extension, and an unloaded truck. I did that one time with an unloaded trailer, and in the first downhill curve I took I could feel the trailer pushing the truck sideways. It was the same “eureka” moment Archimedes supposedly had. This is some kind of physics thing! Levers, moment arms, with a little youthful ignorance thrown in! Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to use the trailer brake controller to pull me back straight.

I never did that again. I did continue to tow the trailer with the TC loaded, on dry and wet pavement, but never snow. I was always on the lookout for that same effect again, but fortunately never encountered it. I don’t need to tow with the TC loaded anymore, and haven’t done it in almost 30 years. If I did need to do it again, I wouldn’t hesitate to buy a Torklift supertruss.

With all due respect to my fellow forum members, we should probably not belabor this any longer. We are hijacking his topic.

:):)

[mkirsch]

Yup, I have FIVE trailers to tow myself. Getting each trailer modified would be cost-prohibitive vs. buying one extension. Plus they wouldn't fit in the barns anymore.

That, and nobody local will touch the tongue on any of my trailers. Trailer shop will only repair to factory original specs. Independent welding shops don't want the liability. It may be different where you are, but around here everyone is deathly afraid of being sued into oblivion.

[GeoBoy]

SoonDockin wrote:
I have one trailer and plan on a second plus the occasional vehicle tow, I might be better off going with a superhitch magnum. Better to plan on that now so I can get the proper camper brackets.

Bingo. Do it right the first time. Oh and congratulations on that F450, nice TC hauler.

[SoonDockin]

I have one trailer and plan on a second plus the occasional vehicle tow, I might be better off going with a superhitch magnum. Better to plan on that now so I can get the proper camper brackets.

[NRALIFR]

I found that Tractor Supply had a very reasonably priced rubber mat that was made to fit the Ford bed. I used the same mat on my 2010 and my current F450.

If Ford is still putting this frammus on the driver side of the hitch receiver, it may need to be removed to install Torklift rear tiedowns. It’s a harmonic balancer, and the cage around the weight interferes with the tiedown bar on that side.



It used to mount here.



I also put a 2x10 across the front of my bed. Mine needed a layer of 1x10 Trex material on top of it to keep the camper from touching the taillights.



To keep from having to cut a hole in the bed for the camper plug, I ran the wires through this plastic knock-out plug, and mounted a plastic box to the board.



My camper uses two plugs because I have 4 gauge wires installed for the +/- 12V circuit. The big two-pin plug is just for those wires. The smaller four-pin plug is for the clearance, brake, turn, and backup lights.



If you need the truck to provide any real charging current to the camper batteries, you may find that these new trucks “smart alternator/ECM controlled” 12 volt system is incapable of providing the high amp charging you used to be able to coax out of the older trucks with a “dumb” alternator/voltage regulator. To get around that on my truck, I installed a DC-DC charger in the camper. That’s what the 4 gauge wires are for.

:):)

[burningman]

mbloof wrote:
Unless the 450 is built much different than the 250/350 you'll have to raise the camper to clear the cab. I used a sheet of 2" 8x4' styrofoam from Lowes. When loading be mindful of the camper centering in the tail gate opening and where your truck tail lights and the camper are - loaded all the way forward might cause them to touch.

- Mark0.

Are you talking about a new Northern Lite EX CD?
They’re designed to fit all new trucks, with just a 3/8” rubber mat.

There’s plenty of room to tow a trailer with a longer tongue and no extension under a Northern Lite. I even towed that way for many thousands of miles with an older camper that had the holding tanks hanging below the rear.
The problems most people describe with this setup are mostly imaginary ones from people who haven’t done it.

As for the difficulty of crawling under to latch the hitch, that’s really easy and compares well against the trouble of installing and removing a four foot extension.

If your trailer is really light, and you don’t mind having extra junk to install every time you load up, extensions work great.
The heavier your trailer is, the worse extensions are.
That’s why people buy goosenecks and 5th wheels: the further forward you can get the hitch point, the better. The further back it is, the worse. Everyone knows it.

[KD4UPL]

I used a Curt 48" extension in my Chevy's factory 2.5" receiver to pull my 4,500 pound boat. It worked okay but had a lot of slop in it.
Next I used a Troklift SuperHitch with a 48" Supertruss on my '05 Chevy dually. It worked great. Very heavy duty and the turnbuckles and chains keep it nice and tight.
I don't think I'd want to mess with the tongue on the trailer. I sometimes pulled a cargo trailer behind the camper so would have needed to extend that tongue too. Then, it would have been pretty strange pulling either trailer if I didn't have the camper one because of the extra long tongue. Also, resale on the trailer with a super long tongue would probably take a serious hit.
My camper hung 4' past the back of the truck. I would not have wanted to have to slide the tongue up under there without hitting the bottom of the camper and then crawl under to hook it up. It was much easier to have the ball at the back of the camper where I could see it and hook up like normal.