Newbie Question on removing small Lance

This depends on the truck and the camper. Unfortunately over the years the tailgate opening on many trucks has become smaller. My camper will not even fit in the back of a Chevy truck. I have a slight clearance of about 1/4-1/2" with my Ram. Needless to say, loading can be difficult and slow. I need to be in near perfect alignment before I even start to backup and maintain that throughout the loading process.

Other truck and camper combinations can provide several inches of clearance making loading and unloading very quick and easy.

If the camper has, at a minimum, electric jacks or preferably remote operated electric jacks, it's pretty easy. Figure a half hour on or off, or close to that.

Not sure if you're talking, new, newer, old, antique, but one consideration that was important to me is that the TC was useable while off the truck. "Most" full featured campers are useable off the truck, but a consideration nonetheless.

There are a lot of people who’ve done youtube videos on loading/unloading TCs. Maybe there is the specific model, but if not, you can at least get to see the process of loading/unloading.

Manual crank jacks will make the loading/unloading process longer, but certainly doable. My first three truck campers had manual crank, and I managed ok for several years.

I will say this though, as I’ve gotten older, and suffered a few shoulder injuries, those manual crank jacks get harder and harder to operate as the camper gets higher above the truck bed. If that’s a consideration for you, I’d recommend springing for the electric jacks even on a small TC. Spend the money once right up front and don’t think about it again. Your shoulders will thank you. :B

:):)

:R Let’s Go Girls! :P
NRA Benefactor Life Member
Lance 1121-Two Awnings, Slide topper, 3.6 kw Gen, Trimetric Batt. Monitor, 1500W Inverter, 40A Redarc DC-DC charger. 2016 F450 6.7 PSD.

How hard depends on you and how quickly you can learn and figure things out. For most people it gets easier with practice, and as you figure out your own system for loading and unloading. Some people just never seem to get the hang of it.

One common usage pattern is to come home from work on Friday, load the camper, drive to the campsite, unload the camper, use the truck to drive around and sight-see all weekend, load the camper back up Sunday morning, haul it home, and unload it when they get home Sunday afternoon. If the owner did not find that "easy" they would not do it.

mkirsch wrote:
How hard depends on you and how quickly you can learn and figure things out. For most people it gets easier with practice, and as you figure out your own system for loading and unloading. Some people just never seem to get the hang of it.

One common usage pattern is to come home from work on Friday, load the camper, drive to the campsite, unload the camper, use the truck to drive around and sight-see all weekend, load the camper back up Sunday morning, haul it home, and unload it when they get home Sunday afternoon. If the owner did not find that "easy" they would not do it.

The solution to %90 of your camper concerns will be resolved if you install electric jacks. They are safer and easier in loading and unloading.

How good are you in paralel parking, or driving via small gates?
I could drop my big camper in about 3 minutes and with 360 cameras in trailer mode, I could load it in as fast as 5 minutes.
Than have seen other TC owners taking an hour.

Thanks for the feedback! Like NRA, I have shoulder issues due to a fall cross country skiing. Surgeon said no fix that would reliably improve things. Aging sucks. So definitely will go with electric jacks. How flat does storage surface have to be? We have a three car garage and two cars, so there is a space available, but driveway slopes down. Do not have truck yet, and it sounds like I have to choose carefully. Thinking in terms of a Ram, mostly because I like the local dealer (where I have been taking my Jeep for a decade, now has 170,000 miles+), but am open. Lance claims that I can get away with a half ton for the two smallest campers. Can I believe that? The wife thinks camping is only appropriate after a hurricane, so it will mostly just me when she is visiting her home town, which she does at least semi-annually. That was probably too much info. Again thanks.

"Do not have truck yet, and it sounds like I have to choose carefully."

Very careful. If possible buy or select the camper first. Then match a truck to it. Within reason you can't have toooooo much truck.

SURE you can put that camper on your 1/2 ton.
I was dropping my big camper on uneven driveways and when it can easy take slope higher in the rear, any other slope become tricky.
Additional thing you need to pay attention when on uneven pad, often truck wheels roll over jacks footing and that can swing the camper as the result.