truck campers weight distributions and payloads

[bazooka]

I am looking to buy a 2003 Arctic Fox 860. It has a dry weight of 2984 but has a rear awning and air-conditioning and slide out.

I have a 2007 5.9 dodge ram 3500 Cummins diesel Larami that already has air bags and enhanced springs in the rear. Not sure about shocks.

my GVRW on door is 10,100. At weigh scale my truck weighed 7400 lbs.

Should this combination work? Any extra precautions I should take?

Thanks for advice,
Bazooka

[whizbang]

Ditto the other reports. Loaded camper will be 4000 pounds or more and you need to upgrade the tires and wheels.

[mkirsch]

From what I've read over the years, they do tend to be around 4000 loaded and ready to camp.

With the stock tires your rear axle rating is 7400lbs if I'm not mistaken, and around 2900lbs empty with nothing in the bed. This is limited by the stock tires and rims.

That puts you at 3500lbs payload before you hit the tire limits, so you're going to be 500lbs+ over the tire ratings.

You don't want to mess with the tire ratings. Few other components in the vehicle will fail in a catastrophic way so as to put you out of control, but a tire will.

[Grit_dog]

jmtandem wrote:

I am looking to buy a 2003 Arctic Fox 860. It has a dry weight of 2984 but has a rear awning and air-conditioning and slide out.

I have a 2007 5.9 dodge ram 3500 Cummins diesel Larami that already has air bags and enhanced springs in the rear. Not sure about shocks.

my GVRW on door is 10,100. At weigh scale my truck weighed 7400 lbs.

Should this combination work? Any extra precautions I should take?

Thanks for advice,
Bazooka

10,100 pounds minus truck empty weight of 7400 pounds leaves about 2700 pounds for camper. Fully loaded camper is probably 500 pounds or more than the 2984. Sometimes dry weight does not include options. You will be over gross and likely will need some suspension stuff. Get the overloads to engage earlier and perhaps look at air bags, 19 inch wheels/tires with substantially more capacity.

I wish!! These campers are well over 4klbs ready to camp unfortunately...

[Grit_dog]

The only part of that truck that potentially isn't up to the task is wheel and tire capacity. But there's hundreds of em running around down here on OE rims, including mine.
Not endorsing it. Just saying it works.
Bonus if it's a long bed. Helps the rear axle load considerably.

[billyray50]

Yes... I hauled heavier TCs that this model with a 2006 5.9 2500 quad cab long bed 4x4 with helwig swaybar, add a leaf in each rear pack with stock rims and tires before upgrading to 19.5 vision wheels and tires for my previous 1998 Lance 11' 3" TC which was weel over 4000 lbs. wet.

[jmtandem]

I am looking to buy a 2003 Arctic Fox 860. It has a dry weight of 2984 but has a rear awning and air-conditioning and slide out.

I have a 2007 5.9 dodge ram 3500 Cummins diesel Larami that already has air bags and enhanced springs in the rear. Not sure about shocks.

my GVRW on door is 10,100. At weigh scale my truck weighed 7400 lbs.

Should this combination work? Any extra precautions I should take?

Thanks for advice,
Bazooka

10,100 pounds minus truck empty weight of 7400 pounds leaves about 2700 pounds for camper. Fully loaded camper is probably 500 pounds or more than the 2984. Sometimes dry weight does not include options. You will be over gross and likely will need some suspension stuff. Get the overloads to engage earlier and perhaps look at air bags, 19 inch wheels/tires with substantially more capacity.

[Itchey_Feet]

Put TC on and try it first before adding any thing else, do you have a rear sway bar?