Grandpop
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Re: Truck / 5th Wheel Combo - Do the numbers add up?
Found the sticker photos from a 19 F350 Lariat Tremor cc 6.75 7.3 4:30 11,300 gvwr that I drove Monday which had 4,061 payload. Wife and I experienced the infamous "death wobble" while test driving that truck with 55k miles on it at 65 mph on smooth expressway when left side hit a bump. Pretty terrifying experience. Got real squirrelly real quick. Hit the brakes quick but traffic right behind me so couldn't slam them on. Glad I didn't loose control or get rear ended. Truck advertised as Ford certified with warranty, so was supposedly already gone thru. Only reason to drive that truck was it was the only gas F350 Lariat within 50 miles of me.3.1KViews0likes0CommentsRe: Truck / 5th Wheel Combo - Do the numbers add up?
I am shopping for a 22 F250/350 King Ranch or Platinum right now to pull a future tt, so going thru same issues. One can't believe the Ford published payload numbers UNLESS you are shopping a completely stripped truck. Any options or trim packages add weight to the truck that reduces the Ford published payload numbers on your optioned truck. Also never saw any trailer loaded hitch weight numbers (or ranges), so no way to know for sure what trailer you are looking at might be placing on the truck. All depends on how much you take with you and where you place it in you trailer. Ford only makes a King R or Plat in crew cab 6.75' bed. The door jamb sticker I saw yesterday on f250 7.3 KR 3:55 rear crew cab 10k gvwr 6.75 bed had 2,620 payload (pretty sure the spec was 3,470 lbs). Makes the base truck 7,380 lbs by itself. Have not seen any method to obtain real world Ford truck weights except look at a lot of door jamb stickers. For me, that is difficult as not many loaded trucks near me. Dealers have a system that approximates numbers by trim packages, but 2 I checked the stickers on were both less than Ford numbers. Depends on final options on your truck. Also saw a 2020 F250 Lariat Tremor cc 6.75 7.3 4:30 10k with payload sticker of 2815 lbs. The 23/24 models are different than the 2020s I am looking at, but these should give you some indication of real world sticker numbers on your search. If you are looking at an optioned truck I would deduct at least 700-800 lbs from published payload.3KViews0likes0CommentsRe: Just beginning to do homework
Been reading the forum for past 6 months to help make a buying decision, but my first actual post. It was a long time ago in another life, but the ex and I did that very same trip back in '94, in a 1990 Tioga Arrow 17' class C (remember, no slides back then). We lived an hour north of you, and without much going out of the way, it was 15,000 miles. We were both going to night college, so left after my Drexel final 3rd week in June, and had to be back first week of Sept for her St Joe start. So 12 weeks, maybe 13 (would have to look actual dates up the photo package I put together to be sure). I had traveled the US extensively at that time (been in 42 states on motorcycle), and would have to say it was the best trip ever. Anyone who can, should try it at least once. Yes, quite an investment in time and $$. As some of those motorcycle trips involved 600-700 mile days, we set a limit of 350 miles per day. Stuck to it until the last few days home when we were running out of time. Despite the trip being a "relaxed" pace, with rest days as we wanted, or time to explore whatever we saw a need to investigate, I can say that for us, the trip should have been a few weeks longer. Would have liked to stay in AK for another 2 weeks (or NW territories) to see the northern lights. REALLY sorry I missed that. In '94 there were no hand held cell phones (we had a bag phone, think it only had reception 3x in AK)), and there was no such thing as mobile internet, so you needed to know everywhere you wanted to go, or had to ask locals once you got there. We had a AAA trip-tik, and we used the Milepost. Never had any trouble navigating (not that many roads up there), and were fortunate that we did not have any MH issues. As we were driving a LOT of dirt roads, I did string up a heavy wire screen attached to poles clamped to frt bumper, and that extended 10" above the hood. A rock catcher. Wasn't all that pretty, but stopped a few rocks from the trucks going the other way; grill, radiator, and windshield were not damaged. We took it slowish, but there never any grass growing under the tires either; we were not the fastest nor slowest thing on the roads. A few times we hit the frost heaves at speed, and once I honestly thought we would flip on our side (but didn't). Seem to remember it took us entire month to get to AK, but we did spend 5 days in Glacier Nat Park (anyone with limited time can just visit the east side of Glacier - it is very close to Alaska scenery). As I recall, from Glacier we went to Banff, Jasper, then west to Stewart and up the 350 mile dirt Stewart-Cassier highway. About half way up you can duck across the CA/AK border to Hyder,AK, then get back on the S-C and headed north to Al-Can at Watson Lake. At White horse, we headed south to Skagway AK (mostly dirt), took the ferry to Haines, then drove back north to the Al-Can and to Tok AK. They said the salmon run was just starting in Valdez, so we headed down south. Stopped at McCarthy, then Valdez. Great camping on the rocks right at the bay. As I recall, that was the 1st 7,000 miles and took 4 weeks. Next back up to Palmer, Portage Glacier, Seward, Soldatna, and camped at the tip of the spit on the beach at Homer for 3 nights. Went Halibut fishing here, and mailed the frozen fish home. Tried to get a flight to Kenai to see the bears, but the weather didn't cooperate so we bought the video (funny, never watched it). Then worked our way back up to Anchorage, Denali (camped in the campground inside the park for the max 4 days), and then Fairbanks. Took a bus trip up the haul road to the Arctic Circle, and got the photo in front of the sign. Went back south to Valdez to see the end of the salmon run. Back up to Tok, then up the (another 400 miles of dirt) Taylor highway (Top of the World highway) to Chicken, over the ferry to Dawson, and down the AL-Can from there to Vancouver. Took a week in the Olympic Nat Forrest, down Oregon coast, visit the redwoods in CA, then right home. We drove almost every road in AK we could. Even if the town was one way in and same way out, we drove it (dirt or not). Didn't think we would ever get back, so wanted to see it all. We spent as little time on the Al-Can as we could. Saw a LOT of class A rigs with blown out air bags at the Al-Can stops, and did not see many A rigs (of any size) on the dirt roads. Sure it is very different up there today. My advise is to go to for it. I still remember most of that trip like it was yesterday. Most of the folks I met there from lower 48 were 60s and up (I was early 30's), and more than half were doing the trip alone. It was their "together" dream trip, but one got incapacitated or died, so remaining spouse was doing it with friends/family. Do it while you can!!!!! With current wife, we are looking at buying a MH and traveling in retirement (starts at end of the year). Probably won't get back to AK, but do plan to get back to Glacier and at least share that beauty with her.540Views0likes0Comments
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