need truck and camper advice

S

starcrafttom

Active member
Well susan and I deciced to buy an newer/bigger truck. I know that I have bragged about the ranger pulling "Susan E" all over the place and back, even Uclulet b.c this last spring, but the Ranger has 218,000 miles as of today and is getting long in the tooth. we have looked around and decided on one of two rigs. The ford f-150 or a Nissan Titan. The new seats in the ford hurts susans back and she can not ride or drive in them. We looked at the seats in the f-350 and they are different and do not hurt her back and neck at all but at a extra 20 thousand or so its a upgrade we can not afford. The ford dealer Saw that we wanted the larger truck but could not afford it. He did have a 2001 f-350 four door 4x4 diesal for $24,000 that we could afford. We spent two days making the deal and getting a few things fixed that would make us happy before signing the papers. In the end the ford dealer in snohomish made us the deal for the price, interst rate and monthly payment that we could live with last monday and we signed the papers, but left the truck there for new tires. Two hours later susans dad called from californa just to let us know that he had decided to give us his 1999 ford f-350 v10 4x4 super cab for free. AhhHHHhhhh!~! Now I had to call back the dealer in the morning to break the deal, which under washington state law they dont have to do. Well he did it for us with no problems. Oh yeah the nissan dealer was a real a-hole so I walked out. He would not "give" me 24 hours to think about it, He lost the deal because thats the truck "I" wanted.

now to the advice part. The 1999 f-350 with v10 shows a tow rate of 12,500lbs and a payload of 4300lbs. Now the truck maybe coming with a 900 alpine lite camper of around 4000lbs loaded/full (thats high end). so my question is can i tow the boat with this rig or is my tonge weight going to be to big???? The truck has air bags installed. I would rather have gotten the diesal, but free is good. I have to buy the camper but Ed, my father inlaw, is going to low ball the price which I feel bad about but not enough to turn down the deal.
 
Tom - you won't even know the boat trailer is there.

Amazing dad-in-law you got there! And good for the Ford dealer, too. Sounds great all around - and you didn't want that Datsun anyway.
 
Tom,

We have an F350 with a HOST camper (dry weight about 3400# as I recall), and tow Naknek with no problem whatsoever.

As for tongue weight, I wouldn't worry about it too much. With the camper loaded, hookup the boat and check to see how much (if any) squat you get on the truck. There is an outside chance you may want to install airbags - but I'd be surprised.

Casey
C-Dory Naknek
 
my first three cars were datsun's. two 510's and a truck. would love to have another 510 to play with. Yeah Ed is great but a little foolish with his money. He gives two much to his girls. he just settled his fathers estate with his 4 brothers and one sister. Several thousand arcers of milk cows and orchardes out side of the bay area. he just bought a 36ft motor home. I can take the truck with out feeling to bad.
 
Casey, the truck already has air bags installed. I just dont want the back end dragging to much. the truck only has 60,000 miles on it. All hauling the camper to alaska and back during the summers.
 
Tom, that truck is barely broken in. I would venture to say that with the air bags you won't have much of a problem unless you bring back #900 of Tuna on #500 ice like I do :lol: .
On a serious note you have very little to loose... give it a try. You can adjust the Tung weight by moving the axel but I very much doubt you will have to.
Of course I'll be passing you with my Titan when I pull Sea Lion, but free is a good price.
We don't even have to worry about Tyboo taking our spot before we get there because he has 3 women packing his boat and that Dodge. Even without the extra payload his powerless stroke wouldn't embarrass you as even a Ford will pass one towing :lol:

Congrats, I hope to see you at a get together this coming year. :beer :cigar
 
thats the whole reason for the bigger truck. we have not been going to places we would like to visit because of the ranger getting old and the kid getting bigger. We have been wanting to go to chelan for over a year but the ranger would not make it over the pass with the boat, we did not try. I was lucky enough to get into uclulet b.c and we did not chance towing out of there. The climb out is worse then the climb in so we ran the boat to port alberni and drove the truck and trailer empty to the boat launch. I would love to do neah bay but did not want to tow with the ranger. I will be keeping the range because I love that truck but will no longer tow with it. In fact I may hook it up as a tow rig behind thet camper when we go into the mounatins hunting and wandering. I hope to get 300,000 or more out of it between work and driving around. Now I can go any where with confidence that I will not break down. The whole down side to this is that I have to fly to Sac and drive the rig back. We are going to take a week at x-mass and visit my brother in coos bay. Doing any fishing that week mr. fisherman????
 
If it were too much tongue weight (which I don't think it will be) you can get an equalizer hitch, and thus get weight off the back axle. I think you will be happy with the rig! You don't want to move the axle on the trailer to lighten it up too much and get it squirlley towing.
 
starcrafttom":1vg1gh0s said:
...Two hours later susans dad called from californa just to let us know that he had decided to give us his 1999 ford f-350 v10 4x4 super cab for free. AhhHHHhhhh!~! Now I had to call back the dealer in the morning to break the deal, which under washington state law they dont have to do. Well he did it for us with no problems.
Click to expand...

Wow...congrats on having a really generous father-in-law and the new rig! And kudos to Bickford Ford for letting you out of the contract. My buddy bought his F-250 diesel from them and had nothing but good things to say about how he was treated.
 
Tom and Susan,
Congrats on the new tow rig and camper. I'm figuring that you've got no problems there.....in fact you could probably throw a half dozen kegs of Snoqualamie Falls Brew in there as well and not even notice it.
The only modifications I can think of that you'll have to do, is get your friends to make up some more graphics to put on your new rig! :wink
 
FREE is my favorite price! :thup Congratulations on the new truck, Tom and Susan... lots of new places to explore. The best way to figure allowable weight is to go by the axel rating. If it squats the back of the truck with the camper and boat, pump up the airbags and it should be good to go; that F350 should be up to the task.

Best wishes,
Jim B.
 
the girl with the graphics lives near susans dad, so that maybe a do able job while we are there.

Yes bickford ford was wonderful to work with while we were shopping and after we broke the deal. It may ahve been a differant story if we had taked the truck home that first day? I would go there to buy in the future if the ranger ever goes south. Maybe a 4 door ranger next time.
 
starcraftbottom,

I would think you wouldn't have any problems towing your CD 22.

And you should research the F350 GCVW ... another specification that I think exists for most vehicles. Gross Combined Vehicle Weight Rating is the truck, truck payload, AND trailer weight.

A buddy of mine had a big truck, he had a heavy payload (big tool boxes full of his contractor tools), he exceeded the GCVW rating, and he went through transmissions like they were oil changes.
 
if GCWR by ford is the same as the GCVW then for the f-350 it is 21,000lbs. ford calls GCWR the gross combined weight rating. So the truck is 10,800 ,I think, and the boat 4000 and the trailer 4000 for say a total of 18,800. well below the max if that is the max. hard if find the info somthings. makes me think what are they hiding??
 
Tom, I would at least get a transmission temp gauge on that truck. If you are that heavy be carefull at low speeds when your torque converter is not locked up. Your transmission temperatures will climb fast and heat is a killer on a transmission.
I have a 11' Bigfoot camper @ 3100#s dry. I have pulled my previors 22 with the camper with no problems to Chelan. To much weight with the 25. You drive truck so you know all about stopping distance, it should work just fine. Now the only thing I wonder about is what will get better milage, your boat or the tow rig? :lol:

Fred
 
Anita Marie":3fb0ajf6 said:
Tom, I would at least get a transmission temp gauge on that truck.
Click to expand...

I'll second that, and suggest a few more modest tranny upgrades...this really is the weak link for trucks from this era, from any manufacturer. For a few hundred bucks, you can avoid some very costly problems...a quality tranny rebuild on your truck will easily exceed $3000.

- Auxilliary tranny cooler. These mount in front of your radiator, where they'll cool the tranny fluid much better than the dinky stock cooler. They'll also increase your tranny fluid capacity. Plenty of good ones out there...here's the one I'm using. Most folks add a microfine filter inline to the cooler during the installation, and swap it out every year or so.

- Synthetic tranny fluid. Yeah, synthetic fluids seem to evoke all sorts of emotions and flamewars any time they are discussed, but it's a no-brainer in a tranny that will see regular towing duty. The temp reduction alone is worth it.

With just the above two modifications, I dropped my average tranny temps by 20-25 degrees. I have to really push it to get to 170 now - typical is 155 unloaded, 165 loaded. Normal temps while towing with the stock cooler and non-synthetic will depend on many factors, but 185-190 was typical for me, while towing with a 6K load. Extended periods at 200F is where most folks say damage will start occurring, so that didn't leave much room for error...

- Sonnax Tricumulator Springs. These little goddies will make the transmission shift more harshly, but that's a good thing in terms of wear. Basically, they increase the internal pump pressure necessary between shift points, which reduces the slipping between gears - less slippage, less heat/wear. Unloaded, some folks find the shifting a bit too harsh, but it's not that noticeable to me. It's an easy install, best done at the same time you switch to synthetic - you need to drop the pan to get at the valve body. Sounds scary if you've never done any tranny work, but the included instructions are quite clear, and it's really pretty simple.

Congrats on the truck...quite the score.
 
Tom,

I have a 99 Super Duty F250 with the V10. Great engine. I get between 9 & 10 MPG towing, but not much more just driving around. You will certainly want to keep the Ranger for commuting and errands. You will not have to worry about tongue weight.

Dave
 
Tom

Sounds like a great tow rig. We have had Ford Super Duty/camper combos, for the last 15 years or so. Probable have towed close to 100,000 miles with a C-Dory and camper. We towed the full length of the Baja with the TomCat 24' and the Lance 10'-10" camper. The one thing I would check closely is the draw bar. If you need a long extension, it needs to be beefed up.

IM000327.sized.jpg

This was just before the Baja trip, in 2002. We have towed the new TC255 for around 4000 miles, and it's twice the weight of the CD 22'.
 
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