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Forum
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RE: thoughts on small light weight TC and pulling Travel trailer
My TC is an 8' bed model with a queen size bed cab-over, kitchen, dinette, etc. Trick is no bath, so no tanks, and only 10 gallons of water. It is 1450# dry, around 1750 - 1800 loaded for bear. I can tell you the Ram 2500 handles the weight no problem, and my only problem is power - which you won't have with the Cummins. I would say get a nice camper with a bed, but no shower/bathroom!
Brian
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VintageRacer
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02/08/12 03:03pm |
Truck Campers
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RE: thoughts on small light weight TC and pulling Travel trailer
It depends on the combination, the weights, the lengths. Your truck is the one I would pick for this, with the long bed. I personally pulled a 28' car hauler at around 7500 lbs total weight and carried a 1800 lb 8' truck camper with my short bed Quad Cab Dodge 2500 hemi. I used a two foot hitch extension that was rated for the load and I upgraded to a Towbeast hitch. If you kept to 1800 lbs or less, 8' camper length you could just pop that thing on there, hook up your trailer just as you do now, go merrily on your way - just a little slower and getting a little less fuel mileage. You'll be close to your trucks GVWR and GCWR, but probably not over.
Brian
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VintageRacer
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02/08/12 01:33pm |
Truck Campers
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RE: How many miles would you travel in 1 day?
I limit myself to 12 hours of actual driving as a plan, which works out to around a 13 hour to 14 hour day on the road, and around 700 miles. I stay in truck stops or KOA's, since all I am going to do is eat, sleep, eat and leave again. That is a long day for me, but commercial drivers do 13 hour days as a matter of course. Your 1700 miles breaks down to three days at least, no matter what, and no one is going to be very happy at the end of it. Unless there is more to the story, like the course is three months long or more, I wouldn't do this.
Brian
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VintageRacer
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02/08/12 05:30am |
RV Lifestyle
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RE: Towing a car with a wheel lift on a Workhourse frame
Off the top of my head, no, no and yes. The issue I see is the equivalent of "tongue weight". A lift like that is going to weigh in the region of 1,000 - 1500 lbs all in, with the hydraulics and all, and the front end of a typical sedan is going to weigh another 1500 - 2000 lbs. That is one heavy load to hang out the back of a motor-home chassis - the equivalent of at least 3,000 lbs of tongue weight, and it will have a huge impact on front wheel loading.
Brian
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VintageRacer
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02/07/12 08:37am |
Dinghy Towing
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RE: Paralleling Honda EU2000i with other power sources
Some inverters can sync up to outside power. They can let you start two air conditioners on a 30 amp power feed, for example. They can also sync up to any generator. But in this case it's the inverter with the smarts, not the other power source.
Brian
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VintageRacer
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02/01/12 01:56pm |
Tech Issues
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RE: FANTASTIC POWER VENT FAN Failure
They will work you through a few trouble-shooting steps, and then send you the correct replacement part, free to you and free shipping. I was embarrassed when I did that - the vent's I have were probably second hand when they were installed, and I am the second owner after that... I explained that and said I thought I should be paying for the part, but they wouldn't even discuss it!
Brian
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VintageRacer
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02/01/12 09:15am |
Tech Issues
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RE: square head screws vs phillips head
True Robertson drive fasteners and drivers have a neat tapered hole and driver that almost locks the screw onto the driver, making it very easy to start screws in the material. The screw kind of clings to the driver and is very stable. They also make a double recess version, called Screwlox, that has an 8-point recess that makes it easier to put the screws onto the bit, and is common in industrial applications. My car trailer has the Screwlox for all of the trim.
Brian
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VintageRacer
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01/31/12 06:00am |
Beginning RVing
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RE: Bonding a generator
Far better to have ground bonded to neutral in the RV, and if you have a wet ground issue drive a stake in the ground and tie the RV to ground. The bond must always be at the source, so I do it at the generator. I can do it with a plug in one of the outlets that just has neutral and ground bonded together. There must only be one place that ground and neutral are bonded, so any transfer switch should switch neutral, and there should not be any bond in a panel. I have never gotten a satisfactory explanation of why some generators (not all) don't bond ground and neutral. I do know that there are issues with this when you use a generator to power up a house, since a house will have neutral and ground bonded in the main panel, usually.
That's my opinion.
Brian
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VintageRacer
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01/29/12 06:39am |
Tech Issues
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RE: Over length towing
Top clarify - you want to triple tow a jeep behind a camper? Is the camper a bumper tow, or a fifth wheel? I think that triple towing where that is not allowed is a tad more obvious than being a little over-length.
Brian
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VintageRacer
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01/27/12 05:53am |
Towing
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RE: Duo-therm airconditioner torque for hold down bolts
I would try just snugging up the mounting bolts to compress the gasket a little bit. Mine has a thick foam gasket that should not be super tight. Maybe put a turn or two on each bolt to pull it down a bit.
Brian
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VintageRacer
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01/26/12 02:31pm |
Class A Motorhomes
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RE: Tire choice Firestone FS-560 vs. Hankook AH-12
I have 12R 22.5 FS-560's on all positions on my bus and I could not be happier with them. I haven't had to add air in three years, although I check them every day I drive the bus. I bought a second pressure gauge to be sure...
Brian
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VintageRacer
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01/26/12 11:56am |
Class A Motorhomes
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RE: How much sag?
My 2500 Ram is level with around 2000 (a truck camper) as load but - it's also level with around 2600 lbs since the added load springs are fully engaged and it stops drooping. You will have to adjust the headlight aim. Level is around 3" of squat.
Brian
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VintageRacer
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01/26/12 06:53am |
Fifth-Wheels
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RE: DOOR TAG V/S REGISTERED WEIGHT.
You have to be careful. Some jurisdictions do use the manufacturers GVWR on the sticker as the legal maximum, so if you go there you have to be compliant with that. The only one I know of for sure is British Columbia, but I honestly have not tried to find any more. I first found out about BC from a newspaper story about how they were cracking down on that due to several fatalities from accidents with overloaded vehicles in a short period of time. You do have to also register for you GVW, but you can't exceed the GVWR.
http://pss.gov.bc.ca/psb/vehicle-management/gvw.html
Edit: I was curious so I looked at some other provinces. Ontario seems to not include the manufacturers GVWR in their regulations, at least I couldn't find it, but Nova Scotia does, same as BC.
Brian
In BC and Nova Scotia, is it legal to change tires and rims? Is it legal to stray from the air pressure stated on the tag for the particular GVWR? I'm sure then either of the pictures above that I posted would be illegal there too. What do young boys do to their trucks?
As I understand it, in BC and in NS you can put CMVSS approved aftermarket stuff on your vehicle, but it doesn't change the GVWR unless it's approved in a particular way. n From the link I gave above:
Q - Can my vehicle be modified to carry more weight and increase the GVWR?
A - Modifications to a vehicle can only be done at facilities that are recognized by Transport Canada. All of these facilities must have a National Safety Mark from Transport Canada. To find out if a facility is certified to do these types of modifications, ask to see the Safety Mark. A company that modifies a vehicle to increase the GVWR must ensure the GVWR is increased in accordance with the original manufacturer's written recommendations, or within the load-carrying capacity of the vehicle's components, when the completed vehicle is loaded for its intended use. This is an expensive option for light truck owners and because of the criteria associated with increasing a vehicle's GVWR, it may be difficult to find a facility willing to do the work.
Brian
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VintageRacer
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01/25/12 08:14am |
Tow Vehicles
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RE: DOOR TAG V/S REGISTERED WEIGHT.
You have to be careful. Some jurisdictions do use the manufacturers GVWR on the sticker as the legal maximum, so if you go there you have to be compliant with that. The only one I know of for sure is British Columbia, but I honestly have not tried to find any more. I first found out about BC from a newspaper story about how they were cracking down on that due to several fatalities from accidents with overloaded vehicles in a short period of time. You do have to also register for you GVW, but you can't exceed the GVWR.
http://pss.gov.bc.ca/psb/vehicle-management/gvw.html
Edit: I was curious so I looked at some other provinces. Ontario seems to not include the manufacturers GVWR in their regulations, at least I couldn't find it, but Nova Scotia does, same as BC.
Brian
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VintageRacer
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01/25/12 05:03am |
Tow Vehicles
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RE: Weight police in BC
In BC, the law on the books references the manufacturer's GVWR as the maximum a vehicle can weigh. In BC, there are a number of weigh stations that all vehicles over a certain weight must stop at, including RV's and pickup trucks. In BC the enforcement is a little tougher based on a history of accidents with overloaded vehicles in the more rural areas, mountain roads, logging, and migratory farm workers. If you go there and are over-weight, you'll be illegal and stand a chance of being stopped, and you'll probably stand a chance of having a problem if you have to go into one of the mandatory weigh stations (there aren't that many of them). On the other hand, I doubt that every cop has a set of scales in the trunk, or that they have all the GVWR for every model and year of pickup memorized. But yes, it's true that in that province the GVRW is the max weight allowed and any modifications you may have made to your truck don't count. Just the manufacturers GVWR sticker counts.
Brian
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VintageRacer
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01/24/12 04:58am |
RVing in Canada and Alaska
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RE: Best RG cable for Satellite/HD
Normal RG-6 will be fine, it doesn't really come in different sizes, although there are a bunch of specialty versions for different industrial uses. RG-6 is designed for exactly your application and is an upgrade from the older RG-59 spec that is used for analog signals. Distance is fairly immaterial, it can run hundreds of feet in a typical application - it is rated at up to 1500 feet. Keep in mind that splitters reduce the signal level a lot and shouldn't be used at all in satellite feeds, only in the analog feed from the receiver to the TV's. You need DC continuity up to the dish from the receiver
Brian.
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VintageRacer
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01/23/12 02:38pm |
Technology Corner
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RE: Sleep with warm fresh air in the TC using a heat exchanger
As the warm inside air is blown out, it is used to raise the temperature of the cool outside air that is blown in. it doesn't match the temp, but it raises it, in his example, from the mid 40's to around 60 degrees. That's a nice recovery, but the interesting bit is the exchange of overly moist warm air for dry outside air.
Brian
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VintageRacer
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01/23/12 06:11am |
Truck Campers
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RE: steering and handeling
It should steer straight, so do a proper service of the suspension and see what is wrong. It could be as simple as needing a lube job, some adjustments, an alignment, or a broken frame. It could be at the front end, or the rear. But it should steer straight with no aftermarket add-on's.
Brian
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VintageRacer
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01/22/12 02:35pm |
Class A Motorhomes
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RE: Driving a diesel motorhome up a 5% grade
Engine manufacturers would do the world a favor if they stopped telling people what torque their engines make. It's totally irrelevant. Since the only thing that actually does work is horsepower, all you need to know is the horsepower curve. Then, run the engine at the place in the curve that produces the power required for the task. Obviously, anyone with a calculator can figure out the torque curve from the HP curve, but torque really is irrelevant. I can go out in my shop and make an engine that creates 1,000 ft lbs of torque - with a ten foot pole and a 100 lb weight. It won't do anything for me because its at zero rpm, and therefore produces no horsepower and can do no work.
Brian
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VintageRacer
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01/19/12 06:38am |
Class A Motorhomes
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RE: tongue and truck weight diff
Adding weight to the truck bed will not affect the stability of the trailer at all. The point of the recommended ratio of tongue weight to total trailer weight is to get the center of gravity of the trailer ahead of it's axle line. That creates a self-steering effect where the hitch helps to control sway, like a tripod created between the tires and the hitch - a tripod is a fundamentally stable thing. 10% is a fine number to aim for - more is also fine, but less does indeed lead to some major sway that can easily get out of control.
Note that the tongue weight is always before the effect of any weight distribution hitch arrangement that you may have.
Brian
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VintageRacer
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01/18/12 11:16am |
Travel Trailers
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