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I'm In Deep Doo-doo

loboloco said:
Frank, somewhere on your truck wil be a data plate giving a GCWR. This is Gross Combined Weight Rating. What you want is to have a GCWR that meets or exceeds your loaded trailer's weight and the loaded truck weight including the people in the truck. I honestly believe you might want to look at a slightly heftier duty truck than the 350. Sorry, but I would only use the gasser for moving it around the yard.
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I agree with you about the gasser.

Yea, I had all the manuals out today, it was too cold to do anything else, and I found it a little bit confusing trying to work out what you could actually pull on a gooseneck. I reckon if it is rated to pull 10K on the rear, it should surely be rated to pull 14K on a 5th wheel hitch. Just my opinion. But, having said that, if you follow all the instructions for calculating allowable towing weight, you're right, it's pretty darned close for my dually 4x4.

We're going to make a few short trips when we get it home just to check it out. The destinations are all within about 10 miles of the house or the farm. We'll see how that goes. Good Lord, I hope I don't have to drop another $70K on an upgraded tow vehicle. I may have to sell the house and live in the freekin' thing. :yum::yum::yum:
 
Yes, a friend of mine had a 43' toy hauler, three axle jobber. It was sweet. But he was limited on parking.

FWIW, he towed his with a 3500 Dodge Megacab dually, '07 I think.

EastTexFrank said:
It's not huge, there are some even bigger but it's at the top end of my comfort zone, that's for sure.:w00t2: I was really looking at something around 32 or 33 feet but the floorplan is ideal for our use.

It's a bath and a half. I'm too old and grumpy to be sharing a john with more than one woman. :biggrin:

I've been checking around today and most RV parks have pads that will accommodate it but, you're right, backing it in to some of those pads could be a nightmare. Quite a few places have at least a couple of drive through pads which is what I think that I'd be looking at, at least at first.
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Only bummer about a bigger truck(like the 450/4500 series) is parking ect. When we take the 5th wheel out, we wind up doing sight seeing, shopping ect. It is nice to be able to find parking.
 
Frank, glad I could point you in the right direction. Another option, rather than purchase a new truck is upgrade the rear axle and suspension, thus increasing the tow weight. Of course, you have to register and tag the upgrade to be legal, but not sure how 'stiff' they are around there about that.
 
I towed it with the F350. It did pretty good.

We went on a one week shakedown trip to the Mineola Civic Center which is about 6 miles from the house. We made up a list of things that needed attending to and drove it back to the dealer to have them fixed under warranty. There wasn't too much, mainly little stuff.

I was actually surprised how well the 5th wheel towed. It was a lot better and easier than towing a tractor on the receiver hitch.

I'm looking into adding a chip to the ol' truck to get some more torque and fuel economy. I found a company not too far away, Texas Performance Diesel, that installs them. I was looking at, "The Edge with Attitude".

Anybody know if it's a worthwhile addition? I'd like to get you guys input before I plonk down my money.
 
I have the perfect truck for you....OK I am sure you have heard that before. But really I have a 08 Dodge 5500 quad cab with 26,000 miles that I am forced to sell. I have been pulling a 44' horse trailer with it. I used to pull the trailer with a 3500 with a short bed. I have to say the difference in the 3500 and the 5500 is big. Lots bigger brakes, much more heavy duty axle. Mine has a 11'4" flat bed and still turns shorter than my short bed 3500, they have a different frt end that lets if turn sharper. The long wheel base rides much better. Asking $38,500. Also has the built in navigation with 6 disk changer. PM if you have any questions or want any more photos.
 

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EastTexFrank said:
I'm looking into adding a chip to the ol' truck to get some more torque and fuel economy. I found a company not too far away, Texas Performance Diesel, that installs them. I was looking at, "The Edge with Attitude".

Anybody know if it's a worthwhile addition? I'd like to get you guys input before I plonk down my money.
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Well, nobody gave me their opinion so I went and did it anyway. I took the truck to Texas Performance Diesel and talked to the owner. We talked about what I wanted to use the truck for, what I expected to get out of a chip and other general stuff. He recommended a 6-position programmer from T-S Performance. He said that in his experience that is what worked best on my truck and for what I wanted to do so that's what I went with.

It actually took longer to download the program over the internet from T-S performance to the module than it did to install it. The six positions are:
stock, 50 hp, 75 hp, 100 hp, 135 hp and high idle. Counter intuitively, at least to me, the 50 hp setting is for heavy towing, the 75 hp is for light towing, the 100 hp is the economy setting and the 135 hp is for racing and not to be used under normal circumstance or unless escaping from the police.

Now, let me tell you what a difference that baby makes. On limited experience of a couple of tankfuls of mixed running around and towing it looks as if it'll give me an extra 2 mpg or so, maybe a little higher but I look on that as a bonus. Where the difference is most noticeable is towing that 38 foot fiver on the 50 hp setting. I don't know how much extra torque you get at that setting but I never thought that 50 extra horses would make that much of a difference. I know that it's a cliche but you can almost forget that the trailer is back there. It pulls it up these East Texas rolling hills and inclines and the speed never wavers from what it's set at. I feel a lot more comfortable about pulling it up those Colorado mountains this summer. We can do it.!!!!! :biggrin::biggrin::biggrin:

Oh, I'd better mention how pleased I am with how well that 5th wheel tows. I brought her back from camping at Lake of the Pines, in NE Texas about a week ago. The wind was blowing 20 to 25 mph and gusting to 40+ mph. Even though it was only about a 60 mile drive home, I wasn't looking forward to it all that much. It wasn't a problem. Even though we got hit with some really strong cross winds, that thing was remarkably stable when hitched to the dually. I'm getting more and more comfortable with this combo every time I drive it.

Starting to love this rving thing.
 
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