raisin

My actual truck/trailer weights '14 scab/24' trailer loaded/hooked up. Truck front = 3483, rear= 3792. Trailer 2 axles 4916. Truck sticker max front 3750, rear 3850. I could pull up one link on hitch to shift more weight to front. Full gas, 2 people on board, 250lbs in bed.


X2 on lite weight to 27', room for queen bed, slide out. Lite weight should have 7.5' width, lower height to keep weight down and towing easier.


I've pulled my son's 29' 7K. Its much taller, 40 mph headwind had me in 4th gear on flat land. Used his Blue Max Hitch with built in sway control, no sway at 35 mph cross wind.

smokeywren

You can PULL a lot heavier travel trailer (TT) than you can HAUL the hitch weight of that trailer. So ignore all the numbers except the GVWR of your pickup. Load the pickup with everybody and everything that will be in it when towing. Don't cheat. Include tools and jacks and bed rug and topper or tonneau cover, campfire wood, and the head of your weight-distributing (WD) hitch. If you don't have the hitch yet, then add 50 pounds to the scale weight of the pickup. Drive to a truck stop that has a certified automated truck (CAT) scale and fill up with gas, then weigh the wet and loaded pickup.


Subtract the weight of the wet and loaded pickup from the GVWR of the pickup. The answer is the maximum tongue weight of any TT you want to attempt to tow. Assume the GVWR of the TT is your limiter. Divide the calculated max tongue weight above by 0.13, and the answer is the max GVWR of any TT you want to consider.

If the GVWR of your F-150 is 7,100 pounds, and it weighs 6,200 when wet and loaded for towing, that leaves 900 pounds available for tongue weight. For that example, your max GVWR of any TT you want to consider is 6,923. So round that to 7,000 and don't consider any TT with GVWR more than 7,000 pounds.


It would work with one exception. If your sweetheart is like my 84-year-old sweetheart, with some arthritis, she will hate having to crawl around on the bed to make up the bed. My wife vetoed any floorplan that didn't include a walk-around bed.


More money, but move up to the Minni Winni 2201DS floorplan and I'll bet your wife will reward you.
http://winnebagoind.com/products/tra...nie/floorplans

We're in the same boat, and my wife insisted on a walk-around bed as well as a real shower and a big closet. The 2201DS floorplan has all that, plus the sliding room for the dinette, which gives you wiggle room in the kitchen. But I was restricted to a max trailer GVWR of closer to 6,000 pounds, so that Minni Winnie would have been too heavy for my F-150.


We settled on a Skyline Nomad "Joey" 196S, which is similar to the Minni Winni 2201DS but without the slide, and it has a GVWR of 5,600. The replacement for our Skyline is now the Nomad Dart 188RB, but it doesn't include our big closet, and the GVWR went up to 6,200. If you can get by without the big closet and the slide, it's would work for two old folks.
http://www.skylinerv.com/page/441/188RB

Disadvantage without the slide is only one person can be in the kitchen at the same time. The other person has to be in bed, or sitting at the dinette or in the bathroom, but not in the kitchen.

George in New Mexico

Fantastic information, Smokeywren! Thank you for taking the time to send your long reply. That Dart 188RB looks amazing, and so does the Skyline Joey. I'll be sure to check 'em out. Looks like our truck is similar to yours in the weight it can haul and pull. I'm really encouraged to know trailers are out there that will work with this truck. People seem to have a few problems with those lower-end trailers, but not really any more than you'd expect from any RV. And I know you're right about that walk around bed. It's a pain to make a bed that's against a wall, as you must already know, or to climb over your fellow camper to get to the "head" in the middle of the night! Best to you and your sweetheart in your camping adventures!