New to towing a Travel Trailer

[TXWolf]

After much deliberation, the wife and I went out and bought a 36' travel trailer last night. We were wanting something much smaller, but we KNOW we're gonna have to take our daughter, her boyfriend and our 2 grandkids with us when we go to the Coast. So I have a few questions for those of you that have experience with towing one of these.

A few quick notes:
The dry weight of this travel trailer is 7300 lbs. We are getting an equalizer hitch and electric brake controller installed.

First off ... just how bad is my MPG going to get. Thanks to Corey's recommendation, Bill made a custom tow tune for me when I upgraded to the Gryphon. So I'm hoping that will help a bit.

How hard is it to back one of these things up? I haven't pulled anything with my newer truck (2008 with a 6" lift), and the most I ever towed with my '97 F150 was a small 7' dump trailer filled with crushed granite.

How will having a lifted truck affect the towing?

I'm sure I'll think of a few more things after I get the trailer home. We're planning to take it to an RV Park in Port Aransas in August, to be right next to the beach. So I guess I have a little bit of time to practice!

Thanks in advance for any help I can get from y'all.

[Desert Racer]

Think you may have bitten off a lil more than your truck can handle once you get it loaded with water and all your gear. Yet upgrad the brakes on the truck and you should be fine. Towing something that big to me is easier for some reason the bigger the better in my book. Just pull forward far enough to give you enough room to make corrections. If your truck is regeared than you are fine. Mpg aint gonna be pretty with that much weight expect single digits. As far as lifted you will notice more sway than a stock truck just because you are higher up. So go slow around corners and take it easy on it. Other than that happy camping and good luck!

[Dozer]

F-250? I tow a 5400 dry weight toyhauler and I wish I had a Diesel. Take it easy with that much weight especially braking. I get about 8-9 MPG when I tow with my truck. Good luck anyway.

[88Racing]

Just remember give yourself plenty of room!

Take corners extra wide especially RH ones!

Balance the load.

Slow and sure is better than fast and hasty.

Know where you are going before you get there.

Maybe a brake upgrade?

The bigger they are the easier to backup. Give yourself room.

Good idea on the equalizer hitch.

Try to tow so the vehicle and trailer are level. Makes for good geometry and good handling.

Watch where the brake controller is mounted in relation to the gryphon.

I may think of some others

Lars

[Sburn]

Originally Posted by TXWolf

The dry weight of this travel trailer is 7300 lbs. We are getting an equalizer hitch and electric brake controller installed.

Depending on your gears and tire size, you're at or near the top of the towing capacity shown on page 249, 2008 Owner's Manual.

I don't have a gearing calculator handy, but if you have 3.73 gears, then 35 inch tires are going to make it like you had 3.55 (or worse) gears. And with that comes lowered towing capacity.

Assume plain water is just over 8 pounds per gallon, so you could easily add another 500 lbs to the trailer in just water. Then you got all your groceries, beer, firewood, and such to add. I could see you getting up to 8000 lbs, easy.

1) Make sure tires, brakes, fluids, etc on the truck are inspected and in perfect shape. And don't wait until the last minute while you're hitching up. Smack yourself on the head if you ever think, "might be alright -- I'll just keep and eye on it", instead of fixing the problem before you go.

2) Go over your receiver, hitch, safety chains, electrical plug, trailer lights/brakes, and equalizer bars EVERY time you go to leave somewhere. Even if you just parked overnight, inspect it before you go in the morning. Get used to doing an inspection walk around the trailer when you stop at rest stops and the like.

3) Your brake controller should come with a manual that tells how to adjust the controller with the trailer hooked up. Find a vacant stretch of road to do that adjustment.

How hard is it to back one of these things up?

Not as bad as you might think. Lars is right, longer is easier. Borrow some orange cones or such and take some time in a large parking lot to practice. Work out with the wife what hand signals (flashlight, radio) the two of you are going to use when you're backing in or out of a space. And then practice again in the dark.

[88Racing]

Sburn has a good point on the gearing!

Some other thoughts.

Noticed in the post that you have 6 people taking this trip. Hopefully the lariat has the bench seat up front. That's what bites about mine. The consel doesn't make it a good people hauler 5 max, on the good side I get my space.

Make sure you bring a good bottle neck jack or floor jack and some 1'x1' pieces of 3/4" plywood just in case of a flat.

Lars

[Jackpine]

These guys have pretty much covered everything!

I don't have near the towing weight that you do, but, your truck SHOULD be able to pull what you have. My trailer is a mere 3600#, but when I bought it, I had a Nissan Frontier (max towing weight was 5000# with an equalizing hitch, which I got). I was able to pull that thing over Monarch and Red Mountain Passes in Colorado (above 11,000 ft) but I was in 1st gear all the way. I found I was starting to run hot pulling it up a long 7% grade in Arizona south of Camp Verde and that's when I decided I really needed a bigger truck. So I got the f150.

You have a similar weight to "pull" ratio that I did with the Nissan. If you have not already gotten the hitch, I recommend the Equalizer load-leveling, equalizing, anti-sway Hitch: http://www.equalizerhitch.com/. Others have said you don't need the anti-sway feature, but it's kind of free with the design and I'll take any advantage I can get. It's dead easy to adjust the hitch ball height and it sounds like you'll need to drop that ball quite a bit since you've lifted the truck.

The good news about backing a long trailer is that it won't want to jackknife like a shorter one (mine). The bad news is you can't see a damned thing while you're turning while backing and it's really hard to tell where the back end of the trailer is. You have to have an assistant (I think).

Get used to the stopping distance, don't overload the trailer, don't drive faster than 65 mph.

And, you MAY discover that you need to install gears with a higher ratio than you have. With larger tires, I can just about bet on it.

You WILL get single digit gas mileage! Sorry!

- Jack

[TXWolf]

Thanks for all of the advice, guys. I will definitely look into getting bigger brakes installed, and possibly different gears. I currently have the 3.73's, so I guess the upgrade would be 4.10's? And I definitely plan on doing some "practice towing and backing up" on the many country roads in our area. I've already reserved a site at an RV Campground at the coast for a week in August. I chose a pull-through site, in the hopes that it's easier to manuever the trailer into, instead of a back-in site. :o

As far as the equalizer hitch goes ... I had the dealer throw it in as part of the deal. So I emailed the salesman the website, to make sure that what they're planning on installing is comparable to what the site shows.

What about towing mirrors? I've seen some clip-ons at the JCWhitney website, and I think on StylinTrucks. Any recommendations?

[88Racing]

I don't know what your looking for as far as towing mirrors.
As far as clip ons I have had good and bad even from the same mfgr.
Your best bet is to go OE style telescoping mirrors. Might get a little pricey though.
Here is a good read from our friends over at f150online.
Note:
These threads contain the following info.
How to remove old and install new.
Where to buy.
Approxiamate pricing.
Some wiring diagrams found in user's albums.
http://www.f150online.com/forums/200...ml#post3738699

There are additional threads within this one also. Enjoy!

Lars

[Jackpine]

OE telescoping mirrors WILL be pricey - probably in the $500-600 range for a pair.

I don't know what your mirrors look like, but I use Cipa slide-on mirrors that I bought at Camping World. Here's a webpage: http://www.campingworld.com/shopping...-mirrors/7753d

They work great for me. I adjust the truck's mirrors to see the area to each side of my truck and the slide-on mirrors give me vision back along the sides of the trailer to the rear. There is no vibration and they're big enough to actually see something with. And, they go on and off in about 15 seconds. However, they may not make one for your model year truck yet.

I tried the ones that fastened with elastic bands on my previous truck and they did not work well at all. The mounting was too flimsy. I ended up using this style: http://www.campingworld.com/shopping...w-mirror/14887 which was a pain to mount, but they worked well once on the truck.

Looks like the thread Lars has given you has people putting telescoping OEM mirrors on their trucks, similar to the kind you see on the 2009 models and earlier Superdutys.

- Jack