First Trip with Travel Trailer Complete!

[TXWolf]

We took our new 36' travel trailer to the Coast (Aransas Pass) last week, and we survived! I had always thought that the highway from San Antonio to Aransas Pass was pretty level ... but I found out differently when pulling a lot of weight behind the truck. LOL We kept the speed between 65 and 70 for most of the 2.5 hours to our destination. The temps stayed in acceptable levels, although the TFT got up to 239 at one point.

One question ... how long is it OK drive with the RPMs at 4000 - 4200?

I'm really impressed with how the truck handled. Although I KNEW I had the trailer behind me, everything felt good. I never felt like I didn't have enough power to pull the load.

On a side note, if any of you guys ever get to the "Big Shell" area of the beach ... When you're driving in the sand, and you realize that there are no longer any other tire tracks around you ... it's time to turn around! Big Shell is a 4x4 area only, and I've gone down part of the way before. But with the truck loaded up with the wife, daughter, daughters boyfriend and our 2 grandkids ... at one point I was just creeping along, trying to find better traction. Everyone but me were freaking out , but I knew that the truck would make it out of there. I am SO glad that it's lifted, with 35" baja tires on it, though! LOL

Can't wait for our next trip ... We're going to Pedernales Falls up in the Texas Hill Country in a couple of weeks. There are a LOT more hills to test the truck, but I'm sure it's going to do fine.

[408F150]

I'm glad you survived. You need to flush your ATF and replace it now, though. Once you hit 230 you oxidized it and now it's going to degrade very, very rapidly and not protect your transmission or perform as well. Go to a good shop and have them drain the whole trans (not just the pan) and put some high-temp full synthetic in (I use RP). Helps keep temps lower and oxidizes at a higher temp to give you more of a buffer. If you haven't already put a larger ATF cooler in your rig, having one installed at the same time you're swapping fluids is a good idea.

[TXWolf]

That's probably a good idea. I also want to look into regearing ... going from 3.73 to 4.56.

[88Racing]

I have found in the past when driving on sand is to let 25%-50% of the air out of the tires. The only bad thing is putting the air back in when hitting the roads again. You are kinda SOL unless you have a compressor on the truck and who knows how far the next gas station with air is. Glad you had a good trip!

Lars

[TXWolf]

Yeah, as soon as I started to lose a lot of traction in the sand, I was kicking myself for not going with adjustable air bags in the rear end! When I first started looking at them a few months ago, I was thinking about how nice it would be to have an air compressor in the bed of the truck to fill my tires when I needed to.

[88Racing]

Originally Posted by TXWolf

Yeah, as soon as I started to lose a lot of traction in the sand, I was kicking myself for not going with adjustable air bags in the rear end! When I first started looking at them a few months ago, I was thinking about how nice it would be to have an air compressor in the bed of the truck to fill my tires when I needed to.

Don't look back!
You can still do the upgrade!
That's the one good plus about the air bag systems in my opinion too!
The onboard air compressor!

Lars