New to towing a Travel Trailer

[408F150]

RV dealers will always try to sell you the biggest trailer your truck legally can tow. They don't seem to care about the fact that it actually weighs much more when you actually put stiff in it. When I was looking at new trailers the guy kept trying to push a 7,400# dry weight 28' Toy Hauler. Technically my truck can tow it, but by the time you put anything in it you're way over your GCVW.

If you are willing to upgrade your tow vehicle, the trailer you picked up isn't heavy at all for a 250/350, and you could tow it very easily with a V10 that will be a whole lot cheaper than a diesel. I've seen 06/07 F250 Crew Cab V10s with under 50k miles going for well under 20k. I love diesels but with your trailer a diesel engine is entirely optional, a V10 will tow it just as well.

[TXWolf]

Unfortunately, spending another $20k isn't an option for me right now. I'm going to pick up the trailer this weekend. I guess I'll find out pretty quick how the rig handles at that time.

[408F150]

There's a few (relatively) cheap things will will help you greatly, if you don't have them already.

First, I'd recommend installing two 5" electric fans on your transmission cooler, you can either set them up to turn on at a certain temp or run a basic +/- wire setup to the cab and flip them on once you hit 180* on your Gryphons ATF temp gauge. May want to swap out your AT fluid for high temp/heavy duty full synthetic. Whole setup will cost around $100 and takes maybe 2 hours to install and wire (if you do fluid its around $7 a quart and I think it takes 14?)

Second, you are going to want either Super Springs or air bags to keep your a$$ from dragging. Super springs run about $375 a set and take about an hour to install (they add 2,000# of spring to help keep your leaf springs from getting over stressed), airbags are I think a tad more.

Third, you will need a NICE weight distribution hitch with dual-cam or a comparable form of anti sway. You're basically towing a 30+ foot sail behind a relatively light truck. It can and will push you around without a nice anti-sway setup.

Lastly, remember that when you're towing a trailer that weighs more than your truck, you need to have the trailer brake harder than your truck does (Prodigys call it a "boost level"). These are usually measured as a +% (+25%, +50%, etc) mode. You will probably want the trailer braking around 50% harder than the truck, but the manual for your brake controller will give you specifics.

PS- MPG-wise, expect around 11 mpg with a tail-wind and 7-9 mpg with a head-wind, cross-wind, or when going even slightly uphill

[Jackpine]

Originally Posted by 408F150

Second, you are going to want either Super Springs or air bags to keep your a$$ from dragging. Super springs run about $375 a set and take about an hour to install (they add 2,000# of spring to help keep your leaf springs from getting over stressed), airbags are I think a tad more.

I agree with everything in your excellent post except this one statement.

The whole point of a weight distributing/load leveling hitch is to transfer the trailer tongue weight to the four wheels of the tow vehicle, without overloading either of the axles. Putting heavy duty suspension components on the rear of the truck will keep if from sagging, so much so that the load leveling hitch will make the truck look fine, even though the rear axle is supporting way too much load. You CAN overstress the rear axle of the Tow Vehicle (TV) this way.

If you look at the instructions for any of the load leveling hitches, they say, "Do not use airbags, springs, etc to compensate for the hitch load".

The hitch itself transfers the load toward the front of the TV so that the weight on both axles is almost equal.

The weight distributing hitch will keep the rear springs of the TV from being overloaded.

And, as you mentioned, I think anti-sway control is good to have too, even if you do make sure the hitch load is 12-15% of the trailer weight (a must).

- Jack

[Sburn]

Originally Posted by 408F150

First, I'd recommend installing two 5" electric fans on your transmission cooler, you can either set them up to turn on at a certain temp or run a basic +/- wire setup to the cab and flip them on once you hit 180* on your Gryphons ATF temp gauge.

Agreed, trans cooler fans would be a good choice.

FYI, there's two different sizes of factory trans coolers:

The smaller of the two came with the lighter duty towing package and has about 4 or 5 rows of cooling fins. Factory light duty towing packages have a flat-4 only trailer connector on the rear bumper.

The heavier duty option has a cooler with 8-10 rows of cooling fins and is matched with the dual 7-pin + flat-4 combo trailer connector on the rear bumper.

The heavy-duty (AKA "Super Cooling") was an option on most trim levels and may have been standard on the higher (Lariat/KR) levles.

Upgrading to the larger cooler, if you have the small one, is a simple bolt-on change and the part is about $100 from Tasca Ford Parts or the like.

[TXWolf]

We picked up the travel trailer from the dealer last night, and WHOA!, is it big! LOL I have a few hesitations about it, though.

First off ... my back end of the truck sagged big time. This was expected to some degree, but it makes the truck look really weird. I'm thinking about adding Superleaf Springs to help with the aesthetics.

Second ... I'm new to using an electronic brake, and I'm having a heck of a time adjusting them. They'll act fine one minute, but then the next time that I go to slow down or stop, they feel totally different. As I drove into the neighborhood, my wife says that the tires and axles "bounced" really bad as I was braking. That has me a bit worried about the long-haul effects to the trailer.

Lastly (for now) .... Keeping an eye on the Gryphon gauges .... CHT never went above 220 .... CFT never went about 210 .... but the TFT hit around 219 a couple of times (pulling up a couple of inclines). With the towing package, I have a transmission cooler on my truck, but I'm guessing I might need more of a heavy-duty one?

Except for my worries with the TFT, the truck pulled the trailer just fine. I definitely knows it's back there, though! I'm going to take it to one of our high school parking lots today, and practice backing up with it, and getting the electronic brakes adjust better. And then I'll take it to the RV storage, until it's time to take it to the coast.

[Jackpine]

Boy, I don't like it that you say the back of your truck sags. It shouldn't - period, if the load leveling hitch is set up properly. And, if following the instructions in setting up the hitch can't correct the sag, you need a higher capacity hitch, not springs.

Electric brakes ARE somewhat tricky to set up. Ideally, you want it so that you don't feel the trailer either pushing you or pulling back on you when you brake. In other words, for the most part, the trailer brakes stop the trailer and the truck brakes stop the truck. It won't be quite that "perfect", but you should be able to get it close. At about 25 mph on level ground, you want to be able to manually apply the electric brakes only (push the button on the controller) and not have the trailer wheels skid.

The CHT sounds fine. The TFT is worrisome though. I think they DO make higher capacity transmission coolers, possibly with their own fans. Regardless, you're going to have to change the fluid more frequently. If the TFT never goes above 219, yu're probably ok with your current setup.

When you climb hills, try to keep the transmission from shifting. This means dropping it into 2nd or even 1st, so that it's locked in gear. And, unless you're going dowhill, overdrive is probably something you won't be using, but again, let the transmission tell you what to do. If you feel the TC unlocking and locking a lot or if it's constantly down and upshifting, then lock out the O/D.

Have fun!

- Jack

[408F150]

Even with my WD hitch the Super Springs do help. They are NOT load bearing springs when I use them, I just use them as extra support in extremely bumpy areas. I have them set to one of the more mild bracket positions so they basically keep my shocks from over compressing on bumps (I pull my trailer into the dunes at Pismo and it's not uncommon to blow the valves in your shocks from the trailer jumping around). My trailer before I had the springs would fully compress my suspension (This is with a Reese WD hitch rated for 800#) and leave no travel on the springs or shocks. Now I pair Blistein Heavy Duty shocks with my springs and they work great.

Troyer makes a good stacked-fin trans fluid cooler with an automatic thermostat controlled fan. I have one but am yet to install it because the plumbing intimidates me. I can wire stuff all day, ATF lines I'm not super confident with. The only way to help you trans temp besides what was already mentioned is a deeper trans fluid pan so the fluid has more time to "rest" before its recirculated. I've heard the transmission coolers from the V10 SuperDutys are direct bolt-ons. They're much larger but still don't have a fan, so I'd add as big of one as you can get away with.

If your trailer starts bucking your truck around like a see-saw, it could be one of a few things. If you're under-breaking the trailer, it's basically running into your truck when you stop, which shoves your a$$ end down rocks the truck around on it's suspension. If you over-break the trailer, it puts a lot of rearward tension on the hitch and when you release the breaks all that inertia is unloaded forward onto your truck. The final thing that makes them act squirrely when breaking is water in your tank. 800+# of water sloshing around, especially when going downhill, has literally pushed my truck in pulses as it sloshed as I went down a wet hill, if it weren't for ABS and 12" wide tires it coulda been bad.

There should be a brake calibration dial on your controller, the easiest way to dial it in is gradually increase the setting until the trailer stops dipping your rear end as you stop. At that point your truck and trailer are breaking at the same rare and stopping at the same time. Just remember to use Boost or a comparable setting on the freeway or it will sway under moderate to heavy breaking.

This big of a trailer is always going to be a lot to handle behind a "small" truck.