New to towing a Travel Trailer

[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.

[TXWolf]

I drove the truck & trailer a couple of miles away to a highschool parking lot to readjust the brakes, and noticed that the temps that I am monitoring were all showing to be in acceptable ranges. In fact, the TFT stayed around 196. But then I noticed that I still had the Gryphon set to 87 Custom Performance Tune. So I changed it over to the 87 Custom Towing tune, and the temps all shot up a bit. Now the TFT was showing 212. Not sure why there was such a big variance in the temp readings, going from one tune to another.

Anyhow, I was able to fine-tune the electronic brakes to where it felt like the trailer and truck were both braking well. No more "bouncing" axles, and it never felt like the trailer tires were locking up. I was also able to back the trailer up pretty well, which is something that I was worried about.

I've ordered some Superleaf Springs, to help with the "sagging butt" backend of my truck when the trailer is hooked up. I'm hoping that it helps out a lot. I'm going to call the shop that installed my liftkit this morning, to see what they recommend.

[408F150]

Since you have a lift the shop is most likely going to recommend airbags from what I've noticed in the past. They work just as well, just might cost a tad more.

[Jackpine]

If your Torque Converter is unlocked, you are going to get higher TFT readings than you will with it locked. If the higher readings were observed during your "playing" at the parking lot, I'd say this was normal. You're spending a lot of time in low gears with the transmission doing quit a bit of shifting. This is more stressful than a "cruise" condition to the parking lot. And, it will take a bit of time for the TFT to come up if you start out with a cold truck.

When I had my smaller truck, I could see the engine temp really go up quickly if I spent any time mucking around in low gears doing any "backing and forthing". Since there's little forward speed, there's nothing except the radiator fan to cool things off.

- Jack

[TXWolf]

Originally Posted by JackandJanet

If your Torque Converter is unlocked, you are going to get higher TFT readings than you will with it locked. If the higher readings were observed during your "playing" at the parking lot, I'd say this was normal. You're spending a lot of time in low gears with the transmission doing quit a bit of shifting. This is more stressful than a "cruise" condition to the parking lot. And, it will take a bit of time for the TFT to come up if you start out with a cold truck.

When I had my smaller truck, I could see the engine temp really go up quickly if I spent any time mucking around in low gears doing any "backing and forthing". Since there's little forward speed, there's nothing except the radiator fan to cool things off.

- Jack

That makes sense ... I'm glad I have you guys on here to point out the obvious for me! I've been so nervous about this whole thing that my brain seems to want to shut down at the most inopportune moments!