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5th Wheel Trailer Rear Carrier

Oct 272011

It seems no matter how much storage you have, you always need more. The basement in my 5th wheel was getting full and I was looking for a way to create some extra storage. I've seen a few rear carriers added to rigs and since I already have a receiver hitch on the back it made sense to look into using one.

There are some things you have to look out for when carrying anything on the back of a trailer. You first don't want to put a lot of weight on the rear hitch on most trailers. The frames and construction is just not made to take a lot of weight. A lot of manufacturers will void the frame warranty if you install a rear hitch. You also have to keep in mind that anything you put back there will take a lot of abuse from the bouncing that happens at the rear of a trailer. If you keep that in mind you can still safely carry stuff on the back.

Front Moped Carrier

DIY & Mods, RV Equipment No Responses »

Oct 182011

Last year I had a small moped that I took to Arizona. You can see the setup I had here. This year I got a Yamaha Zuma 125 and needed a new carrier for it. Since this scooter is heavier then the old one I wanted a tilting carrier to make it easier to load. After some searching I found a tilting aluminum scooter carrier from Discount Ramps. The carrier has a built in deck extender, an adjustable wheel chock and could carry 400 lbs. Looked perfect for my needs.

It arrived about a week after ordering. It took about an hour to assemble. There was a bit of damage to the ramp during shipping but it was easy to hammer out the bent side rail and you can't even tell it was bent a bit.

There is 19" from the pin hole to the center of the ramp and that put the scooter too far away from the front of the truck. I pushed the carrier into the receiver further, marked the placement of the pins holes and drilled new holes. I have found that the titanium nitride coated step drills from Harbor Freight work great and made short work of the drilling the 11/16" holes.

Level Up Automatic Leveling System Install

DIY & Mods, RV Equipment No Responses »

Oct 032011

One of the biggest pain in the butts when camping is leveling your coach. Since I travel alone it can really really be a pain. You back into your spot, get out the level, guess at how many blocks you need to level it and place the blocks behind your wheels. You then back up on them all the while hoping you have them positioned correctly wo you don't fal off or drive too far back so you drive off them. Get out, check the level and then maybe have to add or take out blocks to get it level, drive off the blocks and start again. And in each of these steps I have to get out of the truck. By the time I'm done I need a nap!

I have investigated a couple of system on-line and they all have advantages and disadvantages so there is no clearly best system out there that I could see. I attended the recent Crossroads rally and Lippert was offering a special on their Level Up hydraulic automatic leveling system. The 6 point system is normally about $5000 and the special was for $3500. If I was able to ever afford one, now was the time. After a few calls to Lippert and a bit of negotiating I was able to get the price down to $3200. It was time to pull the trigger.

RV/MH Hall Of Fame

Destinations, RV Equipment No Responses »

Oct 012011

I had some time to kill yesterday when I was in Goshen so I headed over to the Recreational Vehicle & Motorhome Hall Of Fame. It's just off I80/90 so it's easy to get to if you arfe traveling that way. The facility is really nice, well organized and very clean.

The Go RVing Hall area has a couple of new rigs on display, nothing real impressive here. The Ingram Hall holds the museum that is laid out in a time line. Starting with early 1900's RVs it ends with rigs from the early 1980's. I found it really interesting to see how RVing progressed through the years and the inventive ideas that many builders had.

Upstairs you will find the walls holding pictures of all of the inductees to the Hall of Fame. Most of them I knew little about and I wish they would have had a small plaque letting us know a little about them.

Deal Of The Year On New Trailer Tires

RV Equipment No Responses »

Jul 252011

Saturday I went and got new tires on the trailer and got the deal of the year. You may be wondering why I'd want new tires on my trailer since it is new. The OEM tires on all but high end trailers are cheap Chinese made tires that have a poor record on durability. We call them China Bombs! While they may be OK for those that don't travel far, I'll be putting a lot of miles on my rig so I wanted something better.

A few weeks ago Discount Tire had a sale on tires, buy 4 get $100 off so I stopped in to buy a set. I ended up buying BFG Commercial T/A truck tires. A lot of people have had good success with these tires and they are each about $80 cheaper then Michelin's. While the Michelin's are a better tire (full steel carcass) I don't feel they are $80 apiece better. Discount Tire didn't have 4 of the BFGs in stock but that was OK since my trailer was in the shop at the time.

Champion 3500 Watt Generator Review

RV Equipment No Responses »

Jul 202011

For the past few years I have used a Yamaha 2400 watt inverter generator. It has worked great but when I got my new trailer I found it wouldn't power my 15K BTU air conditioner. I needed to find something that would handle the A/C chores but I just didn't want to spend a couple thousand bucks on a new inverter genny.

After reading a few RV forums and the opinions on various generators I decided to pick up a Champion 3500 watt generator. I found it available at the local Farm and Fleet store for $300.00, not bad for 3500 watts. Model #46514 has a surge rating of 4000 watts, has a 30 amp RV outlet in addition to a 20 amp outlet and a 4 gallon fuel tank. At 100 lbs. it is no light weight and it is noisier then the Yamaha or Honda inverter generators.

I was able to give it a good workout last weekend as I spent 3 nights at an RC race where the temperatures were in the upper 80s most of the weekend with night lows in the mid 70s. The A/C was needed to make the weekend bearable. The noise was not super bad, in fact not much nosier then my Yamaha when it is running fully loaded. I just put it on the other side of my truck and it was just a low hum.

Stateline RC Race Shakedown Trip

Activities, Maintenance & Repairs, RV Equipment No Responses »

Jul 182011

Was finally able to get a shakedown trip with the new truck, the repaired trailer and get to do a RC race at the same time. Not bad being able to kill 3 birds with one stone. The RC race race was at the Stateline RC Raceway in Fremont, Indiana. The track is about 75 miles away so it was a nice trip to see how the truck tows and test out the how well the frame modifications on the trailer work out.

Thursday morning I picked up the trailer from the Crossroads factory. I checked it out before I left and the frame modifications cut the pinbox movement more then half. The reassembly of the front cap and overhang skin looked better then new. We did have to raise the pinbox an inch so the trailer would be travel level when hooked up to the new truck. Once home, I packed up and headed out to the Stateline track.

The trip to the track was uneventful. The GMC D/A dually pulled the coach like a dream. Very little tugging and the Dumamax diesel didn't even break a sweat. I normally traveled at 61 MPH with the old Dodge/Hemi as it was the speed that allowed me to stay in overdrive on level roads. I was able to do 64 MPH with the Duramax and it never shifted out of 6th gear, even on the hills. The mileage towing was 11.5 MPG which is a good 30% improvement over the old Dodge Hemi. Needless to say I super happy with the Jimmy.

5th Wheel Hitch Installed

Maintenance & Repairs, RV Equipment No Responses »

Jul 132011

I got the 5th wheel hitch rails installed today and am ready to pick up the trailer from the shop tomorrow morning. I dropped the truck off last night and picked it up this evening. The hitch fits nice and tight in the rails so I shouldn't have any problems with clanking from the hitch moving around.

When I purchased the truck there was a plastic bed liner in it. The liner was removed to install the hitch rails and next week I'm getting spray in bed liner installed. I had the plastic bed liner in the RAM but didn't really like it as it was very slick and things slid around a lot. Hopefully the spray in will have a bit more traction so I don't have to worry about that as much.

You can see the bed is scratched up a bit but there isn't much denting.Almost looks like concrete was being hauled what you see is a white powder. The bed liner will get rid of all that. Can't wait to get my first pull tomorrow and see how well the truck handles the coach.

New 2008 GMC 3500HD DRW Duramax Tow Vehicle

RV Equipment No Responses »

Jul 102011

This has been coming for a month or so as I evaluated my towing situation and future uses. My current trailer weight was at the limit of my Dodge Hemi and I had a choice to make. Towing limit of the Dodge is 9500 lbs and I estimate my trailer is at that weight now and I could see it getting heavier as load up for my winter trips.

While the Dodge worked fairly well in the flat lands of the Midwest I know that the ride through any mountains would not be an enjoyable ride. I could have changed the differential gears to gain a couple thousand pounds towing but that would have also cut the gas mileage but reading shows that it still would have required a lot of time at 4500-5000 RPM range when climbing. So a month or so ago I started investigating getting a diesel.

I went and looked a dozens and in the vast majority of cases they had high miles and looked like they were beat to death. If I want a truck that would last me 10+ years I sure don't want to start out with one that already has 200K miles on it. Finally on Saturday I found what looked to be what I needed, in fact it was more truck then I really needed but I would rather have more truck then not enough.

It is a 2008 GMC Sierra SLT 3500HD Dual Rear Wheel Crew Cab with the Duramax diesel engine. It has every option available save for a couple minor ones (power pedals and rear window) with 80K miles on it. While a bit high miles for an '08 it still has a lot of miles left on it. After a few hours of negotiations we agreed on a price and I purchased it. It still has to go back to the dealer to install the hitch rails, spary in bed liner and front receiver that I had them throw in, then I'm ready to hit the road.

A short 60 mile trip empty got me around 19 MPG empty which is better then the 16 my Hemi got plus it should have a lot better towing mileage then the Hemi. At least the extra MPG will offset the higher price of diesel fuel. Can't wait to hookup the trailer and see how it does.

Custom Flow Tailgate Install

DIY & Mods, RV Equipment No Responses »

Jun 062011

In my previous post I talked about the terrible weather I had camping Memorial Day weekend. What I failed to mention was that during my efforts to get unstuck I damaged my V tailgate when it caught on the edge of the pinbox when pulling out from the trailer. It was a cheap Carlson tube tailgate so that didn't bother me so much as I hate not having some type of tailgate on the truck.

I don't like using the stock tailgate because if I am at more then just a little angle I can not lower the tailgate to unhitch without it hitting the trailer. Since I normally camp alone, that is a problem. My only solution is a V tailgate. This time I wanted something with a little more quality so started searching around. Reading different forums the Custom Flow tailgate came with many recommendations. As I researched prices, it was a good value too. I order the Custom Flow 5th Wheel Tailgate from Amazon for $320 including shipping and it arrived 3 days later via UPS.