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Questions concerning adding a slide-in camper to my truck

New to the forum but on my 4th slide in, all on SRWs. Yeah they do weigh a little more than advertised and most total weights are over GVW, but it can be managed. Mine was about 3200 lbs fresh off the lot, loaded up for camping I’m about 6500 rear, 4850 front. Yeah, I know…

Joined the forum because I’m shopping for a 3500 SRW, undecided on gas or diesel. Bought this 2005 new, has about 250,000 miles and I just don’t know if I can trust it anymore out where we like to go.
 

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Cal Young said:
New to the forum but on my 4th slide in, all on SRWs. Yeah they do weigh a little more than advertised and most total weights are over GVW, but it can be managed. Mine was about 3200 lbs fresh off the lot, loaded up for camping I’m about 6500 rear, 4850 front. Yeah, I know…

Joined the forum because I’m shopping for a 3500 SRW, undecided on gas or diesel. Bought this 2005 new, has about 250,000 miles and I just don’t know if I can trust it anymore out where we like to go.
Click to expand...
If you're shopping for a new 3500 for your truck camper I'd seriously consider a DRW. When I got my first truck camper I didn't want a DRW so went with a K3500 SRW. But it just got old trying to manage loads to stay under the tire ratings. What do I need to leave behind? Shoot, the campground doesn't have a way to fill my fresh water tank so I need to take it with me. Damn, the dump station is closed now I need to haul it home. And if you want to take a small trailer you really need to leave stuff behind. Even if it only has a 100 lb tongue weight the extension really loads the rear tires. I'm sure I was sometimes exceeding the rear tire rating.

Even though I didn't want a DRW I decided I needed one. And I went with gas. I could have probably convinced myself that it would be OK to exceed payload if I didn't exceed RGAWR but what really concerned me was the diesel emissions problems. I use my truck in the exact wrong way for a diesel. Short engine cycles aren't good for gas either but they are more tolerant of them. And I would never recoup the upfront cost of the diesel.
 
I hauled a Maverick Palomino all over the western US with a short bed crew cab diesel F250 years ago. I added bags, and a rear sway bar. It handled it fine, never really felt scary to me. One day I was pumping fuel in Medford OR and I noticed a large crack in the drivers side rear wheel. This was the factory Ford "Alcoa" style 16" wheel. The crack ran from one of the open holes in the wheel all the way to the center of the rim, between two of the lugs, and on to the center bore of the rim. It wasn't there when we stopped for fuel 200 miles prior... I don't know if that rim would've given up the ghost going 65 MPH through the Siskiyou mountains (we were heading south through Oregon into northern CA) But something about seeing that scared me straight on hauling campers with single wheel trucks. I was right at my rear payload capacity, and a few hundred pounds low on my front axle cap.

I decided a few things that day. 1) I won't haul campers on a single wheel truck anymore. Lots do, not judging others, it just doesn't work for me. 2) The alloy wheels they throw on these trucks are not an 'upgrade'.

Yeah, steelies can and do crack, mostly they bend if they hit something hard enough. But they don't fracture (alloy wheels don't bend, they break...). This is why the cop cruisers all run steelies.

I'm not a member of the payload police, I just find it hard to place that much faith in modern tires and mechanical components.
 
jharp said:
I hauled a Maverick Palomino all over the western US with a short bed crew cab diesel F250 years ago. I added bags, and a rear sway bar. It handled it fine, never really felt scary to me. One day I was pumping fuel in Medford OR and I noticed a large crack in the drivers side rear wheel. This was the factory Ford "Alcoa" style 16" wheel. The crack ran from one of the open holes in the wheel all the way to the center of the rim, between two of the lugs, and on to the center bore of the rim. It wasn't there when we stopped for fuel 200 miles prior... I don't know if that rim would've given up the ghost going 65 MPH through the Siskiyou mountains (we were heading south through Oregon into northern CA) But something about seeing that scared me straight on hauling campers with single wheel trucks. I was right at my rear payload capacity, and a few hundred pounds low on my front axle cap.

I decided a few things that day. 1) I won't haul campers on a single wheel truck anymore. Lots do, not judging others, it just doesn't work for me. 2) The alloy wheels they throw on these trucks are not an 'upgrade'.

Yeah, steelies can and do crack, mostly they bend if they hit something hard enough. But they don't fracture (alloy wheels don't bend, they break...). This is why the cop cruisers all run steelies.

I'm not a member of the payload police, I just find it hard to place that much faith in modern tires and mechanical components.
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Alocas crack its pretty common to see even on big trucks way under weight, they tend to crack between the bolt holes but the do crack elsewhere too.
 
Cal Young said:
New to the forum but on my 4th slide in, all on SRWs. Yeah they do weigh a little more than advertised and most total weights are over GVW, but it can be managed. Mine was about 3200 lbs fresh off the lot, loaded up for camping I’m about 6500 rear, 4850 front. Yeah, I know…

Joined the forum because I’m shopping for a 3500 SRW, undecided on gas or diesel. Bought this 2005 new, has about 250,000 miles and I just don’t know if I can trust it anymore out where we like to go.
Click to expand...
What kind of tie-down brackets are you using? The rear ones look to be attached to the bumper?
 
Happijac because the older trucks had thicker bumpers. On the new truck (‘25 or ‘26) I might use TorkLift on the rear, but I like the pull angle of the Happijac on the front. Never had a problem with Happijac, and have been some challenging places.

Had an Alpenlite in the ‘90s, another Alpenlite in the ‘00s. Alpenlite went out of business, bought a Lance 950-S in the early ‘10s, and now a Bigfoot currently.
 
Cal Young said:
Happijac because the older trucks had thicker bumpers. On the new truck (‘25 or ‘26) I might use TorkLift on the rear, but I like the pull angle of the Happijac on the front. Never had a problem with Happijac, and have been some challenging places.

Had an Alpenlite in the ‘90s, another Alpenlite in the ‘00s. Alpenlite went out of business, bought a Lance 950-S in the early ‘10s, and now a Bigfoot currently.
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I'm going Happijac in the front on mine. I agree about the angle of Happijac vs Torklift. I also agree that the rear bumper isn't stout enough to use Happijac rear anchors. Unfortunately, Torklift doesn't make rear tiedowns for RAM trucks with a rear step unless you want to remove the step. So I'll probably wind up making some custom tiedowns for the rear.

The biggest challenge I'm encountering is raising the camper to clear the cab (and shark fin antenna). I decided to raise it enough to clear the cab but am going to relocate/replace the shark fin antenna so I don't have to raise it another couple of inches.
 
RKCRLR said:
I'm going Happijac in the front on mine. I agree about the angle of Happijac vs Torklift. I also agree that the rear bumper isn't stout enough to use Happijac rear anchors. Unfortunately, Torklift doesn't make rear tiedowns for RAM trucks with a rear step unless you want to remove the step. So I'll probably wind up making some custom tiedowns for the rear.

The biggest challenge I'm encountering is raising the camper to clear the cab (and shark fin antenna). I decided to raise it enough to clear the cab but am going to relocate/replace the shark fin antenna so I don't have to raise it another couple of inches.
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Why not raise it? It would be far cheaper/ easier/ problematic down the road. Fixing/ sealing the roof hole alone is a huge undertaking to do it properly( cut and weld patch)
 
H3LZSN1P3R said:
Why not raise it? It would be far cheaper/ easier/ problematic down the road. Fixing/ sealing the roof hole alone is a huge undertaking to do it properly( cut and weld patch)
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I want to keep my center of gravity as low as possible. I'm going to use a plug designed to plug the hole when you remove a windshield wiper motor. Other people have used one with success.
 
I have seen a lot of short bed 2500s carrying these slide in campers, they always seem to have more sway than I would want on a SRW truck. If i was going to a slide in camper of any kind I would want a Dually - al;ways buy more truck than you need.

www.truckcamperadventure.com

Ram 3500 and Wolf Creek 850 Weigh-in

We had a great opportunity yesterday, while passing through Nephi, Utah to weigh our 2013 Ram 3500 and 2011 Wolf Creek 850. With a GVWR of 11,700 pounds,
www.truckcamperadventure.com www.truckcamperadventure.com

www.truckcamperadventure.com

Take Two: Another Trip to the CAT Scale

Back in April I took my new Ram 3500 and my Wolf Creek 850 truck camper to a CAT scale in Nephi, UT to get weighed. Together the combo weighed a shocking
www.truckcamperadventure.com www.truckcamperadventure.com
 
RKCRLR said:
I'm going Happijac in the front on mine. I agree about the angle of Happijac vs Torklift. I also agree that the rear bumper isn't stout enough to use Happijac rear anchors. Unfortunately, Torklift doesn't make rear tiedowns for RAM trucks with a rear step unless you want to remove the step. So I'll probably wind up making some custom tiedowns for the rear.

The biggest challenge I'm encountering is raising the camper to clear the cab (and shark fin antenna). I decided to raise it enough to clear the cab but am going to relocate/replace the shark fin antenna so I don't have to raise it another couple of inches.
Click to expand...
A friend of mine uses a piece of 2" rigid foam board. This goes onto the truck bed first, then the camper. You can get the rigid foam board in various thicknesses. The weight of the camper doesn't crush or compress the foam board so he can reuse it multiple time.
 
JimKIII said:
A friend of mine uses a piece of 2" rigid foam board. This goes onto the truck bed first, then the camper. You can get the rigid foam board in various thicknesses. The weight of the camper doesn't crush or compress the foam board so he can reuse it multiple time.
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I have seen that before it works well, I have also seen guys frame the bed with 2x4s on edge so they can lift it 3.5” for the older ones from back when cabs were shorter and beds were shallower
 
JimKIII said:
A friend of mine uses a piece of 2" rigid foam board. This goes onto the truck bed first, then the camper. You can get the rigid foam board in various thicknesses. The weight of the camper doesn't crush or compress the foam board so he can reuse it multiple time.
Click to expand...
Foam board works if your camper has a solid structural bottom or if you put thick enough plywood on top of it to distribute the load over the foam. My truck camper (Bigfoot) is a basement model with a perimeter frame and thin removable access panels on the bottom. If you put a camper with a perimeter frame on foam board without plywood between the foam and camper the loaded areas of the frame will sink into the foam. This puts upward pressure on the unloaded area and causes the cover panels to flex upward. I used a rubber mat with my camper which caused a similar problem where one of the cross pieces that the panels attach to was pushed upward.
 
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RKCRLR said:
I'm going Happijac in the front on mine. I agree about the angle of Happijac vs Torklift. I also agree that the rear bumper isn't stout enough to use Happijac rear anchors. Unfortunately, Torklift doesn't make rear tiedowns for RAM trucks with a rear step unless you want to remove the step. So I'll probably wind up making some custom tiedowns for the rear.

The biggest challenge I'm encountering is raising the camper to clear the cab (and shark fin antenna). I decided to raise it enough to clear the cab but am going to relocate/replace the shark fin antenna so I don't have to raise it another couple of inches.
Click to expand...
I had the same dilemma with my 24 3500 SRW that came with the rear step and installing tie-downs for my Lance slide-in camper. I ended up running Torklift frame-mounted tie-downs in the front closet to the cab with Torklift FastGun turnbuckles and Hapijac bumper mounts in the rear also with FastGun turnbuckles. I've had this setup in the most gnarly of mountain primitive roads and it works securely. I've had some bad experiences with Happijac quality control for their front-mounted tie-downs that require you to drill through the bed to the frame so I switched to TorkLift. But this combo Torklift/Happijac hybrid setup works well.
 
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