All wishful thinking at least for the next year or two...but I'm looking at a 6.7 250 & slide-in camper so I can travel with my boat. It's not legal here to do a double tow (boat behind 5th wheel).

I apologize if this has been discussed before, I did a quick search on it and didn't find exactly what I was looking for. I was wondering if there's a formula used to calculate the difference in trailer tongue weight if a hitch extender is used while carrying a slide-in camper.

I believe the tongue weight on the boat is 250lbs. The hitch extender would be 28". The 250 has a payload capacity of 3190 & bumper pull capacity of 14,000. I'm not worried about the towing capacity, but the payload capacity might not be suffice. The dry weight on the slide-in is 2420 leaving me 770lbs of payload to play with. Looks like the 250 might not cut it?

 

If the dry weight of the camper is 2420 lbs I would suspect you will find yourself over by time you get a few gallons of water, any gear in the camper and a couple folks in the cab of the truck before you add hitch weight. Camping gear and personal effects add up quickly. What does the manufacturer of the extended hitch say? Do they recommend an equalizer hitch?
Is that 14,000lbs trailer weight rating or combined, gross vehicle weight rating that includes the weight of the truck?

 

Go F350 with the camper package.

 

@raytasch, That's what I figured, even without a trailer the additional weight will add up quickly. 3190 was only the payload. 9,900 GVWR on the 250. 14,000 is the (bumper) towing capacity of the truck, but the boat is nowhere near 14k...it's only 4k at best.

@senix, I believe you when you say look into a 350 instead of a 250. The price difference isn't much either.

I'm mostly concerned about the true tongue weight with the leverage of a 28" hitch extender. Math was never my best area. Or I sell the boat and another $2k more than what the slide-in would cost, I could get a mid profile 5th wheel

 

I would use a figure of 15% for the tongue wt.

Normally right on the reciever for bumper pulls is about 10%.

there probably is a mathmatical formula out there but my gut says add 5%.

 

The hitch extender I used had it's own ratings. If you look at them on e-trailer.com, you'll see that they are all rated. I would go with those ratings.

 

Something we did waaaay back on our 77 camper special was to fab up a slide out bumper. Using a large diameter thickwall "shipyard" grade pipe in corresponding sizes, short pieces of the larger of was welded to the trucks frame and long sections were welded to the bumper mounts, and the hitch assembly was welded to that and the step bumper. It would slide all the way home with no camper and with camper it would come out to just under the end. It not only provided a solid mount for towing our pull-car or car trailer, it protected the holding tanks etc and provided a step up to the back door. The assembly was held in place by grade 8 socket head pinch bolts and locking pins. we towed some very heavy loads in the multi ton range with this rig over the years with no issues. Truck has changed hands a few times, but it is still in service. The system basically extended the frame and was very solid.

 

I don't want to but this was very common when slide in campers were in their day. I remember them well. I recently refurbished my '73 F250 C.S. and it too had the extended bumper. I removed it in favor of a class 1V frame hitch. The system you mention would work well for the OP with only 250lbs of tongue weight on his boat.