I was hoping that would help..........

 

Appreciate it Roy. I'll just have to live with it or always drive less than 40 mph while coasting downhill, lol

 

Yes. It has the 4.10 gears. Old truck had 3.73. I realize the extra HP and torque come with a price on fuel economy but I hoped it wasn't going to be this thirsty. I'm getting about 30% less overall combined MPG than previous truck. Towing mpg is almost the same, just a slight decrease


It would be unfair for me to compare my previous 14 F250 SRW 6.7 3.31 w/ a 10K load - against my current 18 F350 dually 4.10 w/ a 16K load.

I will say that while pulling my current 16K my dually yields 8-9 MPG. At least diesel (locally) is now only $3 gal, not the $5 it was 10 years ago.
However nowadays many camp sites are $35 - $70 a night, more than I used to pay for a motel.

I suppose I should add, during my last cross-country trip - two years ago/ we parked the fifth - we paid $70 - $150 a night to stay at the national budget type places. We will be repeating this adventure come Oct.

 

Here is our 2018 Lance 1062 getting ready to take a trip up the coast near Half Moon Bay.

 

Niice white tires, should help with the aerodynamics.

 

Booties on a Super Duty? Does it need a pacifier too?
Just this suth'nor ranting ... what it needs is a mud bath.

 

I was also going to comment on the tire covers...but I see everyone else did. Nice setup though!

 

My 2012 F450
Deleted DEF, EGR deleted, auto airbags

It is a daily driver (work from home though) and use it for fishing tournaments A LOT and camping with my Winter Creek Slide out Truck Camper.....Just got back from Lake Erie..

 

That is definitely a Texas Rig! Is that a Ranch Hand front bumper / guard? I like it.

I hate how on the King Ranch models of that vintage they have such as cheesy powerstroke badge, just in the tape. I had a 2016 King Ranch, same way. Great truck though, looks like it gets worked the way Ford intended it to!

 

PacerTom,

Can tell us more detail about the change in your camper jack turned cradle system?

Did an incident happen that motivated this change?

Is the cradle commercially available or did you home build it?

Have you ever had to change a rear dually tire when traveling with the cradle system installed?

After a long trip, as the exhaust system "grows" from thermal expansion due to heat, has the rear tailpipe contacted the aft crossbar of the cradle?

Do campground supervisors/management scowl at you and remind you that truck campers are not to be offloaded at the campsite?

Have you found private campgrounds where truck campers are permitted to be offloaded at the campsite, enabling use of your truck as a car for local excursions while traveling?

Does the cradle, in physical actuality, not just in visual logic, actually help with the stability of on/off loading the camper? Or did it seem like a good idea that didn't help all that much in reality?

Has the forwardmost lower crossmember of the cradle passing beneath the driveline of the truck ever been caught high centered at the breakover angle between front and rear tire contact patches?

 

Its called a "Stable Lift" and an aftermarket lift system for truck campers that is 1000X more safe than the 4 corner jacks. I can have it on and off the truck in less than 5 minutes and don't need to be on concrete to remove the camper.
https://www.stablelift.com/

It also snugs up to the frame of the truck giving it more stability along with the turnbuckles.

I got the system after an incident. We had tons of rain in Dallas one weekend and one of the jacks that sat on a concrete pad - the concrete broke and the jack went into the ground 2+ feet. The camper sits on the side of the house between me and my neighbor and when that happened, it was actually leaning against my house all cattywampus....., had a heck of a time getting it back straight, literally, 4 inches at a time cause it was turned towards the house...Couldn't get the trucn under it.. In addition to that, anyone with a truck camper will tell ya, if its blowing 15mph plus, you can't take it off. With the Stable Lift, I've done it in 20+ without issue.

For the rest of the questions, I take it off at campgrounds all the time and use my truck, never had anyone say anything but mine is big....looks like a regular camper.

This was last weekend at Cedar Point in Sandusky, OH on the shores of Lake Erie.

 

Thanks. If I had a truck camper, I would consider that system, or a similarly designed system, required equipment.

I figured some incident must have happened to motivate the purchase, since you had a previous camping photo without the system. Hearing what happened to you was instructive, with the load bearing concentration of the single leg jack foot cracking the paver.

I bought jack stand pads from Camping World to discourage me from using concrete pavers or wood. Wood splinters and splits along the grain lines, concrete pavers crack, but amazingly, the honeycomb rib reinforce jack pads from Camping World have done a remarkable job holding up. Still, the load bearing distribution of the long pipe runners of the StableLift system are very obviously superior in supporting a camper.

The only topics you didn't cover are contact with the exhaust system, breakover angle contact, and what happens when a dual tire needs changing on the side of the road.

What are your thoughts and experiences on those three chassis related issues when underway?

 

Pocono Racetrack for the June NASCAR RACE.

 

This is what happens car vs truck. Car totaled but truck might be. Car came over centerline

 

Hope that everyone is ok. Looks to me like new front bumper, rim and alignment maybe some additional work for the axle but does not look that bad to me.