285-75-18 will get you a LI 129 tire at 4080#. I believe a 35” tire will fit with no lift.

 

You are correct, it is 3.73, I was thinking of my Dodge.

 

jefe here. I joined this forum yesterday as Jeanie and I bought a 2020 Ford F-350 XLT 7.3 gas last week.
I see several signatures here that i recognize from other TC forums.

I'm steadily gathering the components to move my Northstar Laredo SC from my built Dodge HO Cummins to the Ford.

There have been trials.

I've used HappiJac tie downs and turnbuckles on the 2001 Dodge for 19 years with a Lance Lite 165-s and the current N* TC and ASSUMED they would fit on the aluminum bed Ford. Since we off-road the TC, Happijac tie downs and turnbuckles offer the best clearance for passing rocks and other obstacles.

But noh.....after talking to the Happijac technical guy for an hour, and after 3 years, they are still in the R&D's dept's in box. One of the issues is the tear or shear strength of extruded aluminum compared to stamped steel. The other is Ford's change of the small underframe to the bed connection is now different requiring a complete redo of the parts.

It took this very forum to find out how much riser, in inches, I need to make the TC transfer to Ford's taller cab with antenna blocks on the roof.
So here is the BOM for the changeover:

1. a thin, form fitting rubber bed mat that covers every corner of the spray on bedliner. TFX 640D
2. a 4 inch thick by 4 x 8 feet block of 25psi extruded rigid foam insulation: Dow Blue Bird SE. It's the same as Owens Corning's Foamular 250, not to be confused with Home Depot's Foamular 150 with it's less rigid compressibility.
3. I ordered Torqlift's tie down and turnbuckle parts for the 2020 Ford super cab, running boards do not go beyond the cab setup. p.n. F2022, F3008, 59050A
4. I ordered an extra set of rear tie downs and turnbuckles from HappiJac to see if i need to make an amalgam of Torqlift in front and HappiJac on the rear. This would ditch the worst clearance offender: the Torqlift rear tie down and connection to the factory trailer hitch. We'll see, but the parts will be on hand.
5. Extra rigid foam blocks of differing thicknesses cut to act as a camper guides and keep the TC from shifting side to side in the bed.

When all the parts arrive and are installed I'll report back on my findings.
In the meantime, it might be instructive to see what truck and model i actually wound up with in my search for a truck that would please Miss Jean.
Her main complaint about the Dodge Cummins was the excessive noise..so much rattle that we could not carry on a conversation on the road. And you know how much women like to communicate. The other issue was her resistance to driving the 6-speed manual trans, however easy it is, and growing fear about handling the 10.5K pound beast.
What you need to know is we are in our mid 70's, so our days are numbered, one at a time. We don't have the luxury of many decades ahead of us to overcome the $10K diesel penalty on new diesels, so the new 7.3L V-8 gas, being in a class by itself, checks all the boxes and cements our choice.
Below are the drivetrain specs on our new Ford:

2020 Ford F-350 XLT 4WD SRW SB super cab

Engine: gas V-8: 7.3L (445 cu. in)

cast iron block, aluminum heads, pushrods

bore: 4.22 inches

stroke: 3.98 inches

HP: 430 @ 5,500 rpm (450 HP on F-650)

TQ: 475 # ft. @ 4K rpm

It is around 700 pounds and 525 pound feet of torque lighter than the current 6.7L diesel V-8

dual 750 cca batteries

dual alternators with a total of 397 amps

Transmission: TorqShift 10 speed 10R140 automatic

which is used in trucks up to F-650.

Gears 8, 9, and 10 are overdrive gears

First gear is one of the lowest of any automatic, made for trailer starting

First 4.615:1

Second 2.919:1

Third 2.132:1

Fourth 1.773:1

Fifth 1.519:1

Sixth 1.277:1

Seventh 1:01

Eighth 0.851:1

Ninth 0.687:1

10th 0.632:1

Reverse -4.695:1

transfer case ratios: 1:1 and 2.64:1

52.39:1 low range crawl ratio:

4.615 x 2.64 x 4.30axle ratio: 4.30:1

front axle Ford Dana 60 (the case and cover with Ford logo are slightly different that Dana's offering, and apparently assembled in-house at Ford)

35 spline axle shafts

short reverse open diff

ring gear diameter: 10 in.

28 spline pinion

automatic hubs



rear axle electric locking Dana M275 differential (M4) (D-671-C) It is slightly more H.D. than my older Dana 80 diff in my Dodge.

1.53 inch, 36 spline axle shafts

ring gear diameter: 10.8 inches

automatic front locking hubs

skid plates

8 x18 wheels

275/70R 18E A/T 33.2 inch diameter tires

3640 pound load rating

aluminum bed and cab

6,653 (base) or 6,798 or 7,243 pound curb weight depending on what spec you believe

front end only curb wt: 3,861 pounds

rear end only curb wt: 2,792 pounds

payload: 4610 or 4580 or 4320 or 4066 pounds depending

It has 4 leaves in the rear pack and a single upper secondary spring. These are all thicker than the OEM springs in my '01 Dodge Cummins/camper package.

the GVWR is 11,300 pounds,

mostly limited by the single rear tire E load rating of 3640#

trailer tow rating: 20K pounds

max 5th/gooseneck tow weight rating: GCWR: 28K pounds

it has the 5th wheel hitch prep across the frame under the bed further stiffening the truck’s frame

 

For those of you that don’t know jefe; I will only say this; He (and the Admiral) have taken a hard side TC to places you can only dream of, If you need advice (and facts/real experience) with off roading a TC, jefe is a most gracious mentor.

Safe travels to All.
Bill

 

Hi jefe, good to see you! You will not recognize my name as I use another handle "over there". But I have always greatly enjoyed your posts.

Sorry I can't help with the HJ issue. I have a N* arrow on a 2014 Super Duty, Torklift mounted.

Keep an eye on the water connections in your camper. The connector of the outside shower keeps coming loose on ours, and leaks into the space under the shower. We do not offroad. Other than that, it has been a great camper for the past 4 summers.

Enjoy your new truck!
Burro / Joerg

 

I'm new to the TC world and always looking for info. Could you tell me where "over there" is?

 

@MMeece: google for "Open Roads Forum". They have a TC subforum there.
Hope this is not against forum rules. I tried to send you a PM, but the site didn't let me.

 

Hi Jefe,
Yea 4” is about right to clear the cab over on the Northstar Laredo.


It’s just coincidence that the photo reads high clearance between the cab over and truck cab.

I needed 3” from bulkhead to camper on the truck bed to keep the tail lights from being smashed by the truck camper. Almost did that when I first loaded the truck camper on the 2020 F-350.




I used a 2x10 with a 2x4 to get the clearance needed.

I don’t know if you will be keeping the truck camper jacks on during travel with the Torklift tie downs, but I had to get extensions to clear the fast guns.


They are not the width of dually swig outs but seem to be just extensions. Most of the comments on the site I bought them from were complaining of being not wide enough, so perfect for me. Just needed the jacks to fold forward enough to clear the tie downs.

I’ll be watching to see how your foam centering guides work out. For now I made some for my last trip. They worked but always looking for something better.

 

Recon,
What an exhaustive treatise on N* prep and loading on a 2020 F-350. This is great.
I don't have to wonder what the end product will look like with your photo essay.
The only difference is mine is a super cab, not a crew.
The 4" foam block as a base looks good to go.
Your side boards are 1-1/2 inch wide, so a 4 foot slab of 2" foam should be able to be shoehorned between the N* and the inner fender wells.
I'll just put a 4" block upright against the bulkhead to take up the extra slack of the longer bed to save the tail lights. I'll have to measure how low those pesky lower doors to the fenderwelll area are from the bottom.
Remember, this extruded foam is made to insulate under the extreme weight of sidewalks. That's a very high non-compressibility.
The N* star Laredo fits just fine on my Dodge Cummins with it's 6.5 foot bed with no adjustments or substructure.
The woe here is the 6.75 foot short bed of the Ford. It's an extra 3 inches longer.
Let's see if i can post a pic: This is an example of the approach, breakover, and departure angles that I will not see again with the Ford. That's fine with me. The Ford will be the civilized rig, whereas the Dodge Cummins will remain the gnarly Mud Rat.


This was on the Big Dune in southern Nevada this past February on our way to the Truck Camper Adventure Quartzsite Rally.

 

It will be nice to see what the camper will look like on the Ford Super Cab.

The width of the Laredo’s bottom frame is 49” and the space between the bed wheel wells is 51 3/8”. The upright sideboards are 1/2”x 10” and with wood it’s only 3/4” so that makes it tight leaving less than half inch wiggle room on each side.

I remember Lance used to have those triangle centering guides. I would like to try something like that but we are dealing with aluminum mounting surface so no steel solution.

 

Well one more thing I had to get was a LED Bypass Adapter. With these new computerized trucks the power to the 7 pin plug isn’t recognized until the brake is applied. Sounded good until I found out there had to be a certain amperage input and the LED’s on the camper wasn’t enough to trigger the power.

One of these run about $25 on Amazon. It did the trick to get the tail lights and running lights on the camper to function.


A lot of details now days but I like it when a plan comes together.

 

Jefe-you re keeping the old dodge too?
I see you’re still running the super singles.

That truck could tell some stories!

 

Recon,
Ordered on Amazon a few minutes ago. There seems to be a European version with the same number. We got the non-European version.
jefe

 

I've used those for 19 years on the Dodge Cummins.

 

With the Torklift Talon Frame mounted Tie Downs (front and back) and New Fast Guns rubber mat over foam board I get no side to side movement with my old 1999 Lance 1030. Had to build up around my Reese 5th wheel hitch rails in the bed (thankfully the cab and pickup bed side walls are so high on my 2017 in signature LOL)