I've been hauling a Lance 815 (1850 lbs dry) in my '97 F150 SuperCab shortbed for a couple years now. The 815 hangs out the back as you descibed... but it does have the shortbed brake light pods. I did modify with the "E" rated tires all around (went with Michelin LTX... nice ride) and the Firestone RideRite air bags & carbonfiber brake pads all around. We traveled from Phoenix to Canada and many trips to the lakes of northern AZ. The 4.6 liter pulled it nicely, even thru the mountains... just spent most of the time looking for a gas station (averaged 7-8mpg). I will admit that this exceeded the trucks limits when fully loaded. But the modifications made it doable. We are planning the trip again this spring... but the F150's not going this time... the '05 F350 will be here at the end of the month

Best make sure that you have some additional brake lights extended to the back of the camper... yours will be buried 2 feet deep... officers might not like that.

 

I would load the camper on the truck and drive it before you drop the bucks on the air ride, maybe it would be alright stock? Might look around on tires, the revo's and Yokohoma Geolander's are better\stiffer then the BFG's....

 

Not long after I got my 01 PSD CC LB I went to Lowes and picked up 2 pallets of Slate and all the thinset and grout to lay it all. The fork lift driver said the scales added up to 6,100 pounds!! in the bed. I had 45 psi in the tires and drove stright to a filling station to put the 80 psi in the tires!! Let me tell ya 6,100#s in the bed is all you want for a 200 mile trip!! It did the job but you hoped no one would slam on the brakes or pull out in front of you!!

 

I had 5000lbs in the bed of my Super Duty with over loads, the overloads were hardly touching, but the truck was really squating as were the tires, I would not do 5000lbs again.

 

Well in another month or or two (more likely two) when the snow melts I'll go get the camper from my buddys storage and see how it drives. I don't mind spending a few hundred bucks on improvements since the camper is FREE, oh yeh did I tell you guys the camper is FREE. I mean few hundred over a new set of tires, Like I said no matter what I tow or slide-in the back the tires I have gotta go. A friend has the geolanders on his superduty and I am not impressed at all with there off pavement performance, Neither is he, the Revos on the other hand I have no experience with but have heard only good things. We'll see what I can get a decent deal on, $200 a tire is dang expensive. Any sugestions would be appriciated.

 

If you are unhappy with the Yoko's, you had better go with some off-road tire, we really abuse the set of Yoko's we have and they do pretty good, but if you are unhappy with them you will be unhappy with any all-terrian, in that case look at the Toyo open Country M\T's!

 

--Let me tell ya 6,100#s in the bed is all you want for a 200 mile trip!! It did the job but you hoped no one would slam on the brakes or pull out in front of you!!

--I had 5000lbs in the bed of my Super Duty with over loads, the overloads were hardly touching, but the truck was really squating as were the tires, I would not do 5000lbs again.

here we are telling the guy about how we've had 5-6k in the bed and others are telling him how hes going to have trouble with an 1800lb camper. 1800lbs is half ton territory and is nothing in a 3/4 ton truck. yeah, hes going to exceed his gvwr, but if hes got a camper in the back, obviously his weight is somewhere other than in the back and he is not going to have trouble with squatting. ford made these trucks bigger, stonger and heavier than the previous trucks, but kept the same gvwr for some stupid reason. took them 5 years to realize their mistake, but anyways.... itll be illegal, but youre not going to hurt your truck by going over the gvwr with that camper.
my trucks gvwr is 8800lbs. what happens if i load her up and weigh 8801? are the tires going to blow out, the springs collapse, axle break, or brakes all of a sudden not be able to stop me?

SLE-theres a lot of people on here that are under the impression that if you can tell that youve got a load in your truck, its unsafe. they expect the truck to accelerate, handle, stop and drive like theres nothing in it when they are hauling a load. and try to talk people into buying a dually diesel to pull a bass boat. and then theres the ones that tell you that if you go over you gvwr by one pound that youre a menace to the road and are going to wreck and kill everyone on the road. just put the camper on and drive it around some and see how it does before taking our advice. my guess is that you wont even notice its there.

 

I have some personal experience with the over weight issue going on. i have found there are two sides to this as with everything else in the world. One is that going over within reason the truck is not going to just snap in half or somthing. I used to work for a metal scrap yard and we would use the folk lift to lift 4000lb transformers from a guys 1500. it would squat but it did fine. was it wrong yes would i do it no. But it was ok. These trucks will hold much much more then what they say and safely i might add. i myself have broken the law and yes its braking the law to over load the truck. I have had by close to 2K over GVW and yes you knew there was weight back there but you just have to drive smartly. Pay more attention slow down sooner you get the idea. The problom is this.. Now i know this from personal experience. My best friend was over loaded by probably 1500lbs maybe a few hundred more at most. he had i think they said some where around 3800lbs in the bed. he got into an accident while carrying the load. we were crusing down the highway and he had a blow out and lost control of the truck rolled it a few times. luckily he was ok wearing his seat belt but his insurance company denied him because he was over his GVW. so it was a total loss. when you sign your insurance papers you are saying that you will drive the car they way your supposed to. and this is no different then not wearing your seatbelt. Your insurance company can deny you if you are in an accident and not wearing your seatbelt. Its a law and the GVW is part of it. Now this was one instance. Now that being said would i go over my GVW again sure i would. but be prepaired its there for a reason and an insurance company will go after you for it. Sorry for the long post just thought i would add some real life experience. down here in FL the DOT dont play either...

ryan