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QUESTION:come out to California and see how a big dude dually
with 4 doors and a long bed can eat up the road ...
... with air bag suspension and EZ Lift hitch! 24 ft from bumper to
bumper when the 11X camper is on, about 46' with the 3-horse slant
tagging along. "Don't mess with me" freight train! ;)
Hey big person with the dually in California, I'm with ya! I got a
question though. I've got a Ford 1 ton dually crew cab with a 11X foot
camper too! But I'm scared to death to pull my horse trailer behind it.
We have a solid steel five foot extsention that mounts to the receiver
of the truck, but we were told by the manufacturer of the camper we
could NOT put hardly any weight on the bumper of the camper. We have a
19' foot boat that we haul. Frankly I could care less about the boat
coming off, but my horses are another story.
ANSWER: First off, we didn't use the standard truck receiver. We didn't
consider it safe with that length of extension for hauling much of
anything! We had a custom extra heavy duty receiver built that
distributes back onto the frame of the truck. We plug in a heavy duty
stinger / long extension with an EZ Lift. If the camper isn't on, we
just plug in the regular hitch extension, which is also set up for an
EZ Lift. (Obviously, the horse trailer is also set up for EZ Lift
hitch!)
I have seen other designs that accomplish the extra heavy duty
receiver. Your local RV, trailer repair, farm equipment welding shop,
etc., should be able to provide you with ideas there, but look for
people experienced with big rig or heavy equipment towing so your
resource isn't just guessing that what they're designing will be more
than sufficient. We were advised that we should consider our set-up to
have a maximum of 10,000 lbs. towed behind. I figure that our 3-horse
slant, fully loaded (with horses, tack, feed, and whatever) puts our
trailer weight at about 8,000 lbs.
We specifically chose the dually for the wider stance and stability in
this situation, and never tow the horse trailer with the camper on
without it being hooked up with the (anti-) sway bars. We can cruise
past those big semis on the highway without even a minor tremble.
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