What do you TOW with your Tundra?

Yeah I hear you. Everyone finds their own comfort level, and except at the extreme end, I don't judge. I have friends younger than me who wouldn't go out camping without a camper, hot water, bathroom etc. I have a friend in his 70's who's perfectly happy sleeping in the back of his truck on a wood sleeping platform he built.

What I've found is that if I bring the trailer, I use it. I cook in there, I sit on the couch, I enjoy it. I use it to get away from the wind, the sun, the bugs. And I think "man it would suck to be out here without this thing". But if I tent camp, or camp out of the back of my truck...once I'm out there doing it, everything is fine. I immediately acclimate. And realize I don't really need all those comforts. But you can bet I enjoy them when I have them.

 

I would camp in a tent, a hammock, back of my truck, wouldn’t matter to me. I’ll wash up in the creek / lake. I’ll bring some drinking water. I can prepare food with any heatsource known to man. My wife won’t go with me unless we have a roof, walls and AC. Needs somewhere to plug in things. I’m looking to unplug…..

 

Dude, that is just FUNNY. Towing a trailer, made from a truck bed, with a truck-bed camper mounted on it. Just funny.

 

This massive… 12’ aluminum boat that I can also easily tow with my wife’s rav4.

 

I doubt I'll ever get around to it but I could tow my 12 foot rowboat...... that I bought out of a junkyard for $62.50 about 7 years ago....

 

I suppose it is. It's one of those things...it's pretty common out here. I'm used to seeing it, so it didn't strike me as odd at all. But stepping back from the whole thing, yeah it's pretty funny.

I know a few people who have large trailers, and when they camp with the family they bring the trailer. But when they camp by themselves, they pull the truck bed trailer, either on a flatbed trailer, or a truck bed trailer like my new one. Makes sense in that if you have a topper like me, you don't need to swap a bunch of stuff. Or even if you don't, rather than having to load and unload the slide-in camper, you just hook up and pull it.

You could argue "why not just get a smaller trailer?", and that's a good argument. Sometimes things just pan out that way...like maybe they had the truck bed trailer already, just got sick of loading it in the truck, so they started hauling it on its own trailer. Who knows.

Great thing about this one, for me, when I saw it is that I'm not set up yet for a slide-in camper. The pop-up style I was looking at are heavier and require tie-downs that I think attach to the frame, then stick out from under the truck and connect to the camper. I was kind of casually looking, so I didn't have any of that set up. Was a bit worried if a screaming deal came up, I wouldn't be able to get it home on my truck. With this, it's ready to go as-is. I could just drive down and buy it. I have a couple months between now and hunting season to figure out how it needs to mount to my truck.

And now I also have a cargo trailer for dump trips, helping people move etc. Kind of a great deal all around. And since I still rent, when I move I don't need to worry about a crazy shuffle...do one trip with the topper and a bunch of stuff, take off the topper, put the camper on, etc. Camper has its own wheels!

 

Towing the new camper with the old truck today. WDH is on order. Tongue weight today is probably around 650#. Trailer fully loaded is probably about 5k#. The truck is leveled with 5100s up front. I purposely did not level my 2019 since I knew I would be towing with it. Might add another leaf to my new HD leaf pack, but probably will be fine with the WDH.

 

Dang. 650 is heavy. But I guess these trucks can handle it.

 

650 tongue weight is super light compared to all of my other campers. My last one was closer to 1000#. Couldn't pull it with this truck. With WDH it was still putting me around 800 on the truck eating up most of the payload. Once I get the WDH on this one it will drop the amount of tongue weight the truck sees and transfer some of it front and aft.

 

Yeah, 1,000lbs is getting to 5th wheel pin weight territory. Or truck bed camper...

I've never needed a distribution hitch with my small trailer so while I kinda understand the concept, I've never thought much about it.

 

That would only be about a 7000# 5th wheel. Pin weights are closer to 15% of trailer weight usually. A 7000# pull behind camper would have a minimum tongue weight between 700 and 850# to keep it stable at speed. My camper weighed about 8000#, but had a front AC option that increased the tongue weight. Towed steady though.

 

My trailer is about 6500 lbs loaded and about 850 pounds on the tongue (13%). I have to load very carefully and manage my payload numbers, but it works. It would be a lot easier if my truck had a few hundred more pounds of available payload. Oh well.

 

See ^^^^^MicroLite^^^^ neither micro nor lite?? LOL!

 

The more the name implies lightness, the heavier it becomes. Marketing and all that...

My "MicroLite" is not has heavy as the "UltraLite" or the "SuperLite."

 

I removed my spare tire and put it inside the trailer this trip as I added a mount for the bike rack. We took the e-bikes with us camping to ride around Fort Warden. I picked up a shear tie (Simpson $8 special tagged item, some modifications needed) and bolted it to the bumper and receiver with grade 8 bolts. The doubler worked well, no evidence of stress on any welds due to the hitch and bike weight after 180 miles). Do not ask me how many hours it took for this add on. A photo of a naval ship from the bunker area on top by the fort.

 

Nice. Keep a close eye on the bike rack itself, if you decide to use it this way regularly. I hear many bike rack manufacturers specifically state their racks aren't meant for installation on the back of trailers. I guess because there's so much more bouncing and side-to-side movement, it puts way more stress on everything than they account for when building them for passenger vehicles.

 

@MT-Tundra I hear you. I have a 1UP rack made for e-bikes. I also removed the batteries which also reduced the weight.

 

Yeah good thinking. It's one of those things...they might be plenty strong. But I've heard a lot of people on rv forums caution against using bike racks not specifically built for rv's.

 

I've spoken with 1up about this very issue and it is geared towards RV's that have large distances from their rear axle to the rear bumper/receiver. The further away those two are from each other the worse sway and bouncing.

 

Be careful entering a steep entrance. Don't be like this idiot.

 

Looks like you forgot the photo but yes. Start hanging stuff off the back of an already long overhang, and it doesn't take much to tear a bike right off the back. Watch those approach and departure angles, even in & out of parking lots.

 

Here at home, BC Ferries - can't begin to count the number of bent bumpers on RV's let alone bent bike wheels.
You never want your flimsy bike parts to be the next closest thing to hit the road.

 

Stopped for gas in South Dakota today and encountered this guy. Which one you guys is this? How are you able to tow this thing?

 

Believe in yourself and try hard. You can accomplish anything!

 

Towing the rpod will be doing a small upgrade in the next few years.

 

Looking to bring this down to the next Tundra 2 Sedona

 

Towed this guy home a couple weeks ago. The 18' car trailer was overkill but it's what I had access to and got the job done.

 

I like that, but after looking I gotta be honest. Those SXS's are alot heavier than they look.