theboondork's RV blog

Am I too heavy?

8/27/2022

Click the pics, unless you've got something better to do.

Rocky Mountain National Park.

The days appear to be flying by, and it seems to take me longer and longer to accomplish anything; that could be because the days are so short, but more than likely, because I'm so lazy.

I'm getting down to very few things I want to accomplish in the Lance, and it's mostly things I've been putting off because I'm not looking forward to doing them. But the thing that concerns me the most is getting the things I need in the Lance and finding a place to put it all without making the Lance too heavy for my truck to carry, and what constitutes "too heavy to carry" is a number I'm just guessing at.

I had the truck and Arctic Fox weighed by the Escapees Smartweigh guys at Congress Arizona, which I understand they don't do any more at the escapees RV Park in Congress, and the weight in the truck's bed was about 2600 pounds, so I know the truck has carried that much weight around for a while. The factory weight of the empty Lance is 2100 pounds, so I figure that gives me about 500 pounds of junk I can carry before I am in new and possibly dangerous territory.

Now I know that I probably shouldn't even be carrying that much weight, but I have yet to run into anybody with a truck camper that wasn't wildly overloaded, and yet they were still able to waddle down the road. So I figure it's like everything else in American life today, the factory decides what weight the truck can carry, and their lawyers make them cut that back by 25% to protect the company.

So I'm not going to worry too much about weight because I want the Lance as light as possible so I don't lose any mobility and safety that I need for boondocking. And I don't need anywhere near the amount of stuff I've carried in the Arctic Fox all this time.

Theboondork

Pink flower.

Doors on an antique building.

One of the campgrounds at Rocky Mountain National Park. It looked to me like the campgrounds at the Park are old and very few of the sites are suitable for the size of modern RVs, you might be able to get your trailer into the site but then there's very little room for your truck and it ends up sticking out into the road, making driving through the campground more like an obstacle course experience.

8 Comments

Larry Worsham

8/29/2022 05:39:27 am

Weight is one of those things that we RV'ers fight all the time. On my truck (as is most) The tire rating is the most limiting factor on my carrying capacity. The axle ratings are usually higher than the tire ratings. When most trucks had 16" wheels you could usually up your tire rating with different choices. Now truck come in various rim sizes which limits the choices.

We try to go through our trailer before travel season but we still seem to through stuff in that we "think" we will need. I keep reminding the DW that there are grocery stores along the way.

Due to the age of my refer (19 yrs) I decided to install a ARP Defender unit. It protects the refer from overheating due to malfunction, lack of level and other refer issues. It isn't cheap but it seems to have made my refer more efficient and I have less worries.

Have you figured out your lighting problem?

We are hoping for some cooler weather (below 90) at some point.

Good luck on your thinning and prep!

Tom

8/29/2022 08:49:00 am

Weight is definitely something we RVers fight all the time... Both mine and the RVs. I've got mine mostly under control, but the RVs weight seems to grow exponentially.

I have "E" rated Michelin tires on my truck and custom wheels that I bought just to tow with; I forget what weight they're supposed to carry, but I bought them just for that purpose.

Yes, stuff does build up over time in an RV, and it's especially bad for a do-it-yourselfer like me because I hate to throw anything away, figuring the time may come when I'm going to need whatever it is. I'm always amazed at how little space there is in an RV, yet I still can't find something I just saw a few days ago.

I'm not too bad with storing up too much food because I'm never too far from shopping... Except during the bat flu epidemic, I'll never be able to eat up all the beans I stored during that fearful time. But for the most part, the tools are weighing me down.

Being someone that does his own repairs, If possible, I have to carry tools for electrical, plumbing, and mechanical, which is okay living in a house, but living in an RV where having a weight limit is important, it doesn't take too many tools to make you fear visiting a truck scale.

When I moved out of my house and became a fulltimer, I got rid of all the easy stuff, so I no longer have six hammers and eight pairs of pliers, but I do have tools I don't use very often, but knowing I may need them one day keeps me from giving much of anything away.

I'm still looking into maybe getting an AC-style refrigerator for the Lance; I'm not sure yet because they are expensive, but leveling up the Lance well enough to keep the refrigerator cold is kind of annoying. But I'm going to wait till I put some fans on the refrigerator and see if I can make it colder without being so level.

One of my superpowers is the ability to not think about things that should worry me but don't because there's not much I can do about it. And that's the current situation with Lance's tail lights.

After I hooked up some temporary lights, they worked so well that I haven't had to give any thought to getting the real lights working, so that problem no longer affects my life. Therefore it no longer occupies even the tiniest space in my brain, and tiny spaces are about all that's left. So I figure this winter, I will either work on the lights more myself or have more access to a knowledgeable repair person while I'm there and have them fix it.

Tom

8/30/2022 10:39:49 am

Those lights are not something to stress about. You fixed the problem and likely have plenty of other things to do before you take off. Something always pops up unexpected. Don't feel like the lone ranger. I too carried much more than I needed. At one point I carried a spare whrrl drum and of course wheel bearings, spare water pump, macerator, and a full set of cooking stuff to smoke, dutch oven and such. I've stored that all in the shed and no longer plan to haul it. I will keep the tire changing tools, wheel bearings, (electric impact and sockets) along with a compact air compressor and a small amount of mechanic hand tools. Now to tackle what is inside the trailer. Of course that requires negotiation.

8/30/2022 11:40:13 am

I try not to stress about anything if possible, I have banned both worry, and stress from my thoughts, and my life as much as is humanly possible. And I'm able to do that for two main reasons, I don't watch television anymore, especially the news. And I boondock. You might be surprised at how much stress is immediately removed from your life when you no longer have schedules, or timetables you've created for yourself that you have to follow.

I think it's pretty normal for RVers to overload no matter what RV we end up with. We tend to take all the stuff from home we need to live a normal life while camping. I think for full- timers, we do the same thing, not realizing that were not going to be living a normal life anymore; were going to be living an RVing life which requires very little of the stuff that was important to us back home. But it's hard to realize what that means until you've lived the life for a while, which explains why someone like me that's been RVing for decades is still getting rid of stuff in the RV that I thought I couldn't live without.

Since I travel by myself, I only get to negotiate with myself about what direction my life will take. And since I have a pretty good idea about what I want I can usually put off any decisions until the last minute, knowing that whatever decision I make, it will be the right one because the right one is always the same... It will be the easy way, the stress free way, the lazy way, and the way that makes me the most happy. And that's why I never make a wrong decision.

Tom

Linda

8/29/2022 02:06:32 pm

I found balance to be as important as weight. I had to move heavy stuff to my passenger seat area to make up for not having a passenger. The van drove better once I did that. I had the 4-wheel weight done at the SKP home park in Texas.

8/29/2022 04:09:13 pm

Yeah, Linda that four wheel weight is important, it tells you a lot more than the truck scales do, especially if you have a truck camper or a van. But it costs a lot more than the truck scales.

I've probably got that same problem of a heavy side and a light side. The left side of the truck and camper has me sitting in the truck, and the kitchen with the refrigerator is on the left side of the camper, and a main storage area is on the left side of the camper. Some of that problem goes away when there's water in the water tank which is on the right, and when I put some more batteries in the battery box which is also on the right.

The Smartweigh folks will still weigh RVs in Livingston Texas, but they stop doing Congress for some reason or another. I seldom get to Livingston, it's too close to Houston to be a place I enjoy driving to.

Tom

8/30/2022 03:03:45 pm

From Minnesota it is easy to take I-35 south to Texas then cut over to Livingston for a week or so before heading west on I-10 to Arizona so I became so familiar with that route I could almost drive it in my sleep. Good thing I'm a believer in naps, though.

8/30/2022 05:34:50 pm

I get to Texas mostly on Interstate 10, so it's a bit harder to avoid Houston. But sometimes I'll cut through New Mexico and go down to Dallas, hit I- 20, and go east on that, avoiding Houston altogether. I always try to avoid Houston if possible.

Tom

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Am I too heavy?

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