When I bought my '89 29ft Excella from the original owners they had towed
it for several years with a Ford
F-350 one ton using 1000lb spring bars on a Reese Dual Cam hitch. To further
aggravate the damage they
were doing to the Airstream with such a stiff setup he overtightened the
bars regularly too, I guess having never studied the hitch instructions.
This busted interior rivets all over the front half of the trailer and
cracked the front fiberglass interior cap as it pounded the crap out of it.
When I transfered his setup over to my 1/2 ton Nissan Titan the handling was
poor and not to my liking. I found that replacing the bars with the 600lb
version (after changing tires, adding Timbren aux springs (both things
helped) was the ultimate key to proper handling. Modern pickups are designed
for pretty substantial hitch loads and the weight distributing hitches which
came to be in the era of big heavy softly sprung sedans towing these
trailers when combined and overdone can and will do real damage to your
Airstream!
Steve
> If you have been following the list discussion recently, you will have
> observed that there is no one definitive answer. Recently
> we read about one gentleman who used a VW Jetta to tow a middling-sized
> recent (read "heavy") a/s
> (<airstreamingypsy@gmail.com> Wed, 23 Feb 2011 17:58:32 -0500). The list
> consensus was that this was indefensibly
> dangerous "underkill" (see the discussion that followed).
>
> At the other extreme, there is the "there is no such thing as too much
> truck" school of thought. My personal mule is a 1 T '99
> Chevie 3500 conversion van that weighs in at nearly 4 T loaded to go,
> pulling a '72 Safari that I have pared down to about 3800
> pounds loaded. Our list owner on the other hand tows her roughly 8000
> pound '96 (?) Safari with "only" a club cab extended
> bed 3/4 T Ford diesel - with the precaution of a Hensley hitch. We fight.
> And I actually have met people who for personal
> reasons towed with a tricked-out Freightliner.
>
> It seems the answer is in how much risk you are willing to accept. But
> when calculating risk, remember that you not only are
> risking yourself (which is your business), but risking everyone else on the
> road (which is a morality issue).
>
> Peace,
> -- Lew #4239
>
>
>
>
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