Moved: 5th Wheel or Travel Trailer?

[Marv]

Originally Posted by Alf S.

Hi: Marv...When is your joyous event happening???

Hi Alf,
It's too far out to get excited yet. Six months from today, July 19.

[Alf S.]

Hi: Wayne Hill... We have a Husky 16K Double Pivot Hitch + the EZRoller attached to the truck bed. The hitch pivots both side to side and front to back. The EZRoller when pulled will allow the hitch to roll backward aprox. 8". We've never used that option and good thing too, as it was never properly set up to release. Since we bought our entire rig used it came with all the overkill stuff!!! The hitch was very expensive so I elected to swap it over to the new tug. It cost me $330. to R&R and add the necessary wire harness to the truck. I know I will have to let out the pin box on the trailer when I get it out of "Fibernation". Good thing there's lots of adjustment to both the hitch and pin box. http://www.huskytow.com
Alf S. North shore of Lake Erie

[Wayne Hill]

Alf S,
Thanks for the info and references. I'll be interested in hearing about how well your new Nissan Frontier does with the towing.

You mentioned that " Our Escape 5.0 has an axle lift installed by the factory"
Will you be able to adjust your hitch to fit or was the old truck approx the same height as the new one?
How much approx did the factory lift the trailer? How did they do it? Using a sub frame or something?

Speaking of your Nissan Frontier.
4 door - long box or short?
auto or std?
4 Liter?
4WD?
Tow package?

Wayne

[Alf S.]

Hi: Wayne Hill... Our Nissan Frontier is a 4dr. long box 4X4 4ltr.V6 auto. no tow pkg. The tow pkg. would have included a regular hitch which we don't need...just extra wt. Every thing else my RV tech. put on it. Check out my posts in New "Tug" thread in General Chat.
The Axle lift is what Reace at Escape adds to accommodate a full size pickup. I think ours is about 3". Extra plates welded to the frame rails for the axle mounts and extra reinforcing for the rails themselves.
Our old Sierra stood 51" tall, from the ground up to the top of the box rails, at the axle. The new tug stands 49". There's 4 sets of adjustment holes for the hitch head and three for the pin box. Letting the pin box down will also move the trailer farther away from the cab of the truck!!!
Alf S. North shore of Lake Erie

[Wayne Hill]

Alf S,
Thanks for the explanation and picture. I'll be interested in hearing on how well the Nissan does the job for you.

I suspect that you will really appreciate the extra space in the cab. Probably the extra length looking over your shoulder while hooking up, will cause you a little adjustment to your hook up routine but once you get used to it and adapt to it, it should work fine.
Wayne

[Ellen B]

Our Nissan does a great job of towing - over 10,000 miles so far. We often get comments on how well proportioned the truck & 5er are together.
Go away snow - Mama wants to go camping!

[Alf S.]

Hi: Ellen B... NICE RIG!!! I feel your pain also!!! How about joining us at Niagara Wine Escape in mid Sept. I will be posting when I've made some arrangements!!!
Heading south now to thaw out for a week... sans trailer tho snif...snif.
Alf S. North shore of Lake Erie

[Dale AZ]

Ellen B... That is a nice setup indeed! The Nissan Frontiers make a nice tow rig for the fiberglass trailers.

[Paula Downing]

Hi Lizbeth!

Wow the Bigfoot description is really neat. I live in OKlahoma and don't see any close though. I have considered going to Canada for the Escape, but have set that idea aside.

The Scamps I see are generally for a mid-size and I really need a regular size set up.

Thanks for the info, I am still looking and reading all the info. This will help make a better decision, thanks to everyone's information. Thanks to all!

Paula _ Oklahoma

Originally Posted by Lizbeth

What we love about our Bigfoot 5th;
-It tows much better and smoother than any bumper pull we have ever towed including the 13 ft Boler.
-Easy to hitch, easy to back up.
-We love the twin bed set up we went to. No more crawling over each other to go to the bathroom. I can have my soft bed he can have his firm bed.
-Lots of storage.
-Big bath with separate shower.
- We can comfortably seat 6 for dinner (eight in a pinch) and we can still have floor space and elbow room.
- Eric can walk upright. I can do jumping jacks.
-The big windows are fabulous.

The disadvantages as we see it;
- We would like to have dual axles but could not find a Bigfoot dual axle that we could afford and was in striking distance. We would still buy one if we find one.
- We miss having the full truck bed.

We have a 2001 short bed 4x4 Dodge truck, with a Superglide automatic sliding hitch so we never have to worry about hitting the cab, even in very sharp turn. We can u turn any where we can u turn the truck. It still amazes and amuses us. The trailer we bought was already lifed to fit a taller truck. We have a storage box in front of the hitch that is bed height so we don't have to worry about hitting it when we turn. We have to figure out how to carry our new bikes. We don't think they will fit safely as in the picture Donna posted. I think the trailer would hit them, will have to do some measuring and see. The dogs ride in the truck.

Escapes and Bigfoots are 5th wheels, Scamps are goosenecks unless the have been converted to 5th hitches.

[peterh]

We have a Scamp 5er that's been substantially remodeled inside, weighs about 3200lbs fully loaded (clothes, food, propane, water, etc), and we've hauled it all over the western US and some of Canada (Vancouver Island, BC, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Utah, and all over Washington and Oregon) using a heavily-used former fleet vehicle 3.0L V6 Ford Ranger we bought after it was repossessed . . . about 15,000 miles all told.

Fair is fair: we did have to rebuild the transmission after hauling our trailer around for about 15,000 miles, but I'd been worrying about the tranny since we bought the thing, so I wasn't overly surprised. I added a transmission cooler (which I should have done before the tranny failed) when I had the rebuild done.

The point is you don't need a lot of truck to pull a Scamp 5er, you get good gas mileage, and its very easy and comfortable to drive.

If you're small of stature, the Scamp factory floorplans work well for families of up to six. If you're a couple out on your own, a remodeled Scamp that has a Front-Back Queen-size bed in the loft is a wonderful thing, but you cut the sleeping capacity to the couple in the loft and two kids in the dinette.

[Lizbeth]

Peter, if we were shorter we would have gone with a Scamp and done your bed mod. Now after having the Bigfoot, the Scamps feels so tiny and we really enjoy the floor space of the BF especially when we have two 50lb dogs along.

Paula, the closest BF 5th to you that I know of is/was in Southern Missouri. He doesn't post here anymore.