16ft scamp deluxe or 5th wheel?? Please help!

[Paul O.]

Originally Posted by amy s

Also wondering if anyone uses a toyota tacoma to pull it? Seems like it is a difficult install for the hitch in the bed.

I tow my Scamp 19' Deluxe with 2013 Tacoma (6 cyl. 4.0 engine, four door, short bed). It tows easily, I get 17MPG with tail wind, 14MPG with head wind. The truck alone, with a bed cover, gets 20 to 21MPG. I bought the "new" hitch kit from Eveland's and installed it myself. (The horse trailer dealer nearby was not chafing at the bit to get hired for the job.) I got great help over the phone from the person who installs the hitches in Backus, MN, they gave me his number. I was able to use the bed mounting bolts to attach it, so it is connected to the frame as well as the composite bed and satisfies the dimensional limit from ball to corner of bumper. I had to get four pieces of flat steel cut and drilled to my design, but it was not very hard to do, overall.
Good luck.
Paul

[Isaac M]

We have a 19' standard layout with a 2006 Tacoma Double Cab 6' bed. We towed for 9 years with a 1996 Tacoma extra cab, but this year the boys (11 and almost 10 years old) finally outgrew it and we had to get a larger truck. I went with the long bed so we can still nest 4 bikes between the cab and the trailer and still have clearance for turning. We chose the Standard layout so that it is more open inside. We also removed the front couch a couple of years ago and installed temporary storage drawers for extra storage on long trips (we did a 5 week road trip and this worked great).

For the hitch, I bought a used Reese 16K fifth wheel hitch and rails. We removed the rocker arm and installed a thick plate with a 2" ball to the top of the hitch frame and added loops for the safety chains. I then had a local fabrication shop make custom brackets, install them on the frame and install the rails in the bed. We keep the hitch out of the bed unless we are towing (my old Tacoma had the original Scamp hitch mounted in the bed all the time).

Either way, you'll have a ton of fun and great memories. Buying our Scamp was the best investment we've made in our family for memories. We do a ton of camping as a family and one-on-one special camping weekends with our kids. One tip that we wish we had done is to keep a log in the trailer where we recorded each camping trip that we did and the highlights of the trip.

-Isaac

[jhock]

We just bought a 2010 5th wheel deluxe and fell in love with it. We pull it with a Ford F150 half ton. Make sure you have somebody who knows what there doing install your hitch. I went to a shop to get mine done. Scamp has one but it's close to $500 without installation. Good Luck