Saturday, June 26, 2021

Towing the Shasta with the F-350

 















Before the Avion truck camper was ready we did two weekend camping trips to the Adirondacks while our normal tow vehicle was in the shop so, we used the new F-350 to tow our 1963 Shasta Airflyte. The towing capacity of the truck is hugely overkill for such a small trailer, and as you'd expect the truck didn't mind at all that the Shasta was back there. In fact the truck got exactly the same gas milage towing the Shasta as it did without! 

So, how did it tow?  Not too great, our truck was built with a camper package with a suspension that expects about 3,000lbs of camper (or more) to always be sitting in the bed. Driving the truck around with and empty bed and not towing is a rough ride. Towing the approximately 2,100lb trailer with an empty bed was manageable, but far from the smooth traveling we typically have when the Shasta is paired with our Ford Flex Ecoboost. The one upside of the truck on this trip was when stopping for firewood on the way to the campground we could just stack the firewood in the empty bed!  If we need tow like this again we will find something heavy to put in the bed to try to help smooth things out.