Bought a truck camper

Hoginedgewood · July 7, 2023

22 2500HD gas, has camper/snow plow prep. So that's a 220 amp alternator? Whats the benefits there? Stronger front springs, but is the back gonna sag with 3k on it? Do I need to beef up the rear suspension?
ordered a super hitch so I can pull a 3k lb trailer, overkill?

this is my first 3/4 ton truck, but this is why I bought it.

dal1980 · July 7, 2023

The options in the truck will dictate available payload. Check your door sticker for payload info. If the camper is 3k and you want to tow a 3k trailer, I believe you will be over payload on a 2500 depending on configuration.

KARNUT · July 7, 2023

Our first camper was a slide in called BornFree. It was large with its own axle. My father bought a 72 crew cab Ford to haul it. It had a 390-C-6-410 gear. The first horse show it went to was a bust. It was a struggle. Once home he dropped the truck off at a friends garage and said fix it or burn it. One high rise intake, 735 holly, headers it was a different animal. It was such a work horse we duplicated the set up in Texas ten years later. We rebuilt the original. Found another rebuilt it and went on family trip back to New Jersey. Two rigs, two cars 13 people. No doubt over the door sticker recommendation, if there even was one. I’m sure the Ford and camper dealer both said. No problem. We used the trucks for work after and sold the campers. Went to fifth wheel.

Another JR · July 7, 2023

17 hours ago, Hoginedgewood said:

22 2500HD gas, has camper/snow plow prep. So that's a 220 amp alternator? Whats the benefits there? Stronger front springs, but is the back gonna sag with 3k on it? Do I need to beef up the rear suspension?
ordered a super hitch so I can pull a 3k lb trailer, overkill?

this is my first 3/4 ton truck, but this is why I bought it.

The extra alternator capacity allows you to charge camper batteries while running without overloading the alternator. I think the base alternator is 170 amps, so the 220 gives you 50 amps of extra output capability. I assume they include the higher capacity alternator in the plow package because electrically driven hydraulics are involved in a plow system.

Have you weighed the truck with the loaded camper and without it to see actual weight added on each axle? That’s basic info you really want to know. Truck stops have scales you can use. My local one charges $12 for two separate weighings up to 24 hours apart.

With 3000 lbs almost entirely on the rear axle you are probably a bit into the overloads and might want to consider air bags. What you do in the front, if anything, would depend on how much weight your camper is putting on the front axle.

Edited July 7, 2023 by Another JR

Hoginedgewood · July 7, 2023

7 hours ago, dal1980 said:

The options in the truck will dictate available payload. Check your door sticker for payload info. If the camper is 3k and you want to tow a 3k trailer, I believe you will be over payload on a 2500 depending on configuration.

Max payload 3477, so i should have a couple hundred pounds (not much) .

gcwr is curb weight + camper + trailer? 7173 + 3037+3000 trailer = 13210. Gcwr is 24000?

Another JR · July 7, 2023

GCWR is gross combination weight rating. It’s your truck weight plus any weight it is carrying plus trailer gross weight. You are well under GCWR as you showed because your trailer is light.

Another concern will be whether you are exceeding the payload rating with your passengers plus cargo plus camper plus trailer tongue weight.

Finally, you will want to ensure you don’t exceed the rear gross axle weight rating because your camper puts most of its weight on the rear axle and your trailer tongue puts more weight on the rear axle. In fact, because the hitch is several feet back from the axle, the load added to the rear axle by your trailer tongue is about 20% higher than the tongue weight itself, depending on the wheelbase and the rear axle to trailer ball distance. I suspect this will be the limit you are potentially going to run into. You might exceed it by a few hundred pounds. This is why most people with heavier slide in truck campers buy a one ton or even a dually. That’s without adding trailer tongue weight into the situation.

Does your little trailer have brakes? If not, from a braking standpoint you would exceed the design intent by having the truck near max GVWR and having the brakes have to stop 3000 more lbs.

dal1980 · July 8, 2023

Lets just assume your trailer is sitting at 10% tongue weight, so 300#. Your slide in is 3037 plus the 300# is 3337#. Truck payload is 3477, minus the load of 3337 is leaving you 140# for passengers, luggage, dogs, bicycles, coolers. I'm assuming your slide in will have water, bedding, dishes etc that all go against your payload. It is safe to say, without a doubt, you will be over your max payload for that truck.

Kerry Pulaski · July 9, 2023

Yes you are in a tight load limit with even the camper. Pic of the rear suspension upgrades I did to my '16 2500HD Denali Duramax Crew. Just with a std. fiber cap, steel tool bed slide out and my work tools. No 3k lb. camper, and I thought this truck handled like Pooo. On moderate bumps, the rear would bottom out and hit the rubber bump stops !!

I put aftermarket sway bars (anti roll bars) on other trucks I've owned in the past, including a motorhome. So xxxxx-off at how my new 2500 HD handled, I put on a Roadmaster 1.50" rear sway bar , Firestone 3500 Lb. Air Bags, and Bilstein gas shocks. Night / Day difference !!!! These parts on an oiled tarp, after I got "T" boned at an intersection by runner of a red light. Truck totaled

My '24 2500 HD Denali Ultimate Duramax should be here this Tuesday. I ordered it with the Max Trailering Pkg. #NHT, that includes a 3500 HD Frame, 3500 HD Rear Leaf Springs & Overloads, 3500 HD Shocks and 12" Axel. I also ordered the Front Camper HD Spring option # F60.

Now with this factory super rear end capacity option for a 2500HD, I only ordered a new Roadmaster Rear 1.50" Sway Bar (now should not need the air bags for my application).

ROADMASTER REAR SWAY INST. 1109-101.pdf

Terry OBrien · July 13, 2023

And... if one is putting a slide in camper into the truck bed vs towing a trailer, one might be surprised by the actual slide in camper payload listed by GM. Yes the pillar sticker has the numbers, BUT in the glove box of my 2021 2500 Duramax Crewcab is a sticker specifically with a load rating for a slide in camper. The number is quite different than what is put on the pillar. Yup... less!

That was news to me... so if one is using a slide in camper in the bed vs towing a camper, suggest to check the GM sticker in the glove box and see what the truck is rated for that purpose. I love my truck but was quite surprised to see a difference.

Edited July 13, 2023 by Terry OBrien

Another JR · July 13, 2023

Payload rating is simply GVWR minus curb weight. The camper rating in the glove box is trying to keep you within the GVWR by giving a margin for people and gear in addition to the camper.

On my 3500 hd cclb srw gas, 11,500 lbs GVWR, the payload rating is 4,054 lbs and the camper load rating is 3304 lbs. That looks like an arbitrary 750 lbs reduction below the payload limit to account for two people and gear. It doesn’t seem to be driven by the rear axle 7250 lbs rating which has nearly 1000 lbs of margin even if all 3304 lbs of the camper weight is on the rear axle.

memilanuk · July 17, 2023

On 7/13/2023 at 8:33 AM, Terry OBrien said:

And... if one is putting a slide in camper into the truck bed vs towing a trailer, one might be surprised by the actual slide in camper payload listed by GM. Yes the pillar sticker has the numbers, BUT in the glove box of my 2021 2500 Duramax Crewcab is a sticker specifically with a load rating for a slide in camper. The number is quite different than what is put on the pillar. Yup... less!

That was news to me... so if one is using a slide in camper in the bed vs towing a camper, suggest to check the GM sticker in the glove box and see what the truck is rated for that purpose. I love my truck but was quite surprised to see a difference.

Hey there,

I'd be interested in seeing more about that - if you have any pics of the pillar sticker vs. the camper load rating, that'd be awesome. I'm looking at a 3500HD DRW for a truck camper, so it's of particular interest to me.

Thanks!

Another JR · July 17, 2023

These are from my 2021 truck mentioned above. My 1993 K2500 has a similar sticker in the glove box. GM has been providing a camper weight recommendation and camper acceptable cg range for a long time. Note that the weight sticker in the door opening states ratings as limits, while the language of the camper sticker is a recommendation.

Edited July 17, 2023 by Another JR

memilanuk · July 17, 2023

Interesting! Guess I always figured it was simple enough to take the GVWR minus the curb weight to get the payload, so long as it didn't exceed the GAWR. Is the dimension 'A' not centered over the rear axle? That's usually the base line assumption - that the camper CG needs to be at, or forward of, that point.

The thing that bugs me is that having had a camper, and having put it across CAT scales... I don't really see where there's all that much weight being put on the front axle - and so far as I know, the 'camper' package for Ford and Chevy/GM is mainly just some extra suspension up front. Maybe it matters more in an emergency braking scenario?

The frustration for me is that I'm having a hard time finding the truck I want (long story), partly because new or even late model duallys are kind of scarce, more so with the camper package already installed. Not super enthused about having to order and wait. And wait. And wait.

Another JR · July 17, 2023

Here is the owners manual page describing what the A and B dimensions mean. The acceptable CG range on my truck ranges from directly above the rear axle to about 16 inches aft of the front of the bed.

A hard sided bed length slide-in with a large cab overhang, such as a Lance 850 will put 200-300 lbs on the front axle. Bigger 10-11 foot campers have their cg just forward of the axle so the addition to front axle weight is again just a couple of hundred lbs.

As you point out, that’s in static conditions. If you slam on the brakes the front axle load is affected much more. The camper manufacturers don’t list cg height, but just ballparking it assuming the cg is 6 feet above the ground when a 3600 lbs camper is installed in the truck, a hard stop at 0.5 g deceleration rate adds 750 lbs of vertical load to the front axle in addition to the static weight. That’s one of the times those front camper springs would make a big difference. The other is lateral stiffness.

Edited July 17, 2023 by Another JR
Added pic

Hoginedgewood · July 18, 2023

On 7/17/2023 at 12:28 AM, Another JR said:

These are from my 2021 truck mentioned above. My 1993 K2500 has a similar sticker in the glove box. GM has been providing a camper weight recommendation and camper acceptable cg range for a long time. Note that the weight sticker in the door opening states ratings as limits, while the language of the camper sticker is a recommendation.

Can I see a picture of the leaf springs?