Bought my dream Fifth Wheel Camper Today

[GreenRiverCummins]

Well in the Morning I go to pick up my New to me 1998 Newmar Moutain Air 39 BRSK. I spent the last 5 year's serching all around the web looking for my Dream Rv for a understandable price. When yesterday i found it and today bought it. It took a lot of sweet talking to the bank loan officer due to it's age. But i did, it's a 40Ft fiffthwheel with a gooseneck adapter on the hitch it's a Dual Tandem yes Dual axel Dual wheel never seen another one like this. It's total weight is on the heavy side I know. The wet weight is 16,000pds. I have towed more then that on this truck but, i knew it was back there and i have no plan's with this truck to leave the 50 mile area of my 3 local lake's. We have another camper a 32ft bumper pull that we bought recently with the hope's of taking my parent's, great aunt, and my grandparent's and spending all the time together we could. But before we were able to take the camper and them out I lost my grandfather due to his quick decline in health......... So we are trying to fit 8 people into our current camper just to get to spend those few day's i have left with them. Thus i bought this to fill the void and give them the very best i could afford.. Hope ya'll like it

[Killer223]

i've heard and seen the goose neck adapters are bad news, seen one rip off the 5th wheel hitch on the trailer. just my thoughts.other then that, it looks AWESOME!!! congrats

[War Eagle]

Congrats! Hope this is everything you want it to be.

[GreenRiverCummins]

Thanks War Eagle and Killer223 for the complement's and there were 3 different fifthwheel trailer's at the dealership with 3 different fifthwheel to gooseneck adapter's 2 had the 15' tall one's with one having 4 and one having 5, 1/2 in' bolt's holding it to the fifthwheel. But the one I bought was 12 inch tall and had a total of 12 1 inch grade 8 bolt's with lk. washer's and lock nut's so if they brake then that's my last worry. I just don't have faith in those fifth wheel hitche's they look so weak and on that little nut not to mention that huge price for the one i need. I have the Reese fifth wheel rail's with the Reese gooseneck plate mounted to it rated at 26k and the Bull dog adapter is rated at 30k so i hope that will work till i break down and shell out $1,500 for a fifth wheel hitch

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Update

Well after a long day and alot of running around and getting the run around i finally got her home. Pulled like a dream and was surprised that it felt the same towing this as my 32ft bumper pull. Now i just gotta Vacum, wash, wax and detail it got some minor maintence aswell. But i couldn't be happier

[diesel4life]

Good lord, tandem duals! Never seen that on a camper, usually they just go to a tri axle. I like your option better though! thats a nice looking camper, hope you enjoy it!

[98whitelightnin]

That is a Monster, Very nice!

[Mopar1973Man]

That thing is heavy (16,000#) and huge (40 ft)! http://forum.mopar1973man.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5993&d=1375327056 Compare to my small (31 ft) and light (7,500#). I would be careful with the gooseneck adapter. I've heard the same thing to about 5th wheel pins and hitch being destroyed. I would for sure do some research and double check everything to be sure your hitch set up is set for that much weight and leverage force. I'm curious of your overall length is hitched up.

[dripley]

Sits very well on the truck. How is your stopping power?

[GreenRiverCummins]

Thank's everyone i meant to measure it today to know what lot to get when going to the RV park. And between the 4 wheel brake's on the camper with my trailer brake box in the truck. I had to be careful cause it would flat pull the truck back when downshifting the truck to stop at a redlight. I had to turn down the controler from 6.5 to 3.5 before i could safely stop. When I bought the trailer the dealer had it hooked to his 2003.5 Ford 350 and it was squated bad it broke one of his bumpstop's off and slighty bent a leaf spring in the process. When i seen that i was worried about mine but, those ford leaf springs are punny compared to our dodge leaf spring's. And he said at one point it took a drop to 2 gear to make it to the top of a hill not really much of a hill but it was a 6.0 so i know why But the truck sit's perfect on the truck and pulls like a dream well in the 35ish mile drive home. I do belive a programmer will be in my future for a little more power it did great doing 55mph(it's been afew day's Idon't remember exactly but I think these were the number's) i was runing about 2100 RPM's at 800F egt's and 21 psi boost only had to hit 4th one time and that was going up a long slighty winding 3 mile hill coming home from the dealer.

[ISX]

I can see this being in another duramax overheating video

[Mopar1973Man]

Ok. I also going to request some interior pictures too. I'm curious of your floor plan and layout. It always gives me ideas for storage, changes, or maybe a mod to do... But I'm really curious of that over all length and maybe when you get time to get a full scale weight of that beast.Funny you happen to mention the damage done to a Ford truck being over at the RV forum the Ford truck is the most common used truck for towing RV's.

[GreenRiverCummins]

I watched the duramax overheating video why anyone who would drive a truck at 260F for that lenght of time is beyond me what was he thinking...I mean trying to keep up with a Dodge cummins.

An the truck is 244.1 inche's acourding to dodge and add like 5.9 inche's for the ranch hand bumper's so 21.7 ft but the trailer is around 5ft into the bed+/- and the camper is 39'ft11in so say 40ft

40ft(Trailer)+18.3ft(Truck)=58.3ft+/-Total

The Curb weight of the truck is 6,178+ the 400+/- (total front and rear RH bumper's) I weight about 295 as well as the extra tool's and other item's so 125pd's+/- and the trailer's loaded weight is 16,600pd's

6,178+400+295+125+16,600=23,598pd's+/-

but these are just estimate's and for the ford stuff i agree with you most camper's i see have either a ford or chevy pulling them but out of the 40 or so farm's near me 4 use ford's and 1 use chevy's cause they go by my house all day and yes i sit on my porch in a rocker and count them

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Sorry forgot the pic's i haven't had the chance to get pic's from the inside as i haven't got alot cleaned yet it's a big trailer lol hear are the dealer took photo's

[diesel4life]

I recently drove out to Wyoming and back and I saw more Dodges (3rd and 4th gen) pulling large trailers than I would have ever imagined. This was the weekend of the 4th of July and there was a TON of rv's running I-80. I did all of the driving and made a game out of it with my son to pass the time to keep track of how many of each we saw. I'm not exaggerating in any stretch when I say they outnumbered Ford and GM combined. My son actually started guessing what truck it was as we were coming up on them in the passing lane before we could see the truck. After he got several in a row right I asked him how he knew. "Easy dad, I know what it is as soon as I see the mirror sticking out past the trailer." He's a smart little cuss.

[Mopar1973Man]

Wow! You'll be living in luxury in that beast! WOW!

[ADawg]

Nice Trailer for sure:thumb1:

[GreenRiverCummins]

Finally got a day off work to start on cleaning out the inside of the trailer. Myself, My Dad, Mom and grandmother cleaned from top to bottom. It took us 3 and a half hour's but, it was worth it look's so clean smell's alot better too. You don't really notice it's size till you go to cleaning it now tomorrow we start on the out side gotta find a really tall ladder first Also got an adapter to plug to my house so i could check all the thing's in the trailer to buy it with no idea if anything worked just there word i'm happy to say everything but one light work's so far and the 2 A/C will freeze you to death And 2 furnace's will run you out of the camper so all in all well worth the $7999 i paid for it

[Mopar1973Man]

$7,999 you stole that RV for that price! :spend:So your repair list is rather short.

[GreenRiverCummins]

Just thought i'd update the thread this past Sunday-monday-tuesday. Took the new Trailer to the lake for it's first test run an happy to say the trip was flawless. Had a great time with the family and friend's we went to wax Rv park on Nolin lake got a waterfront spot that we alway's get. The whole trip was 60+/- mile's round trip which was a very hilly road with three hill's over 2 mile's long on a 6% grade with a nearly a 90 degree right turn at the bottom going up the hill. With the truck and trailer fully loaded with supplie's for 3 day's the total trailer weighted in at around 17,500 pd's +/-. To be honest on a mostly stock truck I knew it was back there on those 6% hill's starting at nearly a dead stop at the bottom of each hill. And the constant worry of an Amish buggy at every turn didn't help lol . But out of all the trailer's i have pulled in my time from Dual axel single wheel to Triple axle this dual tandem removed so much stress and worry. The trailer never leaned on rough hills and had to back the brake's down multiple time's combined with down shifting like i have stated before. I filled up the truck at a fivestar drove the 7 mile's home and went down to the rv campground and came back then went back to the station and refilled using a total of 4.932 gallon's of fuel at 74 mile's so i guess 13.9 mpg (hand Cal) when towing 17,500pd's overall very happy.

[joecool911]

You have to stop at the weigh stations with that?

[AH64ID]

That thing is a beast!! Good looking camper for sure. I agree with some of the other folks in this thread, I would ditch that gooseneck adapter as fast as you can. They can do serious damage on small campers, let alone something with 17,500lbs behind it and a 12" arm that wasn't in the engineers design specs. I think the goose is a much better hookup, but not much can be done when the camper is built for a 5er hitch.