Heading to New Hampshire:

Leaving this Friday morning for a week in the mountains in New Hampshire. I'll stop Friday evening once I get into Vermont and stay at a campground with hook ups. It should be a good test for my truck, I haven't towed my 31' trailer that far north up the steeper grades. I changed the rear differential fluids last weekend, will do a quick oil change and grease tomorrow night. Hopefully when I get back I'll hook up with Erude for some range time on a Monday the 5th.
I've done the tow quite a few times when I had a diesel and fifth wheel, but also towed the fifth wheel with a 5.9 Dodge 2500HD. It may be slow going, but I'm in no hurry to get back to work Lol.

Careful. You might want to move there.

That'll be fine.

Sounds like fun.

We're in Michiana this week visiting the in-laws at the lake house. It's their 50th anniversary. Weather was nice the first couple of days but its been windy with big waves crashing the shore. Winds blowing the clouds out so its a nice sight to see the Chicago skyscrapers from 40miles across the lake.

I've run out of PTO so this one's partially off the clock. Kids sick days take their toll on PTO.

Good luck and have fun!

Diseasel,
Head up the shore line to the north and check out the silver lake sand dunes if you get a chance.

TheQuig wrote:

Leaving this Friday morning for a week in the mountains in New Hampshire. I'll stop Friday evening once I get into Vermont and stay at a campground with hook ups. It should be a good test for my truck, I haven't towed my 31' trailer that far north up the steeper grades. I changed the rear differential to 4:10's last weekend, will do a quick oil change and grease tomorrow night. Hopefully when I get back I'll hook up with Erude for some range time on a Monday the 5th.
I've done the tow quite a few times when I had a diesel and fifth wheel, but also towed the fifth wheel with a 5.9 Dodge 2500HD. It may be slow going, but I'm in no hurry to get back to work Lol.

Fixed it!

Bumper or 5th wheel trailer? What's the dry weight of the trailer and the expected tongue weight?

I was never so glad to get my diesel truck over the 5.3 285HP/325 for towing 6500 lbs. As you and others can attest the HD diesels just command the load with confidence and no surprises.

I'm cautiously optimistic I'm not disappointed when I tow with the 3.5 liter in the future. I know gas mileage, well there won't be any so why mention it.

You'll have to let us know your experiences on your tow once you find you way back to society, if you return.

This trailer is a bumper. I put up the cash and installed a good hitch with a sway system that works very good (never as good as the fifth wheel, but pretty dam good). Dry weight is around 7200lbs., so I should be around 8000 loaded. Truck is good up to 9,500 but I wouldn't want to go that high. I have the heavy duty tow package. Last year when we traveled to the Poconos mts. it towed well at a steady 60 mph and occasionally 65 mph. This is the one and only time I miss the diesel.

I'm good with vacation time. After this trip I will take Christmas week off and carry 7 days over which will give me over 5 weeks next year. I plan to sell back sick time and use my personal days or lose them. I get 4 weeks vacation, 14 Holidays, 12 sick days, 3 personal. Sounds good but pay is low.

It would be nice to be able to roll over some vacation time but we can't.

If you exceed your allotted time off they throw you into a DLO(disciplinary lay-off) program with follows your for 12-18 months and can lead to termination. Once in that program even being 1 minute late escalates to the next step. A co-worker I know was out of time off late in the year and was admitted to the hospital for a pancreatic attack. He was wrote up and sent home when he returned.

If they shut down production for a product change they take up to 2 weeks vacation from you to cover that time off. With 16+yrs I have 3 weeks vacation and 5 personal days. However I can't schedule 2 of those weeks because they have to be "saved" in case the company decides to plan a change over. Our vacation requests have to be in by end of February and even if they approve time off for that change over period they have the right to cancel your vacation at the last moment.


You should be OK with your trailer and I'm sure you know that. We all know the gasser won't hold a candle to the Dmax so no need trying. Tow at a rate the truck is comfortable and take your time. As long as you get where you're going the vacation won't care what fuel the truck took!

I have a lot of unused sick time as my company likes to write you up for being sick even with a doctors note. We can sell it back as long as we leave 24 sick days in reserve. We get 75%. I want to sell sick and vacation back this December and gross $2K, but added to my paycheck the taxes will be insane and almost not worth selling it all back.

Diesel Dan wrote:

Good luck and have fun!

Diseasel,
Head up the shore line to the north and check out the silver lake sand dunes if you get a chance.

Sounds like fun. We'll see if we can get up there. I think I've seen videos of those dunes.

Leaving in the morning, should still receive calls/texts and see the forum from my phone. Evan, I'll be in touch during the week, hope we can hook up.
Rich

Monday should be fine. I just need to be at the fire house at 6pm because we have a training at the fire academy.