SRT vs DRT vs Gas vs Deisel vs 5er vs Gooseneck for TransCanadian Highway & up to Alaska

Olddog

Member
Going on the Trans Canadian Highway and possibly (hopefully) on up into Alaska.
My wife and I thought we would get a tee-niney camper and use our Explorer as a TV. We even used the "what will tow this camper" feature on various sites, but when we went to the dealers and actually got inside those campers they weren't at all what we expected. We kept on looking and we just sized and re-sized, and up-sized ourselves right into needing a 250/2500 350/3500. Sooo, I've been looking around, and reading advice, and I've got some questions, based on what a salesman has told me. Budget is limited, everything we get will be used.

Anybody done the TransCanadian Highway? Recommendations for gearing up. (Apart from my trout pole that is :)

First ... Is it true that for stability and comfort of ride for four adult passengers in a crew cab SRW that you should max out the weight you have when "fully loaded" at 80% of the GCWR?

Two... Is it true, that with a SRW towing even a medium sized 5th wheel or gooseneck on mountain roads (lookup Bannf) and you hit the steep downhill grades with tight curves you'll wish you had a dually with exhaust brake because the trailer tends to want to "push & roll" the truck, even a 350/3500 with air bag levelers?

Three ... Is there a noticable difference between towing a gooseneck or a 5th wheel? Pros & cons?

Four ... Gas or Deisel? Pros & Cons? I like the dependability of the desiels but what about availability on Trans Canadian Highway? Has anyone done that and found deisel plentiful?


I've about decided that the DWR is the way to go. For now we're looking at shorter 5th or gooseneck for accessability in smaller "hidden out back" campsites, and plan on getting up to a 38 or so footer in the future.

Thoughts.
 
Last edited:

danemayer

Well-known member
Hi olddog,

Hopefully you'll get some specific feedback soon from those who have made the Alaska trip.

On the question of Gas vs Diesel, there have been numerous discussions including a recent one. Gas engines develop max horsepower at high rpms and Diesel at low rpms. It can be challenging getting a gasser to tow a heavy load up an incline. The engine will be screaming and gas mileage will be poor.

On gooseneck hitches, Lippert, the frame manufacturer, doesn't warrant the frame with goosenecks except for one specific hitch which I think is the Reese Goosebox. RV frames are not built the same as cargo or farm trailers that use goosenecks and the forces applied to the frame may result in frame damage to the RV.

I'm sure others will chime in with additional info.
 

priorguy

Well-known member
You can get the exhaust brake on SRWs. Not much drive line or price difference between a 250/2500 or a 350/3500. Stronger suspension etc gives more cargo (pinbox, passengers, etc.). There's plenty of diesel along the trans Canada highway as it's a major trucking route. Into Alaska you may want to have an auxiliary fuel tank. Others will share experiences I'm sure. Unless you have a light weight trailer you won't get good mileage with a gasser, diesel will be the way to go.


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iaflatlander

Active Member
Did 80 days to, in and back from Alaska last summer. Great trip. We have a short 5er, pulled by a half ton Ecoboost Ford. The dry weight, tongue weight, etc are all within specs. Did all the sites up (including Bannf and Jasper), Top of the World, Kenai etc while there and the Cassier Highway back.

Never had a problem with towing. Could pick my speed over the top of all of it. Down shifted and took my time on downgrades.

And did you say fishing? Unbelieveable
 

Jim.Allison

Well-known member
Do the math on your GCVWR and your max payload. If you do the math on the truck and trailer combination you will come up with the right rig.

If you buy a dually you will have to live with it. A good suspension will handle a large slide-in in a SRW. The expense and inconvenience of a dually is not worth the occasional need for the extra stability you may need in a cross wind. If you are on terrain that causes you concern about tipping over a dually won't help you much and anyway you will probably get stuck in the mud with the dually long before you need it for anything else. Duallys are notorious for getting stuck in the slightest mud hole. 4X4 is a better use of money.

Stay away from things like gooseneck adaptors, those are for people that already tow goosenecks and want to use existing hitches to tow travel trailers. Gooseneck adaptors are going to prove to be an oddball if you use one, look closely at the construction, there is just too much welding and complication in the adaptor near the most critical joints. They just look unreliable. I have seen them and they are never quite right. There is one benefit to them though and that is the degrees of roll, and pitch, but once again the need is so rare that the benefit certainly does not offset the potential problems created by the purchase and use of it. Put your money into a shock absorbing pin box or hitch, that is a useful purchase. I use a trailer saver hitch. They are pricy but I found one the other day for $1500 on Craigslist. It will eliminate most chucking on 5th wheels. The benefit of the trailer saver is that it stays with the truck rather than giving up an expensive shock absorbing pin box when you trade your trailer (if you keep the pin box it may not fit your new trailer). If using a class V hitch be sure to use the best stabilizer/load distribution system.

I believe a good set of load levelers are always useful especially in a 3/4 ton but 1 tons can use them too, duallys not so much. The Airlift load leveler airbags have 2 separate inflater valves. They are independent so air from one bag does not collapse the one on the outside of a turn. The airbag on the outside always supports the load. Improper installation of airbags only make a car have a good rake, to be useful the airbags must have independent inflators. I see travel trailers being towed by Suburbans. The load distribution bars still allow the truck and trailer to sag at the hitch. If they had a load leveler airbag system the load distribution bars would be more effective. I don't like class v hitches because I think they are accidents waiting to happen. They don't take wind very well, infact many fivers don't do wind very well but class v towing is the worst. Those yellow signs that say strong wind currents ahead are speaking to those with class v hitches. They are a warning to fivers as well. Best thing to do is pull over and put up the TV antenna or put in a video when you have wind currents that bad.

I hope you can get what you want and make it your own, but the best advice is to always do the math. I speak from experience in that I took a guess and missed and now I have to accommodate my rig rather than my rig accommodating me, its not bad but it could be perfect.

As far as the truck is concerned you will not have problems finding diesel, if you want diesel you need to choose carefully which one. I recommend the diesel blogs and youtube to help out here.

I like the exhaust brake but don't confuse it with Jake brake, they are not the same. A well adjusted and functioning trailer brake system is the most important thing. The exhaust brake is nice so you dont have to use hardly any braking to slow your truck and trailer. My 2013 RAM will slow me down with little brake application, but when I need them they are there.

As far a comfort is concerned any fifth wheel will provide a payload large enough to soften the ride of stiff springs. But airbags can do that too. Unloaded I keep about 10 psi in the bags and it smooths out the ride. When loaded I inflate to about 25 psi to level the load, With my pin load the ride is completely smooth. But the hitch stops the chucking. Chucking is impossible to stop completely. Roads and bridges that have concrete joints at regular intervals will develop a harmonic in the whole suspension and air ride pin boxes or trailer saver type hitches that cause you to lope along and it can cause a different kind of chucking that is annoying and not very controllable. This is a physics problem not a hitch problem. Normal chucking caused by poor roads and imperfections is completely controllable and trailer saver and air ride hitches will save stress on your rig. If you could see how much action is going on back there you would believe me, I think "trailer saver" has a video on youtube.

The upshot is that question one and two are not true. Number 2 is not true because if you are experiencing that then you are not descending correctly. But an exhaust brake would be useful in this decent.

Answer to question 3 is no! I originally thought you were talking about using a gooseneck adaptor to tow a fifth wheel, but now I see that you are comparing them, the answer is no, but the gooseneck will roll and pitch more than a fifth wheel.

4, I have not taken that trip but why do you think that diesel is hard to find, there are all kinds of diesels being used along the roadway you are considering, diesel for transportation, agriculture and travel. Use the internet to plan your trip I think you will find diesel plentiful.

5, Where do you get a gooseneck travel trailer? Better rethink it cause that thing will be jerking and chucking you all the way. But hey I have never pulled a gooseneck travel trailer, but I have pulled a horse trailer with a gooseneck and I know it is a job after a couple of hundred miles of that chucking.

Good luck in your studies, I hope you find something you can live with and that you have a very good experience with your trip to Alaska. Remember do the math.

Going on the Trans Canadian Highway and possibly (hopefully) on up into Alaska.
My wife and I thought we would get a tee-niney camper and use our Explorer as a TV. We even used the "what will tow this camper" feature on various sites, but when we went to the dealers and actually got inside those campers they weren't at all what we expected. We kept on looking and we just sized and re-sized, and up-sized ourselves right into needing a 250/2500 350/3500. Sooo, I've been looking around, and reading advice, and I've got some questions, based on what a salesman has told me. Budget is limited, everything we get will be used.

Anybody done the TransCanadian Highway? Recommendations for gearing up. (Apart from my trout pole that is :)

First ... Is it true that for stability and comfort of ride for four adult passengers in a crew cab SRW that you should max out the weight you have when "fully loaded" at 80% of the GCWR?

Two... Is it true, that with a SRW towing even a medium sized 5th wheel or gooseneck on mountain roads (lookup Bannf) and you hit the steep downhill grades with tight curves you'll wish you had a dually with exhaust brake because the trailer tends to want to "push & roll" the truck, even a 350/3500 with air bag levelers?

Three ... Is there a noticable difference between towing a gooseneck or a 5th wheel? Pros & cons?

Four ... Gas or Deisel? Pros & Cons? I like the dependability of the desiels but what about availability on Trans Canadian Highway? Has anyone done that and found deisel plentiful?


I've about decided that the DWR is the way to go. For now we're looking at shorter 5th or gooseneck for accessability in smaller "hidden out back" campsites, and plan on getting up to a 38 or so footer in the future.

Thoughts.
 
Hi Olddog

Gearing for the Transcanada Highway is mostly making sure you have enough camera, and shaking out all the bugs in your RV before you trek north.

I approached the same quest from a different direction. Until last year, I thought i would just fly into Alaska whenever i had the chance. But last year, my wife and i began to look at RV's and ended up with a Cyclone 3100 and there's no way that will just sit in the driveway, so now I'm planing a trip to Alaska by RV. This begins a new chapter in our lives, and just getting there becomes alot of the adventure.

We already had a 2010 Ram 3500 HD. And a quick check of the towing specs made the cyclone 3100 purchase that much easier. But after a year of ownership, and a trip to the CAT scales fully loaded, i found I'm pretty much maxed out. These newest 1-tons can and do haul way over their GCWR. But i wouldn't want to tow anything larger on a cross continent trip, especially through the mountains. The only way to go if you will be using your truck primarily to tow a 5th wheel, is with a DRW and the extra capacity and stability. I noticed the popular truck in Canada was the Ram with the 3500 badge, but with a short box and SRW. I think because it was easier to drive and park in the city and tow a smaller 5th wheel.

Jim.Allison offered some great advice. There's a reason why the 5th wheel hitch is on the commercial over the road rigs and RV's. The king pin is superior to the goose neck ball and there's no need for safety chains and alot of options to add some sort of suspension between the RV and TV. i have the Mor-Ryde and double pivot 26k hitch.

Jim also mentioned the exhaust brake. A must have in my opinion for safety, ease of towing and durability of your tow rig for anything over 10,000# especially in the mountains.

It appears I'm just a few months ahead of you. I purchased the Cyclone in the fall of 2013, and spent most of spring of 2014 prepping the RV for longer trips. I spent all winter acquiring a pile of stuff and got to work in the spring. Just a couple of weeks before i left, the final job was to install the Quadra Bigfoot jacks and lift the RV and go get some real tires. I would of opted for the factory leveling, but we purchased from inventory and i mostly wanted a means to lift the RV safely in case i needed to change a tire on the side of the road. I really like the Quadra product and the manual approach to the leveling process. Before i unhook, i throw a couple of blocks under the jacks and set both jacks, then raise the high side until i unload the RV wheels enough to be stable when i unhook. Then i level with the low side jack and level fore and aft with the landing gear once i unhook. The factory auto level brain is the way to go, but beside the price point of the Quadra as an add-on, I'm Land Surveyor and have been leveling tripods for 30 years and like doing this job manually and i don't have anyone to blame but myself.

By the time i had rigged, and my wife could get time from work, it was already September and too late for Alaska. So this year was just a warm up trip into Canada. We made it all the way to Vancouver Island.......what a trip is all i can say. My wife is ready for a repeat next year......I'm thinking Alaska with an earlier start.

I had a RV GPS along for the trip. It was a huge disappointment once i got north of the boarder. The camping and fuel stop locations where out of date. And it kept listing fuel stops in the middle of towns which didn't have the overhead clearance i needed as i drove past full service truck stops. I was back to using my better judgement and sometimes would top off as soon as i got below 2/3 and tried to leave each morning with a full tank of fuel. I never regretting a chance to get out of the truck and stretch. I'm thinking of adding a remote fuel tank for Alaska, but I'm real close to my truck's payload already fully loaded.

There's alot of great reads about Canada and Alaska on the internet, and the "Mile Post" is a good place to start. RV-ing is not for the faint of heart even if you prefer the Motor Coaches and big rig routes. You'll be on your own north of Banff pretty much. We have a 4x4 and i only used 4wd low once to get up a hill out of a campground this season. I think I'd want 4wd or a solid winch if i decided to unhook and do any exploring off the main roads in northern Canada or Alaska. The DRW has a very stiff ride unloaded, and there were roads we went exploring on that i swore I'd never take again, but once we got there, it was well worth it. We had along our 13 year old Jack Russell Terrier who was a welcome early warning to any wildlife and a can of bear spray just in case. Once you get north of Jasper, local info on any wildlife in the area might be worth obtaining before venturing into the bush.

I had along some light weight fishing gear just in case. I never used it mostly because i was too busy enjoying the rest of the trip. Fresh water fishing licenses can be obtained off the internet or at a vendor location or Provincial Service Office. Most of the fishing i saw was for stocked Rainbow Trout. I'm holding out for some native Grayling fishing further north next year. I saw some parks had fishing available and doing some research and making some calls might be well worth the time if you want to spend a couple of extra days getting into some great fishing within walking distance of your camp site.

I think a guided trip would be well worth it for the adventure, and the added safety margin and opportunity for success. Any Salmon or salt water species requires a different license in Canada and Alaska. And I've never done that on my own. I've always signed up for a charter or guide service and they can provide the license and all the tackle and will even clean and preserve your catch if your so lucky.


I'll leave some fish for 'ya.....i think i'll do some gold prospecting
 

dbbls59

Well-known member
I never had a problem finding diesel along the Trans-Canadian highway or on the trip to Alaska and back.
 

JohnD

Moved on to the next thing...
Make sure you get more truck than you need . . . not just enough truck!
 

mdamerell

Member
Since you mention being on a budget, remember that the older trucks do not have the ratings of the newer trucks. There was a big jump in 2005 so you have to look at the individual truck and just not assume. Case in point a new (2015) 2500 truck may have ratings of a pre 2005 dually. My 2004 F350 DRW has a 11,500# gvwr and a 20,000# gcvwr or a 12,000# trailer. A 2014 F350 comparable to mine is 14,000 gvwr and a 30,500# gcvwr.

Diesel's tend to have larger fuel tanks.
 

Bohemian

Well-known member
Cost of new diesel truck over cost of equivalent gas truck: ~~$9,000.00-12,000.00

Cost of new DRW over equivalent SRW: ~~$1,300.0.

Cost new 350/3500 over equivalent 250/3500: ~~ $1,000.00

//heartlandowners.org/showthread.ph...Truck-Payloads?p=386013&viewfull=1#post386013
 

SilverRhino

Well-known member
My wife will be retiring in 10 months. Our plan is to do the Alaska trip during the summer of 2016, so we are starting to put things together. We will be towing our BC with a Freightliner M2 with a Trailer Saver air hitch, so I know I will have enough truck. Both tanks full of diesel, I carry 200 gallons, good for approximately 1600 miles. So far one thing that seems to be a common thread in discussions I have had is.....take your time and don't get in a hurry!
 

jassson007

Founding Louisiana Chapter Leaders-Retired
Silver your have my dream truck, just saying. Lol. Hope to run into you at a rally some day as I would like to check it out and try to sell my wife on it. She did see a Volvo class 8 with a custom bed that had a drom box and smart car in front of trailer and thought that was neat. So there is hope. Lol


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SilverRhino

Well-known member
Silver your have my dream truck, just saying. Lol. Hope to run into you at a rally some day as I would like to check it out and try to sell my wife on it. She did see a Volvo class 8 with a custom bed that had a drom box and smart car in front of trailer and thought that was neat. So there is hope. Lol


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Good chance that the Volvo bed was built by Larry Herrin in Kilgore, TX. He built a bed for my Dodge and did the bed modifications and installed the air hitch on the FL. While we were there getting the Dodge bed installed, he had 3 Volvos in his shop installing the Smart Car lifts on the beds. He makes a quality bed and is a really great guy to work with. My dream was to turn a Peterbilt into and RV hauler, but I just do not have the shop to handle it. Looked for a few years trying to find the right MDT and then we just fell into the one we have, and we love it! First time my wife road in it she was sold. I've even gotten her to drive it, without the BC, but we are taking baby steps. :)
 

jassson007

Founding Louisiana Chapter Leaders-Retired
I think that is exactly who did it, the guy it was for is popular in Rv world but his name escapes me right now. Wife pulls our current BC with the F350 with no issues, she can even back it up. Lol. I do want to check yours out sometime...


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