Towing a Raptor with a Diesel RV

[jzweedyk]

Hope you are doing well.

Make sure your trailer can handle the weight of the Raptor. I had a car trailer and hauled my 6,200 pound Jeep on it and when I got back from a 2,000 mile trip the trailer was bowed because of the weight and the bouncing. I ended up getting a heavy duty deck over trailer.

 

[L2C]

Any pics of the raptor with the tow base plates? Can the base plates come off easily to put tow hooks back on?

 

[Whaler27]

Any pics of the raptor with the tow base plates? Can the base plates come off easily to put tow hooks back on?

We've been towing our Wrangler behind our motorhome the last couple years, but I'm setting up to tow the Raptor now. (It's only 500 pounds heavier). There are lots of ways to do it, but I already have a Roadmaster system with the Air Force One on the RV, so I just bought the brackets linked below for the Raptor. I'll need to install the rest of the braking system in the Raptor too, of course, but the plan is to have a sanitary installation, with nothing fugly sticking out the front.

https://www.etrailer.com/vm/Ford/F-150+Raptor/towbar

 

[zombiekiller]

Honestly, I'd buy a trailer. I've been hauling my truck on a 20Ft PJ B5. ( 102" wide, 12K jack, rear ramps, wood deck, 7K lb axles, G rated tires.

I'm going to upgrade sometime soon, as I've modified the weight balance on my truck enough that the 20Ft is too short for me to load the tongue weight on the heavy side. ( for towing at 80-85mph).

A 20 ft trailer with a pair of spares is the perfect size for a screw raptor.

I think I'm going to move to a 28Ft trailer so I can get a SxS on it too.

 

[mulletmike]

Serious question as i dont know.....how the the truck being towed stear? how do you unlock the steering wheel? How well does the entire thing turn ...and does it chew up tires on the truck being towed?

Sorry...lots of questions....

This is a question I ask myself as well. We tow my wife's Jeep behind the motorhome often and I always wonder why the steering wheel doesn't lock. But honestly, I don't know if it locks normally.

 

[jzweedyk]

This is a question I ask myself as well. We tow my wife's Jeep behind the motorhome often and I always wonder why the steering wheel doesn't lock. But honestly, I don't know if it locks normally.

Vehicles that are set up to flat tow do not lock the wheel. Some just don't lock the wheel normally, some do but if you follow the steps to flat tow it stays unlocked.

 

[Whaler27]

Honestly, I'd buy a trailer. I've been hauling my truck on a 20Ft PJ B5. ( 102" wide, 12K jack, rear ramps, wood deck, 7K lb axles, G rated tires.

I'm going to upgrade sometime soon, as I've modified the weight balance on my truck enough that the 20Ft is too short for me to load the tongue weight on the heavy side. ( for towing at 80-85mph).

A 20 ft trailer with a pair of spares is the perfect size for a screw raptor.

I think I'm going to move to a 28Ft trailer so I can get a SxS on it too.

A trailer works great if all your destinations have unlimited space, but most don't. (We have a similar trailer we use if we're taking our Polaris Ranger or other stuff; love it when we're going to the desert or the dunes.) But, like most folks with diesel pushers, we usually drive to a place, set up camp, and then use the towed vehicle ("toad") to get around and play. Sometimes we're there for a day, sometimes a week. If its flat-towed you pull two pins, pull the light, air, and break-free lines, and you're on your way.

We camp in many places where there is no room to leave the trailer attached to the coach or store it nearby, like USFS campgrounds, many state campgrounds, many RV parks, and the homes of most relatives and friends. In many cases we have to stop somewhere close to our final destination to disconnect the toad, because the final destination doesn't even have room to turn around with the toad connected. That's the case when we visit my brother, so we stop at a supermarket five miles from his house, disconnect, and my wife follows me to his place. Once I have the coach parked there's ample room for her to park the toad in front, but there's no place to store the trailer within 10 miles or more.

Flat-towing is MUCH more convenient. Less than two minutes to disconnect, and about twice that to reconnect. I'm pretty fast with the trailer, but every aspect of it's use takes MUCH longer, especially hooking it up (because it doesn't move independently like a Jeep or a Raptor, so maneuvering to hook up is much harder.) I've connected and disconnected the toad in 100 degree heat, and pouring rain; I wouldn't want to spend an extra 30 minutes doing either.

 

[zombiekiller]

A trailer works great if every destination has unlimited space, but most don't. (We have a similar trailer we have to use if we're taking our Polaris Ranger or other stuff.) But, like most folks with diesel pushers, we drive to a place, set up camp, and then use the towed vehicle ("toad") to get around and play. Sometimes we're there for a day, sometimes for a week. If it's flat-towed you pull two pins, pull the light, air, and break-free lines, and you're on your way.

We camp in many places where there is no room to leave the trailer attached to the coach or stored nearby, like USFS campgrounds, many state campgrounds, many RV parks, and the homes of most relatives and friends. In many cases we have to stop somewhere close to the final destination to disconnect the toad, because the final destination doesn't even have room to turn around with the toad connected. That's the case when we visit my brother -- so we stop at a supermarket five miles from his house, disconnect, and my wife follows me to his place.

Flat-towing is MUCH more convenient. Less than two minutes to disconnect, and about twice that to reconnect. I'm pretty fast with the trailer, but every aspect of it's use takes MUCH longer, especially hooking it up (because it doesn't move independently like a Jeep or a Raptor, and getting it to where it will be stored during a stay.) I've connected and disconnected the toad in 100 degree heat, and pouring rain; I wouldn't want to spend an extra 30 minutes doing either.

I dunno. this may be where we agree to disagree. I get my trailer unloaded and disconnected in 5 minutes by myself. I don't even have the fancy electric jack. I totally get the convenience part of your point. Parking can be a pain.

My situation is a little different. I don't want to roach my tires, and I want my truck to be fresh when it comes off the trailer. I also sometimes need the trailer in the event of a mechanical issue that I need a shop to fix.

 

[Lawman]

A trailer works great if all your destinations have unlimited space, but most don't. (We have a similar trailer we use if we're taking our Polaris Ranger or other stuff; love it when we're going to the desert or the dunes.) But, like most folks with diesel pushers, we usually drive to a place, set up camp, and then use the towed vehicle ("toad") to get around and play. Sometimes we're there for a day, sometimes a week. If its flat-towed you pull two pins, pull the light, air, and break-free lines, and you're on your way.

We camp in many places where there is no room to leave the trailer attached to the coach or store it nearby, like USFS campgrounds, many state campgrounds, many RV parks, and the homes of most relatives and friends. In many cases we have to stop somewhere close to our final destination to disconnect the toad, because the final destination doesn't even have room to turn around with the toad connected. That's the case when we visit my brother, so we stop at a supermarket five miles from his house, disconnect, and my wife follows me to his place. Once I have the coach parked there's ample room for her to park the toad in front, but there's no place to store the trailer within 10 miles or more.

Flat-towing is MUCH more convenient. Less than two minutes to disconnect, and about twice that to reconnect. I'm pretty fast with the trailer, but every aspect of it's use takes MUCH longer, especially hooking it up (because it doesn't move independently like a Jeep or a Raptor, so maneuvering to hook up is much harder.) I've connected and disconnected the toad in 100 degree heat, and pouring rain; I wouldn't want to spend an extra 30 minutes doing either.

X2

There are also lots of secondary/rural roads that are difficult to navigate with an RV that’s 40 or 45 feet long. Towing anything makes it worse, and putting the tow vehicle on a trailer adds even more length.

We use a Roadmaster tow system which has adjustable arms, so we just have to get within three or four inches of the perfect spot and the bar adjusts to make the connection work.

 

[Whaler27]

I dunno. this may be where we agree to disagree. I get my trailer unloaded and disconnected in 5 minutes by myself. I don't even have the fancy electric jack. I totally get the convenience part of your point. Parking can be a pain.

My situation is a little different. I don't want to roach my tires, and I want my truck to be fresh when it comes off the trailer. I also sometimes need the trailer in the event of a mechanical issue that I need a shop to fix.

I understand. If it was just cross country transport, and we weren't talking about use with an RV, I might have a different opinion.

When I'm using my pickup, and the trailer is nearby, I get my trailer connected and disconnected quickly too. It takes much more time if my trailer is stored 300 yards away (or ten miles away) and I'm hooking up to a 40 foot motorhome.

Our family had a ranch, so I've been towing/backing/connecting trailers from trucks and tractors for more than 50 years. I'm comfortable with it. But everything takes longer when the driver's seat is 50 feet away from the trailer and only accessible from the passenger side door. That's just the beginning of the inconvenience. The bigger challenge is all the extra steps required when the trailer can't stay with the RV, which it usually can't. Many residences/parks/resorts have no place to store a trailer at all, and no room to leave it attached to the coach (because the spot for the toad is often offset and to the side of the coach parking place).

One place we camp at the Oregon coast does have a parking area for trailers, but it's designed for small boat trailers and it's about 300 yards from our favorite camp site. When we take the Ranger on the trailer we have to stop at the trailer storage area, unload the Ranger from the trailer, stow the straps, disconnect the trailer, pull the coach ahead, connect the trailer to the Ranger, and use the Ranger to park the trailer in one of the designated spots (because a 40' coach with a LONG wheelbase can't maneuver a trailer like a pickup, there's no room to move a semi-sized package in the storage area, and an 20' tandem-axel trailer is impossible to maneuver by hand in a lumpy gravel parking lot.) Doing the process in reverse takes even longer, as the Ranger has to be properly secured to the trailer. Starting at the campsite I don't think I've ever done this operation in less than half an hour, but you could well be faster than me (almost everybody else is . The biggest challenge is the many places we stay where there are few or no pull-through sites and no places to store a trailer.

I'm not worried about the Raptor's tires, as flat-towing causes very little wear-n-tear on them. The toad is just being pulled along like a wagon so, with the exception of heavy braking situations, there are hardly any control-input pressures on the rubber. It would be different with super soft tires or paddles, obviously, but you can drag a light wrangler or Raptor for many thousands of miles with no noticeable effect on the KO2s.