Motorhome hitch upgrade needed?

We just bought a 2015 Itasca 37f, Ford v10 f53 chassis rated at 28,000 gcwr. Trouble is, the coach came with a frame extension that is smaller than the original nine inch channel frame of the chassis. My trailer is a 28 ft Edge, about 10,000 loaded. Towing this trailer is limited to 115 miles to either t rack i race at, and we don't get out more than three or four times a year. Looking for input on what to do to make sure i don't damage this coach.

Class a or c coach? Most gas coaches are only rated to tow 4000 lbs. Read the manual. Probably going to need a Trailer Toad for that kind of hitch weight. I know you will get people that say they have towed more no problem. The issue is stopping and as you said not damaging the coach.

I am not worried about braking, i travel slow enough (under 60 mph) and won't be over the gcwr by much when loaded. So that brings it down to potential coach damage.
The coach is a 38 ft class A.

I have the same problem, towing is not the problem, but the tongue weight...I am in the process of buying a Trailer Toad. Jok owns the company.

I am getting the 5000SD unit, as I have a 600lb Diesel generator, 20 gal tank, bench, cabinets, tool box, and the tongue weight is about 3000lbs!

I have talked to lots of people at races, and the people that have motor homes, most have the Trailer Toad.

Mark

While the Trailer Toad will take care of the tongue weight you might still want to beef up the back of the frame to keep it from racking with side loads.

I think it would be easier to get everything setup correctly now than to repair damage later.

Definately will before i tow.!

The problem with most any puller coach is built on a medium duty chassis and there is very little support at the rear for towing ANYTHING. They basically have enough material to support the body of the coach on. If it were me I would want to substantially reinforce the rear frame of the coach to tow a racecar trailer myself. There is a lot of overhang that is very lightly supported on the back of a class A puller. A trailer toad will help for sure, but even then I would want the rear frame area reinforced.

This company did my hitch
http://drcraceproducts.com/motorhome.html

The problem is not the chassis in his case. Its the added length that screws up the towing. The F53 chassis is a good chassis to tow with if its not been added on to. You have stay under 32 feet to keep from this happening.

https://www.ford.com/commercial-trucks/stripped-chassis/models/f53-motorhome/

In his case, you will need to brace a ton or use a toad.

Mine is a class A. 2008 Four Winds Hurricane 33H. Ford F53 chassis, with the V10 engine, 33' in length. The F53 chassis's original frame ands about 3 feet short. You can see where the motorhome or chassis company added an extra 3' of frame. The additional frame is the same size as the rest of the frame. I will add a few pics of the bracing for the hitch.

http://drcraceproducts.com/motorhome.html They reinforced and installed my heavier duty hitch. Mine has a GCVR of 26,000 pounds. Motorhome weighs in a little under 16,000 pounds loaded and ready to tow without trailer. I have a 2004 Haulmark Edge 26' , that weighs a little under 10,000 pounds loaded and ready to tow. All together everything weighs a little under 26,000 pound on a certified tractor trailer scale. Front axle, rear axle and trailer axle weights are all within my limits. According to motorhome weigh sticker.

It tows and stops great. Fuel mileage sucks, 5.5 to 6.6 mpg loaded.

Another pic of hitch. I don't have any pics of motorhome and trailer on my computer, and don't know how to get a pic from my phone onto here.

Took motorhome and trailer to Piedmont this last Thanksgiving for their Fall Footbrake Frenzy Race. Almost 1,000 miles round trip. Towed great...

You really need to be careful about loading any Class A with any load and particularly a heavy two axle, box trailer. I never realized how dangerous it could be. Gas engines never make the grade.

Load your motor home to normal gross weight with all your stuff. Run it across a set of truck scales. Read the motor homes Gross Vehicle Weight. It is normally on a tag and/or owners manual.

You'll be shocked that they can get away with it and soon realize why they blow tires. You'll also want to avoid them on the highway. Race cars are way safer.

Most of the heavy duty diesel pusher motor homes with 350- 400 horsepower can do it, but not all. Check the tags before you buy.

The early Monaco's, Beaver's and Country Coaches with 325HP or more can do it.

Loren

Found a pic from Jim Harrington Footbrake race at Cecil county last year..

I checked my trailer tongue weight with my car chassis scales, before I towed with it. When first checked , I had 1300 pounds tongue weight. I moved car back 3 or 4 inches and moved my spare trailer tire and motorhome spare tire, to the back of car trailer, under rear of racecar. Then I had 1110 pounds of trailer tongue weight.

Thanks for the input, guys. I like what i see in the "ladder frame" adition that goes all the way to the axle and maybe beyond. I will feel good with that setup. As far as tongue wieght, i can vary that a lot to almost nothing by moving the car and things around, so that won't be an issue.
I will be traveling from Florida to Minnesota April 1st, so if there is a welding and hitch shop along the way, we could get it done enroute. Recomendations?

The word "racking" was a good reminder that not all loads are forward and backward. Diagonal bracing is the appropriate way to increase stiffness in the lateral directions.

In other words, triangulate!

R.

Call John at http://drcraceproducts.com/motorhome.html Not in your direct route of travel.

Contact the manufacturer.... would be interesting to see what they say. They only two guys I know that towed with a C class, no longer do. Structure damage to the coach prompted a hasty trade in.

As stated above in the diagram, the rear portion of the frame is bolted to the plywood , maybe OSB floor. Are you going to trust a couple of bolts going through maybe 3/4" wood to keep your car and trailer attached?

With these big trailers, you don't need the old standard 10% tongue weight. That puts to much stress on the tow vehicle and hitch. I measure the height of the trucks rear bumper before I connect the trailer. Then load the car near the rear of the trailer so the truck bumper (1 ton dually) only drops 1 - 1.5". It tows beautifully​.

I bought the old style Trailer Toad about five years ago used and love it. It has the small tires on it and I had my first blowout last year. I found high ply tires for 80.00 a pair mounted on Rims So every three years I will buy a new set. Cheap insurance.

Not sure I understand this right or not, but get this done before traveling and not on route. Speed reading through this though.

Get it done along the way = Time wasted on trip????

Along the way? Why would you think of something like that? If anything does start to come undone with the frame separating / bending out of shape it will cost you a lot more on the road. There must be a welder / fabricator in your area that knows how to reinforce frames. Check with the RV places to see if they can recommend someone. I know in my small town there's a custom trailer builder that does that type of reinforcements on hitches and frames.

I am not towing the trailer on that trip in April, nor will i tow more than a small car. Just looking for the best shop that will do the job, and the trip allows me a very large area to pick from. There is one shop that has been around forever within 30 miles of home if I don't find a good option along the way.

The frame extension is not held together by the plywood. It is attached to the frame by a large plate that overlaps both frames. Bolted and welded together. Have you ever looked at the frame extensions on a class A motorhome?? Some are the same size and well built, some are not!!

I looked at a few diesel pusher class A motorhomes before I bought my gas powered Class A motorhome. 2 of the diesel motorhomes were a joke, where the extension frame was mounted. The chassis frame was about 10" or 12" in height. Then the extension frame was only 5" or 6", and about 10' long. There was no way that that was strong enough for towing heavy load.

My motorhome has the same size extension frame as the chassis frame, and is only about 3' or 4' long.

That is the same thing we saw with the pushers we looked at. We ended up looking for a 30ft and found a 32 to keep from having the extensions at all.

All good info. I pull my 28' enclosed all around with Ole Rusty, I mean ole trusty. Hoping to get another 2 years our of my 2500 V10 Ram. I have been looking at newer dually 3500 Rams but for the price of them I am thinking a diesel pusher would be a better investment. The entire Family can also use it for camping if I am not using it for racing.

I am not 100% sure if they do hitch work, but they do everything else and could recommend a shop in Minnesota or Wisconsin that can handle it. Jim is a Mopar guy and has a restoration shop as well.

http://jimstruckandtrailercoachwerks.com/about-us/

Well, not that you will listen anyway, but:

I'm 31' with my Gulfstream F53 V10 and it's 18,300 empty. You are probably around 22,000, so you can only go another 6,000 at the most. I know in my Gulfstream literature mine has the same 5500 pound hitch as the 34 and 37 foot models

You will be over-loaded.

No ifs, ands, buts, or bigger hitch about it. There's a reason why your Coach put that big sticker in your back closet. These RV's get crashed all the time so Enforcement do know to pull you over if they see that humongous trailer on there and check your weights.

You know what it costs to have a Class A and enclosed car hauler towed back to your house? Do you know what the fine is in your State?

I don't like it anymore than you do (I'd like to pull an enclosed too). If you find a legal way around it, I'd like you to let me know. I DO have a way around it on mine, but it won't work on yours. Otherwise, this is it for an F53: 5400 pounds:

Lots of problems are also due to being captain lead foot towing.

We have 3 class A motor homes. All of them are 45 foot tags, and they all do fine towing whatever we put behind them, though some trailers do less moving around with equalizer hitches.

Another real problem, that i have bad experience with is the shock loads transferred to the trailer from long overhang class A's. These shocks when you're driving too fast over whatever the road has to offer will tear he tongue off the trailer. The bus suspension doesn't care about what the trailer needs in the way of softening the tongue hits when the chassis hits bumps.

I was pulling a heavy steel stacker in one with a 600hp cummins through virgina at about 85 mph over the hills, and across the bridges. some of the transitions from bridge to road were ROUGH. I'd hauled this thing all over for years. Then snap! the hitch on the trailer broke in two. Next the stack is sideways on the freeway with the emergency brakes starting to work, that sent it onto 3 wheels and down the hill into a bank where the new cadillac CTS V was fired a quarter out the front of the trailer.

Moral is, take it easy lol.

If someone wants to post pics of it I have them on photobucket, but I'm not allowed to post pics (too cheap to pay them.)

[quote=dthemi]Lots of problems are also due to being captain lead foot towing.

Exactly. I feel a lot better towing 55 to 62 mph . braking distance is greatly reduced, stress on the coach and trailer is way down, and almost always there is a lot of room between me and the next vehicle.