Put money down on a livinlite 6.8.

[Viken]

Well I finally picked a camper. It's the livinlite 6.8. I will be picking it up Friday. At least that is the plan. Only problem is I don't want to put the old happijac on the new truck. I don't want to drill holes in my new ford. So I had to special order the torklift and they will not be in for a couple weeks. So I have some brophy tie downs on way Wednesday. I will just go real slow because I don't know how it will handle the 300 mile trip home.

[SidecarFlip]

I probably would not either. 2.5 gallons is a lot of generator fuel. My Champion 2000 watt Inverter uses maybe a gallon, maybe every 3 days.

I carry my fuel in a Rotapax. I use the same fuel in the genny as my chainsaw takes a 50:1 premix of Stihl synthetic oil in non ethanol gasoline. One Rotopax for the fuel, another for the bar oil and both fastened to the side of the camper in a Rotopax mount.

Rotopax is expedition stuff...nice but not cheap.

[ryoung]

Just me thinking, but I would not take the risk of carrying 2.5 gallons of gas strapped to the rear of my truck. Even a minor rear end collision could turn into a disaster.

ryoung

[burningman]

I used to use Brophys with a 4000 pound camper and never had any problems, other than they were a pain to install and remove every time I wanted to load the camper, and ugly if I just left 'em on.
Everyone here seems to be either Torklift or Happijack, I never hear mention of what I used in recent years, at least back in the dark, scary days Before Stable Lift: the frame-mounted belly bar.
If you're handy at all, it's not difficult to fab up your own.

[Travels_with_Yo]

jimh425 wrote:
Those Brophy mounts are pretty scary to me for a heavy camper. I couldn't imagine trusting the bed sheet metal to hold a top heavy load. I guess they are working for you though.

I agree with you about the potential load on the bed. If the Adventurer 80RB was any heavier, I would be concerned. The camper itself is only 1,765 lbs and with the few options was weighed before leaving the factory with a separate weight sticker inside one of the cabinets showing actual weight as 1,820 lbs. It has very small tank storage and fully loaded, weighed on a CAT Scale, it was about 2,180 lbs. The Brophy mount design has changed recently and doesn't use the stake pockets anymore. Many people are reporting positive feedback as long as you have a fairly light camper.

I added a Hellwig rear stabilizer bar but otherwise, the Ram 2500 is stock. It has a 3,600 lb payload capacity and I'm way below GVWR and 400 lbs below the rear axle rating. We traveled an 8 mile forestry road that was very hilly, narrow and strewn with ruts, potholes and rocks. It was a "piece of cake". Nothing inside the camper out of place and no unwanted movement of the camper. The added rear tie down bar that I made really makes a big difference.

[jimh406]

Those Brophy mounts are pretty scary to me for a heavy camper. I couldn't imagine trusting the bed sheet metal to hold a top heavy load. I guess they are working for you though.

[Travels_with_Yo]

SidecarFlip wrote:
Necessity is the mother of invention....

Ain't that the truth 😄

[SidecarFlip]

Necessity is the mother of invention....

[Travels_with_Yo]

I'm using a set of Brophy Mounts with some minor mods and they're working out very well with the 2300 lb Adventurer (fully loaded). One issue is that the connecting chain links have a tendency to pull the mount sideways so I used another set of connecting chain to secure one to the other so now the mounts are much more planted and don't move at all.




Because of the angle of the tie downs, they allow more rocking motion so I fabricated a rear bar that mounts in the receiver and really holds the back of the camper down so that it can't teeter like it had been doing.



Since I made the rear bar, we bought a Honda EU2000 so I made a bracket to hold the 2.5 gallon generator fuel.

[Viken]

I finally went with torklift. They are real nice. Just sitting in the camper. It's poring outside. At least it was a nice dry atv day.

[burningman]

If you're gonna use such a small light camper then a 1/2 ton should be fine.
You actually CAN use ratchet straps with Brophys, I had an occasion where I needed to.
The trick is to not use any strap at all on the ratchet part, use a bolt and washers and attach the ratchet directly to the Brophy. That buys you just enough room.

That extra space in your truck bed must be pretty handy.

[Viken]

Well just went on my big atv trip down to st joe Missouri. The truck did a great job. I did stop at the cat scale and here are the numbers. Lol they are a little high. Steer axle 3480. Drive axle 3760. Trailer axle 1760. Put cruise on 65 and it only down shifted a couple times. That truck is so much better than my Chevy 1500. Just sitting by the fire. What a great day so far. And the new camper is so much better than my old tc.

[Viken]

Yup it rides real good. Power, weight and all. I am doing the dinette mod now. That will be awesome.

[Mote]

It looks like a pretty good setup. The truck doesn't look like it's overloaded. Enjoy your new camper and truck.

[wvabeer]

Looks really good on there. The truck does really good with all that weight, doesn't it? I was very suprised with mine.