Dr. Byron Thomas: The Big Tow Prescription

Gordon White | Friday, 05 June, 2009

Dr. Bryron Thomas prescribes his cure to the adverse symptoms that can occur while towing a large boat. It's time to come out of the waiting room with the big tow.

When we conducted our second annual readership survey last January, we asked the question, “What do you tow, or plan to tow, with your truck camping rig?”. To our amazement, over a third of you (37%) answered that you either tow, or plan to tow, a boat.

To address the strong interest in boat towing, we recently asked Torklift to recommend a SuperHitch user who tows a boat. Hearing our request, Torklift immediately referred us to a doctor, Dr. Byron Thomas.

Upon further examination, we diagnosed that Dr. Byron Thomas had prescribed a balanced load to treat the adverse symptoms that can occur while towing a large boat. His remedy went far beyond a simple dose of Torklift products. To learn more about the good doctor’s practice, we took Torklift’s referral and called the Doctor in the morning.

TCM: How did you get into truck camping?

Byron: We actually got into truck camping through our need to tow a boat. About six years ago, we owned two boats; a 33-footer and a 21-footer.   Then one day my wife said she had been thinking about something. In our household, when my wife says she’s thinking about something, that means, “Byron, put down your book and pay attention”. My wife said, “Why don’t you sell your two boats and buy one?” We weren’t using the bigger boat since the grandkids had grown up. She suggested that we buy one boat and tow it.

Well, I didn’t want to tow anything down the highway larger than 23 feet. The funny thing is there was a new 23-foot Trophy Sportfishing boat from US Marine coming out had caught my eye. In January of 2005, we went to the Seattle boat show, saw the new boat, and loved it. After the show, I sold our two boats, and bought the 23-footer from Bob Feil Boats in East Wenatchee, Washington.

TCM: And then you went shopping for an RV to tow it with?

Byron: Yes. We had wanted a smaller motor home because it would be easier to maneuver with the boat in tow. At the time, there wasn’t anything smaller than a 36-foot Class-A diesel pusher that could really handle towing our boat. Of course I was concerned that a 36-foot Class-A motorhome would not be nimble enough for boat ramps. Bah humbug!

TCM: What about a truck camper?

Byron: Well, a couple of months later we went to a RV show and saw some very nice truck campers. I had owned in 8 ½ foot Security camper in the 1970’s. I sold that camper in the early 1980s and really hadn’t thought about truck campers since then. As far as I was concerned, campers were pretty limited. Then I got into the new truck campers and holy cow!

TCM: I remember that experience. My wife and I were amazed when we first saw a modern truck camper. Holy cow is right.

Byron: After the RV show, we ordered our Alpenlite Sante Fe 1150 with every option available, except for the TV set. We actually ordered it in March of 2006 and it was finally delivered on June 30th. Our dealer is Canopy County RV right here in our hometown. They worked hard and long to make sure we were very happy and safe with our new truck camper.

TCM: That’s just a few months before Western RV/Alpenlite got into real trouble.

Byron: That’s right. As our camper was being built, we got a sense as to what was going to happen to Western RV. Eventually we got our 2007 Alpenlite 1150 Sante Fe with a solar panel and dry bath. We convinced Lance to sell us a Yakima rack system and had it installed.

TCM: What truck did you get?

Byron: We really wanted a single rear wheel truck because dual rear wheels don’t do well on the snow around here. So we bought a brand-new one-ton 2006 Chevy Silverado with an eight-foot box and a Duramax-Allison combination. It’s been a wonderful truck; quiet, strong, and runs very well.

TCM: Very nice. How did you outfit your rig to tow the boat?

Byron: The Torklift SuperHitch was the first piece I had to have to tow our boat. We found the Torklift SuperHitch to be far and away superior to their competitors. I’ve seen failures with factory hitches but I haven’t heard of a SuperHitch failure. My research also found we needed a weight and sway equalizing hitch and the Torklift SuperHitch. I purchased an Equal-i-zer brand hitch from Progress Engineering in Provo, Utah. This distributes the weight across all the wheels of the truck and trailer.

Torklift recommends this hitch and for very good reasons. It matches the quality of Torklift equipment. With the camper on the truck, and the boat hooked-up, the whole package rides better than the truck rides by itself. When it’s all locked together, this rig drives wonderfully.

Torklift also made the best tie-down system. We got Torklift Fastguns and frame mounts. We ended up with Torklift everything.

TCM: They must love you at Torklift. You told me earlier that you’ve been to the factory a few times.

Byron: I needed to get the weather caps that protect my Torklift Fastgun locks replaced. When I called Torklift about the little caps breaking off, they invited me to come by so they could replace them. When I went to the factory, I met Jack Kay, President of Torklift and Jay Taylor, Business and Marketing Manager for Torklift. I had actually first met Jack in Yakima the previous March. When we met in Yakima, he said, “ Is that your rig?   You have Torklift everything!”

Jack was very funny and showed me his big red Ford with a generic truck camper on the back. Then he gave me a free Torklift hat.

While I was at the factory, Jay and Jack said, “I bet you don’t have StableLoads.” Then they remembered that I had a Chevrolet. I said, “What’s wrong with that?” Jack then told me that they were engineering a StableLoad for Chevy trucks, but it was not quite ready.   He explained that, with the StableLoads, I should be able to back off significantly on my airbag pressure for a significantly more confident ride.

At the time, I had Firestone Ride Rite airbags with the on-demand compressor to make my load level. I needed to use 100 pounds of pressure in the left and 80 pounds of pressure in the right to get level. Our camper is left heavy. And riding on airbags is like writing on blown up pillows. They also don’t help a live rear axle to defeat axle motion and top sway. That’s why the StableLoad product jumped out at me since the load would again be supported by the total truck spring system by putting the overload spring in the package. Only the amount of air needed to finish the leveling would be required.

TCM: So did you end up getting StableLoads?

Byron: Well, Jack said, “We want you to be the first customer to use them”. Then finally, in October, Torklift called and invited me to have the new Chevy StableLoads installed. On the last Saturday in October, I went to Torklift and had the StableLoads installed before putting the truck and camper away for the winter. I made a point that weekend of loading the camper and immediately noticed the top sway was gone. With a few adjustments, the rig was riding almost level with just the StableLoads.

TCM: You used the truck with StableLoads but without airbags?

Byron: With no airbags there was an improvement. I still use the airbags to level the rig. When I finally weighed our truck without the camper, I was surprised to see that there was more weight in the front than the back. With the camper loaded, the weight shifted and the numbers told me that I needed to adjust my StableLoads. Also, the advantage of getting the truck weighed on a certified scale is you can then use several different tire inflation guides to adjust your tires to the correct pressure.

TCM: So you can adjust the StableLoads.

Byron: Yes. With some minor adjustments to the StableLoads, my rig rides perfect now. Stableload really changed our load factor and made our boat and trailer combination amazingly smooth.

We need to add one major point though. When we started our trip in April of 2009 to Albuquerque, New Mexico for The Rally, our rig was sitting level and straight with the StableLoads and airbags. In wanting the rig to run very level, I had more pressure in the airbags than was necessary and we experienced a fairly tense moment going down a hill. My wife was driving and our rig started to fishtail. With too much pressure in the airbags, we were experiencing significant over steering. Fortunately, everything came up fine.

What I learned was that you never put more pressure in the air bags than is necessary when you use StableLoads. You just want enough pressure to be level, but no more. I used our onboard compressor to instantly adjust down the pressure in the airbags and then we were fine. Lesson learned.

TCM: What else have you done to your rig to improve it’s ability to tow your boat?

Byron: We also purchased 19.5 wheels and Toyo M608Z aggressive tread tires. They really straightened things out. With the camper on the truck, we have 65 pounds of pressure in the front tires and 110 pounds in the back tires. I’m able, again, to adjust the tires by knowing the weight of the front and rear axels under load and using the tire inflation guide for those tires. The truck rides and steers great with the 19.5 wheels and tires and the 14 ply tires run a lot cooler than the factory 10 ply tires.

We found another huge improvement at The Rally in Albuquerque. There we met Robert Henderson, of Henderson’s Line-Up of Grants Pass, Oregon. His company engineers and builds the Super Steer system. They make a track bar that eliminates fishtailing from the live axle trucks.   I told them I would be at their shop in two days and that I wanted the system put on.

The track bar is made for them by Roadmaster of Vancouver, Washington. Henderson’s also changed the tie-rods and changed the Pitman steering arm support to their Cognito support. This makes a huge difference with fishtailing and the micro-steering adjustments inherent in all factory steering systems. Now when I take our rig on the highway, it stays right on the line.

With the Torklift system, 19.5 wheels and tires, and the SuperSteer system installed, the difference is night and day.

TCM: What do you enjoy about truck camping, other than the ability to tow your boat?

Byron: The primary things I enjoy about our truck camper is that we can use it at 18 below zero for winter ski trips or at 110 in the summer heat. It’s easy to take on and off and we can stay in remote locations for up to five days with water and amenities. It’s also easy to get in and out of anything and it halls our boat and kayak well.

TCM: Any big truck camping plans for this summer?

Byron: We just spent two weeks in the Canyonlands, Arches, and Mesa Verde National Parks. Two years ago we did Grand Canyon National Park and the new Skywalk. That’s a hoot. Of course I had to test it by jumping up and down.

This summer we’re looking forward to going to Yellowstone National Park and the Tetons in June for two weeks of fly-fishing. We continually tow our boat to all the beautiful waters of the Northwest including Canada. Come see us some time. We have space to park and hook you up.

TCM: Angela and I love boating. We’ll be there. Thanks for the interview Byron, and keep in touch.

Byron: Will do.