Tired of long cold winters! - RV-Dreams Community Forum

Beth and Grady · RV-Dreams Community Member

Tired of long cold winters!

Lucky Mike · RV-Dreams Family Member

Welcome to the Family Beth & Grady!!!!.............judging from your post the hard part is done!!! Fantastic!!

bigboomer · RV-Dreams Family Member

Grady, First thank you to you and son for your service to our Great Nation and to your wife for her support. Second, congratulations on embarking on a wonderful adventure filled with daily surprises. We would not trade it for a minute. We will never look back to that previous chapter in our lives. Nice choice for the 5er.....we love ours! Good luck and safe travels on the road...hope to see you out there someday! Les

VanMar · RV-Dreams Family Member

Beth and Grady wrote:
Hello All,
Well after listening to a little more of her idea which was fueled by her discovery of the RV-Dreams website I came home from work the next day after chewing on the idea myself and told her I was on board!

Score another one for RV-Dreams!!!

Welcome to the forum, Beth and Grady. DW and I have been planning this for a year now and have one and a half to go. Your choice of Fiver and TV sounds like what we have planned. See you on the road.

Vance

Terry and Jo · RV-Dreams Family Member

I'll also chime in and offer my thanks to you, your son, and your wife for your sacrifices to our country. Also, welcome to the RV Dreams forums as an active participant.

Feel free to ask any questions that you may have, and never think that any question is a "dumb" one. The only dumb questions are those that don't get asked in order to get answers. In addition to answers to questions, you will find this a good source of encouragement.

Glad to have you as members of the "family."

Terry

PIEERE · RV-Dreams Family Member

Thanks from one old Veteran to another. I left the Champlain Valley/Adirondack Mtn. area in 1980; with no intention to return but in the Summers. I ended up back there between 1988-1993 and left again. Here I am near The Music City and it has been cold since October!!!! See what happens when we aclimatise to another area. If I live long enough; may find me living near the Equator..LOL!!!

laurly · RV-Dreams Family Member

Welcome to the forum, and welcome to this wonderful full-time life :) We've been on the road for about 4 1/2 months, and absolutely love it. I think you'll love the Montana & Chevy too :)

PIEERE · RV-Dreams Family Member

I thought Gm quit making the Chevy II back around 1964....Oh...that was the car. My Bad!! Your talking about their new truck and the 5th wheel.

Mark Serley · RV-Dreams Family Member

seconds on your choices of 5er and silverado, love the way they travel together, good luck and enjoy the ride! mark

Terry and Jo · RV-Dreams Family Member

I missed your choice of truck before, so I should chime back in again with a thought for you. The newer GM pickups have taller bed rails than previous years. Because of that, it sometimes requires that the fifth wheel hitch be raised a bit in order to get enough clearance between the nose of the fifth wheel and the rails and tailgate of the pickup bed.

With that in mind, do some research and see if you need to have the RV manufacturer to raise the frame of your choice of trailer to keep the trailer level. Otherwise, you could be nose-high on the trailer and throwing more weight onto the rear axle of the trailer.

Terry

-- Edited by Terry and Jo on Saturday 23rd of February 2013 08:54:35 PM

Beth and Grady · RV-Dreams Community Member

Thank you all for the warm welcomes. Excited to be a part of all this and very much looking forward to getting started. I for one am very happy with our choices thus far even though we do not have physical possession of the rig or truck just yet. We did the walk through last weekend in South Dakota where we located the rig we wanted. I just received notification the truck will be here on 4 March! Woo Hooo! I have always been a Chevy guy so for me it was a no brainer.

Mark Serley · RV-Dreams Family Member

great point terry, i have already replaced my bed cap liners because of the shorter space between rig and truck. we have the gooseneck hook-up which made it very simple to extend my mast 2" for proper clearance. especially when turning thru elevation changes into higher or lower drives. mark

Mark Serley · RV-Dreams Family Member

P.S. grady, terry is a ford guy so you can see how passionate he is about getting the right info out! thanks again terry. mark

Terry and Jo · RV-Dreams Family Member

Well, I'm not sure what being a "Ford guy" has to do with being passionate with doing things right. Regardless of what one uses for an RV, I really want them to do the homework needed so they don't have issues down the road.

Not only would a nose-high configuration on the trailer throw extra weight on the rear trailer axle, it would also wear those tires out faster than the front ones.

Terry

Beth and Grady · RV-Dreams Community Member

Thanks for the heads up Terry but actually we are having a custom bed from CM Truck Beds installed. I am still concerned about level travel for the Montana so I am hoping everything works out. I have been relying on information from the dealers with all the measurements but we truly won't know until we get it hitched up. If it is not level then we will do our best to jump that hurdle if we come to it....Thanks again for the advice. :)

Mark Serley · RV-Dreams Family Member

terry, what i meant about you being a "ford guy" was most people research their own personnel choice of vehicles and not as much of the other brands, that's all! mark

Terry and Jo · RV-Dreams Family Member

Mark Serley wrote:
terry, what i meant about you being a "ford guy" was most people research their own personnel choice of vehicles and not as much of the other brands, that's all! mark

Sorry, Mark. I just didn't understand the meaning of the reference.

I did do quite a bit of research, I had looked at just about every type of truck except the HDT's. I didn't consider the HDT's because I used to drive both 18-wheelers and bob-tail trucks that were almost as big. The semi-trucks just didn't give me enough area of being able to see around me.

We looked at some 4500 GM models, Dodge and GM 3500 series, some MDT's known as SportsChassis that were somewhat customized M2 Freightliners, as well as the Fords. Being one that believes in have more truck than I might need, it didn't take long to rule out the F350/3500 series trucks.

I narrowed down to a used SportsChassis and a new F450 as my choices. The used MDT's were priced in the range of $90,000 and a new F450 would have been $65,000 to $75,000. When we found the used 2008 F450, we jumped at the chance and bought it the day we found it. $30,000 sure seemed a better price than the others, especially for having only 46,000 miles. I had figured that any used F450's that I would find would be REALLY well used because of being in the "oil patch."

Terry