It was camper loading day and also the day that my new Rickson 19.5 Wheels and Bridgestone R250F 245/70R 19.5 commercial grade tires arrived. The Rickson steel wheels have a weight rating of 5000 lbs, the tires are a commercial G rated tire with a weight capacity of 4805 lbs. Our camper loaded and ready to go comes in under this rating. With our old tires we were right on the maximum of the safe load rating. With the old tires when we went around corners you could feel the sidewalls flex and when that happened the truck load would sways a bit. It is not as safe as the new equipment will be. 
The day started about 8:30 am, I was standing outside when the UPS truck came chugging up in front of the house. The driver got out and she smiled, “You’re my first stop, I have four packages weighing a ton each.” We unloaded the packages and rolled them up next to my truck. She looked at me and then looked at the truck and said “You’re not loading them in your truck by your self are you?” I smiled and shrugged, she shook her head and got back into her rig, waved and was off.
Man those things are huge! I went to the back and brought out one of my loading ramps from my trailer. This made the job much easier, but it still was a booger rolling them up the ramp and into the bed of the truck. If I had lost control of any of them I would have been squished like a bug. I took them to my local Alton’s Tire and they changed them out for me, Alton’s will do that for free so I have them do all my tire work.
Within the hour I had the new wheels and tires on and was headed home to load the camper. Loading and hooking up everything on the camper takes me about three hours total. This includes the loading, attaching all the needed hardware and getting all the towing hitch equipment in place.
While I worked on the camper project I took some time to fix some of the lights on the cab of the truck. I figured with the good weather and the fact that I will have the camper on the rest of the season; this was the best time to get this project out of the way.
I know we’re going to enjoy the new set up on our truck and camper. We give it the test run starting Friday when we head to the Oregon coast.
2 comments:
(grunting like Tim the Tool Man) Nutin' like big truck tires!!
Wow, your trip is almost here already! Have a great time - I'll look forward to reading all about it when you get back!!
Looking forward to seeing you guys. We are heading to Seattle tonight and will be there until Saturday when we head hope for a shortened work week and then the coast. Whoo Hooo
Drive safe.
Mr Bean
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