The rest of the story, I decided to upgrade and arranged a trade deal over the phone with the same Ram dealers I purchased my 2019 Ram 1500 from about a year and a half ago. We set out around 3:00pm Friday heading towards St Louis, stopping in Sullivan Missouri to trade out the truck at Laura CDJR. I decided on a 2020 Ram 2500 with a gas engine. I know a lot of you like the big diesel engine, but all things considered the 6.4 Hemi is a good fit for us. My new truck is a 2020 Ram 2500 Laramie trim level with Off Road package, 4.10 gears and body colored bumpers (I do not like chrome). It has a lot of the same features as my last truck, but I did skip on the $2k 12" touch screen, and sunroof this time. My cargo cap. is over 3K and towing is over 17k.
Here are both the trucks as we are swapping things over. I did have to redrill my tool box to get the "J" hooks in. Seems the bed is a little wider on the 2500. I can also tell the bed metal is thicker gauge. It did not bend when tightening down the toolbox like it did in the 1500. My wife says it needs some step bars, I am 6'3" and it takes a hop to get my ass in the seat, she is 5'4" and has to use the grab handle to climb in. I told her powered steps are $1400, and would make an excellent Christmas present. She was not amused and found a set of fixed step bars on Amazon for $300 she likes. We will see who wins.
We departed Sullivan and cruised through St Louis heading east towards Knoxville TN. We drove until about 2:45am stopping in Crossville TN at a Hilton property for a quick nap (I have tons of Hilton points from Corp travel). 3 hours of sleep later we had a quick shower and headed down to Loudon KY an hour away to pick up the trailer. I brought along my new Husky 12k WD hitch, and we found it will not work with the 2500 until I can source a longer drop shank than the one that came included, this 2500 sits 4" or 5" taller than my 1500. My only other draw bar with a 2 5/16 ball is a straight shank, so opted to buy a B&W stow and go in 2.5 inch drawbar for the 2500. Its adjustable with a max 9" drop and rated 14k, has both 2" and 2 5/16 and will fit all our trailers, and I do not have to use a noisy received reducer with it. My wife was a little shocked at the price, but good equipment isn't cheap and it'll last forever if it doesn't get stolen. I have to remember to remove it when not in use.
Here we are hooked up and ready to roll nearly 600 miles home.
We departed Loudon around 10 am heading back west for home. We are limited to truck stops for the most part with this trailer due to length. It's 18' of flat deck, and the cargo box is 12' along the flat part of the sidewall. With the "V" nose and tongue its nearly 37' overall. I set up and tested the electric brakes and settled on a gain setting of 4.5. It pulls great but my wife complained about the jarring ride. I checked the TPMS on the dash screen and found all 4 tires on the truck are inflated to 100 psi. We dropped them to the recommended 65 front 70 rear and the ride improved a lot. When I get the Jeep on board and the WD hitch set up it will likely improve even more. Hwy 40 and 24 in TN are pretty beat up. Lots of trucking traffic and in need of repair.
Many mile later as we approach our home town we started getting pop ups on the trucks nav screen about storms in surrounding counties. I had no less than 5 people call me who knew I was traveling to warn me about the weather. We continued on and met the heaviest line of storms just as we came into Springfield MO. When we turned north on 65 Hwy all hell broke loose. We took a 60 mph wind on the beam and started to really get pushed around. I pulled off the hwy and rode it out in a Sam's Club parking lot. We got lucky and missed the golf ball sized hail by a few miles.
The trailer is now parked in my driveway, until I take it to a rented storage spot. I live in the city, so it will have to stay off site. I did tinker a bit with it tonight and found along the way one of my electric brake wires had parted and was hanging under the trailer. I fixed it with a new connector and a zip tie. We measured the interior dimensions and begin planning the layout. It looks like a 56" bed will fit perfect in the aft part of the cabin without obstructing the door opening. I plan to load the Jeep and make a day run to the local offroad park next Saturday.
I am excited for the adventures this is going to allow us to have. Might even make it to Moab next year, who knows.