The F-250 has a 7.3L Powerstroke diesel with an aftermarket turbo and a 120HP tune. It’s an automatic with 3.55 gears. This has been a great truck. Lots of power and handles the camper easily and pulls great… until this trip.
This trip has been different. The day before we left, we scaled the rig and the trailer. Turns out we are running at max weights, both the trailer GVW and the truck’s Gross Combined Weight Rating. Not what we wanted but we decided to take this knowledge, drive reasonably, and shed weight as we go by not stocking up on as much stuff and throwing out things we don’t use. We didn’t know our tongue weight but we adjusted the position of the TJ a couple of times until we found the sweet spot.
It towed pretty good out to Glacier but when we hit the mountains, I wished I had a couple more gears to choose from and 4:10’s in the rear. A handshaker in the mountains would be ideal. I drive by my EGT’s with the tune and I find myself slowing down and downshifting manually to keep the exhaust temps reasonable. I am usually under the speed limit on these uphills. On downhills, I can use second gear and engine brake a 5-6% grade without gaining speed or pushing beyond 3,000 RPM. 7-8% grades require first gear, and the 9-10% ones have me using the brakes more than I like.
I bought new tires for this trip. I researched a lot and had it narrowed down to three choices. BFG All Terrians, which I had run for the past 5-6 years with good success. Goodyear Wrangler Dura-Tracs, which have a great reputation for being good in the snow, and Cooper ST/MAXX’s, which have 3-ply side wall and are supposed to be very tough. I choose the Coopers, even after a strong recommendation from a friend to buy the Goodyears, in the 285/75-R16 size because it is a more common size than the 295’s I was running or the 315’s I would have like to run.
The tires have run out great and I was very happy with them until our recent run up the Dempster Highway.
This road runs north out of Dawson City, YT and goes to Inuvik. There a new highway, just opened up last November, that runs up to Tuktoyaktuk, on the Arctic Ocean. This is 1100 miles of gravel road round trip. Yes, I took my clean Super Duty, that I always drove under 20 MPH on gravel back home, on an 1100 mile trip on gravel. Seems crazy, right? A lot of the highway is good, hard pack with no washboard or pot holes. These sections can be run at the speed limit of 90 KMH (56 MPH). Some sections were downright horrible… major ruts, pot holes, huge washboard, and soft muddy gravel, especially where they were grading. They are continually maintaining this road. They water it down to loosen it, grade it, and then roll it. I not sure what our average speed was, but I drove as slow as 15 MPH and as fast a 65 MPH. The drive up took us two days of driving. 9-1/2 hours the first day, which brought us across the Arctic Circle, and 7-1/2 hours the next day, not including an hour and a half stop over in Inuvik.
Our trip up was uneventful on the way up, but on the way back we shredded one of the ST/MAXX’s just over Wright Pass and north of the Arctic Circle. This section of road is gravelled with crushed black shale. This particular rock breaks into sharp-edged pieces. Apparently the First Nation people used to chip pieces off the shale cliffs to make arrow heads, axes, and other tools due to this. I believe it is still used as a based material for roads because the road materials are mined and crushed in the vicinity of where it is used on the road to avoid long distance trucking of materials. This is evident in the equipment seen at the road maintenance facilities along the highway. An Alaskan we met on the highway told me that speed kills on these sections because your front tires kick up the rocks and you catch it with a rear tire. Most flats are rear tires.
I’ve noticed that the tire of choice up here seems to be the Dura-Trac. I see these on a lot of the pick-ups the locals drive. I had a guy on the ferry asked me about my ST/MAXX’s and I asked about the Dura-Tracs. They are the tire of choice only due to their excellent grip in snowy conditions and that they are cheap in comparison to others. Tire life is very poor if used year-round because most roads up here are gravel. To sum it up, I’m still very happy with my tire choice even though the Dempster destroyed one of them. I have road hazard insurance on them and I will get it replaced as soon as I can work it out with Discount Tire, since they do not have a presence in Canada.
At this point we are 5500 miles into the 180 and have had only a few problems. The tire was expected and I would have considered myself lucky to not have a flat on that road. We also have a battery issue we are working through. More on that later. I need to change the oil soon but other than that we are just choochin’ along.