What did you do for your Escape today.....

[Perry Butler]

Originally Posted by Ooshkaboo

So far its not bad, a good fit on the threads, Amazon.

I looked at the video and it took a while just to add a quart of water. Have you tried adding 5 gallons? If so, does it take a long time? Is the funnel big enough for a shaky 73 year old to hold the five gallon tank and not spill much?

Thanks,

Perry

[cpaharley2008]

Originally Posted by Perry Butler

I looked at the video and it took a while just to add a quart of water. Have you tried adding 5 gallons? If so, does it take a long time? Is the funnel big enough for a shaky 73 year old to hold the five gallon tank and not spill much?

Thanks,

Perry

Just pretend it is some fine whiskey, you will not spill a drop......

[Iowa Dave]

Or gasoline.
Iowa Dave

[Ooshkaboo]

Originally Posted by Perry Butler

I looked at the video and it took a while just to add a quart of water. Have you tried adding 5 gallons? If so, does it take a long time? Is the funnel big enough for a shaky 73 year old to hold the five gallon tank and not spill much?

Thanks,

Perry

It’s definitely not a quick fill, but it does thread onto the fill opening and stay on and upright, freeing up both hands.
Definitely the funnel could be larger, but another one can be set on top to give a larger opening

I read on here someone stopped using the 5 gallon containers and now uses a 2 or 3 gallon, that’ll be my next move…

[Ops]

Originally Posted by Perry Butler

I looked at the video and it took a while just to add a quart of water. Have you tried adding 5 gallons? If so, does it take a long time? Is the funnel big enough for a shaky 73 year old to hold the five gallon tank and not spill much?

Thanks,

Perry

I mentioned this to my son-in-law yesterday while he was installing a Victron shunt for me.
He agreed the "water chore" can be tough to do. A buddy of his demonstrated using a drill powered water pump...2 minutes empties a 5 gallon jerry can. Makes the drill do double duty with stabilizers and filling water tanks. Just ordered this last night:

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[Emjay]

Originally Posted by Ooshkaboo

…read on here someone stopped using the 5 gallon containers and now uses a 2 or 3 gallon, that’ll be my next move….

That’s what I did. The 5 gallon size is a lot of weight when full
, and the 5
gallon container i s nearly impossible to hold up to pour into the fill opening without baptizing my shoes, the lower half of my legs, the curious underfoot dog, the “helping” grandchild and anyone else standing nearby. All that’s missing would be the bar of soap and my shower cap. The amount actually making its way into the holding tank
Might as well be from a 2.5 gallon container by then. So that’s what I use now.

[John in Santa Cruz]

I use 5G carboy (water cooler bottles) with a Dolphin dispensor pump. Turns out if you put one up on a flipped over milk carton, and attach a foot or so of clear vinyl hose to the Dolphin's dispensor, you can feed the water directly into the fill opening on my E21. Takes a few dozen pumps and a few minutes to pump a full 5G carboy that way, but you're just going pump-pump-pump-waiiiiiiiit-repeat. trick is, holding the pump button DOWN on the last pump while waiting, then it keeps pumping water til the pressure reduces.

[NEWYORKHILLBILLY]

I cut this funnel in half and it works greathttps://www.amazon.com/Lisle-17232-R...790029762&th=1 It will take a lot of water and fits in there tight once it cut, I can dump my 6 gal jug sin there alone .

[Civilguy]

I just use the hose. Easy to lift, fast fill.



In the alternative, we have a 2.5 gallon Reliance Products water container. When filling the trailer, I replace the dispensing spigot with a piece of threaded 3/4" PVC about 5 inches long. The PVC pipe inserted into the fill spout on the trailer helps to support the jug while I empty the container into the trailer. Cheap and effective.

[splitting_lanes]

We hooked up the truck and 5.0 and went to the local scales for some weighing.

I saw a spreadsheet here that I wanted to add my findings too, but I don’t see it in the files section. I’ll list details here.

Truck GMC Canyon diesel longbed
Trailer escape 5.0 well optioned
9460 total truck and trailer
6600 trailer and rear axle of truck
4920 truck without trailer
2060 rear axle of truck without trailer
5700 truck weight with trailer attached
3760 trailer axle weight
4540 total trailer weight
780 pin weight

4540 trailer weight
Trailer had bike rack on back, nearly empty otherwise
Truck had full tank of fuel, empty with Wife’s purse in it (haha)

GVW of truck 6200
GVW of trailer 5500
RAW of truck 3500
FAW of truck 3400

[John in Santa Cruz]

Originally Posted by splitting_lanes

....
5700 truck weight with trailer attached
....
GVW of truck 6200
....

so you can put just 500 lbs total in the truck, including driver+passenger(s) and any personal gear they have on them when the trailer is empty.

I didn't bother to do the axle weights. anything you put in the trailer had better be centered on the trailer axles so as not to add to the pin weight and subtract from the truck payload.

[MrLynn]

Originally Posted by splitting_lanes

We hooked up the truck and 5.0 and went to the local scales for some weighing.

Where do you find 'local scales'?

[Iowa Dave]

Where ever there’s a truck stop with a big black cat face on a sign “CAT Scale”
This service costs money but there’s a scale ticket and multiple weights are
Prorated once the initial weight is obtained.
Usually free are these scale locations.
Grain elevators
Rock quarries
Landfills

Do not go first thing in the AM or an hour on either side of noon or in the last hour they are open. They are busy with customers then.

I go to my local sand quarry. I buy couple tons of sand or river stone from them every year. When they are not busy they let me pull the tow vehicle and the Escape up on the scale and weigh it. Then I pull off and Unhitch in an out of the way location. Pull back in and weigh only the tow vehicle. They do not charge me.

Take some home made cookies and go back into the scale house when you’re hitched back up. They will not forget the cookies and a sincere thank you. That’s my experience.

They will print the scale ticket for you with the weights. Then you can make a note
on the ticket as to passengers, tow rig cargo, water and other trailer contents etc. Put it in your Escape notebook.
YMMV
Iowa Dave

[Jim Bennett]

To add water to the trailer tank my wife holds a funnel with as large of an exit as I can use and I pour in from a rectangle 6 US gallon container. Easy peasy. The container is nice for use outside when away from the trailer too as they have a valve to pour the water out of. I carry two of these containers on long trips.

[Centex]

Originally Posted by MrLynn

Where do you find 'local scales'?

FWIW here's a locator tool for CAT Scales.

All CAT Scales have a 'segmented platform' which means when you place a vehicle alone on the platform you get the front axle weight, the rear axle weight, and the total weight all at once; when you place a vehicle with trailer on the platform you get the front vehicle axle weight, the rear vehicle axle weight, the trailer axle(s) weight, and the total rig weight all at once. Thus with '2-passes' (3 if using a WDH) you get all the data needed to derive per-axle loading and tongue / pin loading in great detail.

Currently the cost at CAT Scales is ~$12~13 for the first weigh and ~$3~4 for each additional weigh within 24 hours. There's invariably parking lot space to allow one to temporarily 'drop' their trailer at the CAT Scale site for making passes with and without your trailer hitched during one visit.

Note that there is a "Weigh My Truck" smartphone app for use at CAT Scale sites which, though aimed at professional truckers is perfectly acceptable for non-professional use. That app makes weighing and multiple passes very quick and easy, providing your weight data and payment without ever having to directly interact with often busy the clerks / operators at the site.

Attached FYI is a 'worksheet' to assist in calculating various RV rig characteristics using CAT Scale data. I've got an Excel version of the worksheet which will do the calculations as you enter the data from your CAT Scale weigh tickets, PM me with your email address if you would like to receive a copy of that via email reply attachment.

Most of the other scales mentioned by Iowa Dave will be 'single platform' type, meaning that one must, with the cooperation of the scale operator, pull your vehicle partway on the platform to get a per-axle weight, then move the vehicle/rig to get other per-axle weights / total rig weight. You can certainly get all the same data as you would at a CAT Scale, just takes a bit more vehicle juggling and some different arithmetic.

Hope that helps, Have Fun!

[Vermilye]

Originally Posted by splitting_lanes

We hooked up the truck and 5.0 and went to the local scales for some weighing.

I saw a spreadsheet here that I wanted to add my findings too, but I don’t see it in the files section. I’ll list details here.

Truck GMC Canyon diesel longbed
Trailer escape 5.0 well optioned
9460 total truck and trailer
6600 trailer and rear axle of truck
4920 truck without trailer
2060 rear axle of truck without trailer
5700 truck weight with trailer attached
3760 trailer axle weight
4540 total trailer weight
780 pin weight

4540 trailer weight
Trailer had bike rack on back, nearly empty otherwise
Truck had full tank of fuel, empty with Wife’s purse in it (haha)

GVW of truck 6200
GVW of trailer 5500
RAW of truck 3500
FAW of truck 3400

The spreadsheet is at https://lakeshoreimages.com/spreadsheets/Weight.xlsx. I added your trailer.

[splitting_lanes]

Originally Posted by John in Santa Cruz

so you can put just 500 lbs total in the truck, including driver+passenger(s) and any personal gear they have on them when the trailer is empty.

I didn't bother to do the axle weights. anything you put in the trailer had better be centered on the trailer axles so as not to add to the pin weight and subtract from the truck payload.

Yeah, with my wife and I in the truck we have 200lb remaining of capacity. Mary really wanted the mid size truck (easier to park), and I really wanted diesel. Fortunately when we put bikes on the rack and pack the trailer, the pin weight doesn’t go up, likely down a little.

I still can’t figure out the multi quote, to tag Jon Vermilye too, but thanks for adding us to the sheet.

These 5.0s are about 800lb pin weight now instead of 640lb like the website says. A full size half ton would work well, and the mid size diesel is good but you can’t put much (anything?) in the bed of the truck.

I’m looking forward to seeing more of you guys at the Mississippi River Event in September

[splitting_lanes]

Originally Posted by MrLynn

Where do you find 'local scales'?

Google ‘truck scale’ and read the reviews on what comes up. The scale we went to was a local metal recycling company, they had two scales and let us measure a bunch of times. The guy in the booth was awesome, and the scales were super accurate (closest 20lb).

The scales I used were not CAT scales as Centex noted, so I did axle weights by being partially on/off the scale. Edit #2. They didn’t charge me

[jnfrombigt]

Started working on this over a year ago but multiple health issues and surgeries delayed progress. First panel attachment point finished today and system works. Two Battle Borns along with all sorts of Victron stuff.


https://www.escapeforum.org/forums/a...1&d=1656780364

https://www.escapeforum.org/forums/a...1&d=1656780504

[Vermilye]

Changed to a larger sink in my 2017 21C (and switched from a poorly functioning "S" trap to a vented "P" trap).