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First time out with the Talon
We took the Talon 313T out on our first trip. It was an overnighter and a rundown of a lot of things. How the truck would pull along with any issues. How the trailer pulled and a list of all the things we found that we needed, or needed to be looked at and changed on the trailer. So to start the trip off was fill the truck put in a few things for 2 days and a night of camping. Checked the propane, filled the water tank to about 1/3. Grab a Philips and standard screwdriver, a torque wrench and a few other odds and ends. Hitched up and left! 20ish miles down the road I pulled off and ran the torque wrench on the lug nuts of the trailer. All ok. Next step was getting onto the interstate. (The truck is new to me and has 260k miles on it so its a gamble on the inner workings) I hit the on-ramp and rolled into the throttle hard to put as much stress as I could on all the components and see what might break. (Cheaper to get towed back if your closer to town!) The merge went perfect right up to 60mph before actually merging! pushed on to 65 then leveled off. Turbo boost was solid at 16 PSI EGTs looked good at 1100 accelerating, trans temp hanging around 150. Ambient was around 35*F. A few miles down the interstate I pulled into a weigh station that was closed to see what I had for weight. The tow vehicle is a 99 F350 DRW 2wd with a 7.3 auto. The front axle was at 4200ish, the rear axle was at 6200ish and the trailer axles were at 9760. I had weighed the truck a while back and was around 7200 lbs but I didn't get a front and rear weight. We jumped back on the interstate and merged like a normal person this time. A few more miles down the road we pulled off and into a fuel station to get a few gallons of gas for the generator. After that our next stop was the campgrounds. We pulled in and it was deserted. We wandered to the area we planned on parking and found three other campers out there. We set up camp and then the list of needs started. Wheel Chocks and something to level the trailer was the first thing to get put on. I stacked 2 2x8 blocks around one of the wheels for the time being. As for leveling side to side, it wasn't bad. Front to the rear was easy. I parked the truck and began running down the different systems. We tested all the systems on the trailer to find almost everything was perfect. One thing we noticed is it is really dark in the bedroom bathroom and cargo area. So some 12 volt LED night lights will be on the to-do list. Also as the temps dropped to around 16 at night the rear cargo area was a little chilly. I'm thinking of reducing the air flow for the heater to the main bedroom in hopes that it will push more to the rear of the trailer. Other than a few other things like a coffee maker it was a success. All the dump valves worked on the return trip. I did find out there is some sort of selector for the propane also in the right side propane locker. Not sure if I am only able to run one tank at a time or not. I only plan to use one tank at a time but it would have been nice for the dealer orientation to mention that. Anyway that's my first time out with our new to use truck and new Talon 313T.
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