2013 jayco swift that has only been pulled a few hundred miles

[Sharps-Nut]

Good morning. My wife and I recently purchased a 2013 swift 294 bhs that was bought new and used as a bedroom in support of another camper. It sat on this commercial lot its entire life. Part of the time it was in the elements then the owner put a carport over it. As far as looks it looks nearly new. It does not have chalked plastics or fade. Roof looks great, and the inside is new as they only used it for a bedroom for their adult kids so it was never cooked in or lived in.
That said what advice would you have for going over this rv prior to introducing it to a long road trip. New tire are a for sure item, clean and pack the wheel bearings, basic reseal of the roof. Am I missing anything? We keep our rv inside a shop and our usage has been two week long road trips to national parks with a few trips to local lakes thrown in as we have time.
Are their any inherit problems with this model that I missed on google searches? We are coming from a 30 ft monaco coach starwood 5th wheel we owned for 10 years and 40k of pulling. We are doing this so I can bring a dualsport motorcycle in the back of the truck with me on road trips. Any advice on bumper pulls and setting them up is appreciated as my background is 5th wheels. Thanks in advance, and I have enjoyed reading and searching the fourms so far. SN

[Kim Gass]

Payload of your truck,
A motorcycle nY be too much weight

[85vf500rr]

Like you said, tires, repack bearings, check the brakes, check the battery, inspect propane hoses and regulator, make sure all gas/electric appliances are working. You may find that you will need to clean the gas orifices on the stove burners as critters like to take up residence as campers sit. This is all probably already on your list as it is not different than taking your 5th wheel out of an extended storage period. What are you going to tow with? You'll need to make sure you have enough payload capacity to handle to tongue weight and the dual sport. If you're using the same truck you pulled the 5th wheel with, you may be fine there. A weight distributing hitch and sway control is useful on a bumper pull. I had a conventional bars/chains style available for mine and the friction style sway control, but if you are starting from scratch, the Equal-i-zer brand is extremely popular and the sway control is inherent in the design of the load bars making it simpler. I may eventually change to that style if I find a smoking deal on Craigslist. Just like the pinweight on your 5th wheel, ensure you have 10-15% of total weight as tongue weight and it should pull well. My 29BHS is a little shorter and lighter than the 294BHS, but the basics apply to all of them.

[Sharps-Nut]

I am hoping to take the truck to the elevator and get a weight, w/o bikes but as we would tow. Then load the camper and get a weight to see what hitch we need and if my dreams is to big. My camper is sub 600 dry TW, and 5800 dry weight. 8400 max weight. I have a 2003 f250 extended cab , 4x4 with 7.3 psd so I am hoping to have "enough truck." Planning 1000/10,000 WD "equalizer" brand hitch right now. At least my gut says so, but I have never set up a bumper pull only read and making educated guess. Thoughts?

[85vf500rr]

Take a look at the sticker on your door to get a better idea of what your payload capacity is. The PSD eats up a good bit of that, but being an extended cab instead of a crew cab gives a little back. 1000/10,000 may be a bit light for that camper when loaded out for a trip. The tongue on my 29BHS runs about 850 wet loaded for a trip which works out to about 12%. I'm sure I've probably been a little higher than that before too, but don't tell the weight police as that is getting close to max payload on my F150. I'd love to haul a Dual Sport bike some day too, but I'll need more truck than my current half ton.

[Old and soft]

As the owner of an 01 f250 and a 264 bh, I suspect after you weigh everything, that bike pushes you over. Curious how you scale out. Don’t leave us hanging.

[Sharps-Nut]

I will post an update. The scales are left on so maybe this weekend I may get my truck weighed with and W/O the bike. My 650 is 450 lbs loaded. The 250 is only 320. So may be riding the smaller bike. We will see what my owners manual says on max weights, and the scales say loaded. Thank you all for the kind replies and reminders of things to check from setting. My wife and I really wanted a 5th wheel but they grew while we owned our last one and they are too tall for my shop. The bumper pull aspect sorta enthused me as I love riding gravel and FS roads. That said the camper was way longer than we wanted. The price and condition just could not be beat so we took a chance on bumper pull and long. The pull home was only 15 miles and it was way to low in front with strong winds. It wagged its tail a few times. Hoping properly set up that goes away. SN
My memory is going south, 5805 dry wt, 8000 gross, hitch weight 710. Ops, may be running a little over weight. SN

[Sharps-Nut]

Looks like my truck is 8800 gvw, gawr of 6084 truck according to the door jamb. Guess things changed at the elevator after getting the truck out the scales were turned off. So no real progress. I need to get a hitch so I can make headway on a weigh in but hate to buy new if I can pick one up on market place. Cold weather and 20 hours overtime sorta killed the week.

[85vf500rr]

Usually on the driver's door jamb of Ford pickups there is a Tire and Loading Information sticker that should tell you the payload. The wording on mine lists it as "The combined weight of occupants and cargo should never exceed:". This would include your bike, passengers (minus 150lb for the driver that Ford already includes), any other cargo, accessories, hitch, and tongue weight. In my case that 1660lbs, so I'm often close when loaded out for a 2 week vacation. Take a look at the stickies in the Towing, Hitching, and Tow Vehicles section on this forum. Tons of great information there on vehicle, hitch, and trailer set up. There are guides there on how to use the CAT scales to get the correct readings for tongue weight and axle loading. This forums is a great resource and has helped take a lot of the guess work out for me.

[Jagiven]

Biggest things to recognize is go through the entire unit. Systems not being used can be worse than a lot of use.

Tires are 10 years old. I would not travel on those tires. They must be replaced ASAP. ST tires of that era are TowMax, and they were not known to last 6 years.

Caulking roof and walls. Go through it all closely. My recommendation is to use Eternabond on the roof verses having to check and touch up the caulking every 6 months. So not use Silicone caulk.

Plumbing, if there was no water in the system, check valves and the like could be bad. Might need to rebuild the pump and toilet valve. Have a flashlight, flush the toilet, and look down into the tank. What do you see? That could be an indicator if family used the toilet with no water. A poop pyramid is horrible thing to clean out.

Water heater, you should have dual fuel (propane and electric). Do not turn on the electric element if there is no water in the tank, it will quickly burn out the electric heating element. Someone might have done such.

Propane appliances, Spider love to make nests in the a mix chamber. So it you have any issues with them, that is most likely the cause. Usually it is very easy to clean them out.

AC, I'm sure they used it. Check the air filter, it is just a sponge. Make sure there is one. How clean is it? If they removed it, and have been running the AC without it. Cleaning the coils will be a major pain.

Good luck and happy camping

[Rustic Eagle]

Originally Posted by Sharps-Nut

snip....... 5805 dry wt, 8000 gross, hitch weight 710.........snip

Originally Posted by Sharps-Nut

snip...... I need to get a hitch so I can make headway on a weigh in but hate to buy new if I can pick one up on market place..........

SN,

A worst case scenario with the 294 BHS loaded to its GVWR of 8,000ls: The recommend loaded tongue weight range would be 1,040lbs to 1,200lbs (13% to 15% of gross weight)...., thus a WDH rated at 1,200lbs with Integrated Sway Control would be ideal for the 294 BHS. A WDH rated at 1,200lbs isn't overkill when adjusted properly should the 294 BHS loaded tongue weight fall below 1,000lbs..

A 3-pass weigh-in at a CAT Scale under typically loaded TV/TT (ready-to-camp) conditions will confirm all your axle weights, WDH adjustment, weight distribution, loaded tongue weight, etc..

CAT Scale TV/TT how-to: https://www.jaycoowners.com/forums/f...v-tt-3871.html

If you normally tow with some fresh water in your TT tank, fill the tank accordingly prior to the CAT weigh-in visit.

Bob

[Sharps-Nut]

The weekend being a bust on finding weight did net some time further inspecting the camper. Roof looks great. Like mentioned coating is probably a good plan. The tires are on slate for replacing and upgrading to load range E. Furnace worked fine, wife liked that as she loaded up out camper supplies from the last camper. Bathroom scales were on duty weight everything that went in. The fridge seemed to cool down on propane, burner flame lacked orange just nice and blue. I did not get the flue for the fridge checked. I got my hitch height figured out and a FB market equalizer brand located and to be picked up after church.
No joy on a separate sticker telling me hualing weight. Maybe 03 lacked them. I bought the truck new and been willing to drive junkers to work so it's been garaged kept and never seen a snowflake. It took the wife and kids and I all over the country chasing NP when the kids were little. Now they are nearly grown and I just have to many memories in it to let it go. A few spare sensors and it's good service history will allow us to keep using it as a tow vehicle. Age may kill its dependability but were hoping not. Looking at a 4-5 k trip this summer after a few shake down runs trout fishing.

[garywilson]

When doing your shake-down, sit on benches and pay attention to mattress.

May have deteriorated.