It should be in here somewhere: https://www.gmupfitter.com/files/media/photo/648/2016_LD_ColCan_081015.pdf

 

It should be in here somewhere: https://www.gmupfitter.com/files/media/photo/648/2016_LD_ColCan_081015.pdf

Dang those are some nicely dimensioned drawings! I wonder why SEMA is always advertising "Measuring sessions" on new vehicles. I guess the tech drawings are one thing, but there's noting like a "hands on" session.
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Go to this link, choose mid size trucks, then download the chassis PDF. I think it should give you the dimensions you are wanting.

https://www.gmupfitter.com/pdflists/view/36

Looks like George beat me to it, and gave you a better link.

 

Thanks guys. Looks like pages 34 to 37 have what I am looking for. Thank You, Jeff

 

I just installed a gravity tank in my SB ZR2. RDS makes a 55 gallon tank that is 36”x22”x19”. The bed width is 44” and I wanted room for the fuel line on the side. I saw one other tank that was 50 gallons but didn’t have the vent and drain plug. All others I saw were for full size trucks or custom made that cost more than what I spent. I have a post in the diesel forum on installing it.

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Not that another reply is needed but fwiw, I once carefully measured between the wheelwells and also came up with 44".

 

Getting somewhat back on topic...

I'm curious what you think the payload and tow capacity of these trucks is that you think you'll be able to tow a 5th wheel trailer and have a fuel tank (and who knows what else) in the bed of the truck. That would have to be the world's smallest 5th wheel.

 

DieselDrax,

1. 40 Gallon Titan Travel Trekker bed tank: 55 pounds for tank + 280 pounds of diesel (when tank full)

2. Andersen Aluminum 5th Wheel Hitch: 35 pounds + in bed gooseneck ball & frame (CURT #60732 ?) 110 pounds

3. Escape 5.0 TA 5th wheel trailer: 600 hitch weight (dry trailer weight 3900, loaded 5200 est.)
The Escape 5.0 TA

Grand Total: 1,045 pounds

The drawings on the link above very detailed, but trying to figure out bed wheel well locations slightly tricky with the curves, but I'll figure it out.

I welcome any thoughts on the above set up.

Thanks,
Jeff

PS Adding the 40 gallons would give a Colorado/Canyon with the Duramax an incredible range of over 1700 miles (empty). And I probably over 1000 even pulling the trailer above (I've seen where someone pulling this trailer with a Canyon got 17.9 MPG over 2,767 miles). )

 

DieselDrax,

1. 40 Gallon Titan Travel Trekker bed tank: 55 pounds for tank + 280 pounds of diesel (when tank full)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjWyZxaEb1A

2. Andersen Aluminum 5th Wheel Hitch: 35 pounds + in bed gooseneck ball & frame (CURT #60732 ?) 110 pounds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANCHyNU7its

3. Escape 5.0 TA 5th wheel trailer: 600 hitch weight (dry trailer weight 3900, loaded 5200 est.)
The Escape 5.0 TA

Grand Total: 1,045 pounds

The drawings on the link above very detailed, but trying to figure out bed wheel well locations slightly tricky with the curves, but I'll figure it out.

I welcome any thoughts on the above set up.

Thanks,
Jeff

PS Adding the 40 gallons would give a Colorado/Canyon with the Duramax an incredible range of over 1700 miles (empty). And I probably over 1000 even pulling the trailer above (I've seen where someone pulling this trailer with a Canyon got 17.9 MPG over 2,767 miles). )

Nice, that probably is one of the smallest 5ers ever. [emoji16] Is that 600lb pin weight what they say on paper? If so, I would be skeptical. 5ers usually put around 20% on the pin, which at 5200lb loaded is 1,040lb just in pin weight. Adding up the other things in your list brings it to 1,485lb payload.

Not sure if you’ve spoken with owners of that 5er already and seen their weight sheets, but I would be sure and get some real-world weights from owners before spending the money if you’re just going by what the mfr claims on paper. Those weights are often time nowhere near accurate.

If you have gotten real-world weight (not from the salesman) then awesome. I’m just trying to save you the frustration that many people experience when they spend all that money for what they thing will be perfect only to find the numbers on paper were wrong and now they’re overweight before they even get into the driver’s seat. And looking at the trailer’s webpage, that pin weight is with the trailer completely empty. That pin weight is going to go up very fast when you add propane, batteries, water, your gear, etc. I really do think you’re going to end up overweight by the time you’re loaded.


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Here’s someone with pin weight very close to what I said. Others say 900lb pin weight when loaded is common.

http://www.escapeforum.org/forums/f10/5-0ta-scale-weights-b-c-8263.html

At the very least I would base your calculations on having a 900lb pin weight, not the 600lb pin weight of a dry (empty) trailer since that will never happen except when at the factory.


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Excellent points. Yea, I've seen some of the threads discussing the real world hitch and trailer loads, I need to spend some time reading them and make sure I am not missing anything....and that what I want to do is do-able, with a decent safety margin. From what I am reading so far the Colorado with the Duramax "should" handle this trailer Ok, some guys are doing it. But you are right, the "factory specs" don't quite seem to match "real world" so that all needs to be factored in...

I hope this can all work. I sold our '93 30' Fleetwood Southwind two years ago, it was just too big, too heavy and had no power (for it's weight), and I been in search of the mythical "Perfect RV" since. Really like the Winnebago View Class-C's, but I got looking at truck bed campers and ran across the Escape 5.0 TA trailer...and realized it might be towable with a Colorado (diesel)....and light bulbs went off!! I think this trailer just the right size for the two of us, is not 20,000 pounds like some 5th wheels, and this trailer and truck combo (with higher ground clearance and 4 wheel drive) could probably get into more off road areas than a Winnebago View. Plus when we get somewhere where we want to hang out for a few days we can drop the trailer and go exploring (the room in these crew cabs nice too)... even explore some real off-road areas in Utah or Montana or wherever.

I owned full size trucks in the past, and have zero desire to own one again. While test driving the Colorado and Canyon (as I suspected) they tried to talk me into a "full size" pickup. I test drove one....and it just reminded me why I DON'T want a full size truck! Too big, and burns too much gas. The other thing I like about the Colorado/Canyon + Escape Trailer (over a Class C) is that when we not traveling I have a 4x4 truck to use in the Winter if I need it. And wile the Winnebago Views are very nice, this truck and trailer combo probably $30,000 less than a new View. (the Escape built in Canada, and the exchange rate still very favorable to our side...two years ago I bought a new Kawasaki Ninja 1000 in Canada and saved over $3000, the savings here will be much more....plus it looks like an awesome trailer! )

It does look like I will need the Long Bed though, just from looking at the dimensioned drawings I can see in the Short Bed there is only 23" from center above rear axel to front of bed. And that Titan tank needs at least 17.5" by itself I think it was. The Anderson needs 31.5"....so half of that plus the tank.... that's 33.25" ....the Long Bed is 34.93" from center of rear axel to front of bed....might have to use a shoe horn to make this all fit in there...

Jeff

 

How similar we are! :grin2:

Back in 2009 I had a Nissan Titan, 9,500lb tow capacity. We bought a 31BHS travel trailer that had a GVWR basically the same as the truck's tow capacity, and of course the dealer was like "Oh, yeah, that's no problem for that truck." Still, I did the math and on paper it all looked good even when factoring in propane, batteries, etc.

During our biggest/longest trip, I decided to stop at some CAT scales to find out what I was really at weight-wise and as full as we'd ever be. Long story short, I was over the truck's GVWR by 600lb or so. Was still within GCWR, trailer GVWR, and axle GAWRs. But, overweight is overweight. Also, that 1/2 ton truck just wasn't happy towing that trailer, even with the WD and sway control hitch. It wasn't terrifying, but it was stressful. We decided we needed a bigger truck, so I sold the Titan and bought a used Ram 3500 SRW MegaCab 4x4 with the 6.7 Cummins. Oh man what a difference! It was amazing, great towing experience. Alas, we didn't use the trailer as much as we wanted and ended up selling it. Then the truck was pointless so I sold it.

We ended up getting some PWCs after that and then decided we'd like to camp at some lakes/rivers and such while taking the PWCs with us, so we bought an older 36' Monaco diesel pusher RV to do that with. We did get a bit of use out of it and did make some pretty fun trips, but we were in the process of relocating and didn't want to deal with taking that RV from the west coast to the Midwest so we sold it in CA.

Then, we ended up buying a pop-up camper with a slide-out. It had most of what we were looking for; Shower, toilet, A/C, fridge. The camping experience with it was great in that when we were inside we didn't feel disconnected from the outdoors. On the flip side, we never used the shower because there were no holding tanks for grey water so I had to make my own setup but that was a pain. The fridge was too small to fit more than a couple 6-packs of soda, the toilet was a cassette type which was fine, but still needed to be hauled somewhere to dump, and there was no thermostat for the A/C to turn it all the way off so the fan was always going. So, at night it was either keep it on or turn it off and hope we don't roast without a breeze.

Last Fall we decided to find the "goldilocks" trailer. Now that we've had pretty much everything we had a pretty good idea of what we liked and disliked and what we really wanted. That's when we decided that a hybrid/expandable trailer would probably be just about perfect. All the amenities of our previous 31ft TT and RV while retaining the tent-like sleeping experience and ability to really open up the screen windows so we didn't feel like hermits. We pulled the trigger on a used Flagstaff Shamrock 21SS yesterday and should be picking it up this week. When we want to camp someplace where we can use our PWCs then my wife will tow them with her SUV, we have plenty of places to do that within a few hour drive so it's not a huge inconvenience.

Anyway, I totally get where you're coming from as I've been there as well. One of the main reasons I bought my diesel Canyon was because I knew we were going to get a trailer like what we bought yesterday and I knew I didn't want to do any long trips towing something like that with a gasser ever again.

I hope everything comes out in your favor and you can make it work, I also know what it's like to want to convince yourself that the setup will be OK because you really want it to work. Problem is, no matter the vehicle it is rarely a fun experience towing at or near the limit and when you find yourself calculating down to the pound to try and make it work then you should probably start looking at something else. I did that yesterday, they had a really nice 27' TT for 33% off and a GVWR of 8,500lb but a payload capacity of 2,000lb, which meant an empty weight of 6,500lb. Well below my 7,600lb tow capacity, right? But I knew it would never work out, even if I could make it work on paper. Not that we were serious about buying it anyway, but it was one of those "Hmmm, COULD we do this?" thought experiments.

Good luck!

 

@JeffNY ;one thing to also keep in mind that hasn't been mentioned is that smaller trucks like the Twins get pushed around more by crosswinds. That's a complaint I've heard from some of the guys with the Ford Ecoboosts, the truck pulls the trailer OK, but it gets tossed around a bit when there's a crosswind. So I'm assuming the same would apply to the Colorado & Canyon.

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CrashFix, Yes, how it pulls in strong wind a consideration, I agree. I think the full size Chevy/GMC trucks (non-dual rear wheel) are 4” wider if my memory is correct. But remember the Escape is also 7’4” (88”) wide, where most larger 5th Wheels seem to be 96” to 102” (the width of 48’ or 53’ freight trailer).

So, what’d be worse in wind, a 4800 pound Colorado diesel pulling a rounded and curvy 9’7” high (21’ long) 5,300 pound trailer, or 5400 (to 6400?) pound Silverado pulling a squarish 13’ high ( 30’+ long) 15,000 pound 5th wheel? Neither example paints a great picture, I’ll agree But I think I’d rather be behind the wheel of the Colorado…

I’ve watched videos on YouTube of towed trailers being blown over on the highway, on full size trucks. Scary to see. I think if the wind gets that bad while driving I've already made up my mind it’s going to be time to pull over and have lunch and nap…

It’s funny, when the GMC dealer was trying to talk me into a “full size” over the Canyon his main argument was “Remember, that trailer will weigh several times the weight of the truck…that trailer will be wagging the truck…” I wasn’t going to waste my time arguing with him, all he cared about was moving more of the full size pickups that filled his lot. But 1. The weight of this trailer actually not that much above the weight of the truck, probably under 1000 pounds more (not a 3x weight delta, as with many full size truck and full size [i’e huge] 5th wheels). 2. The trailer attaches to the truck over the rear axel, not several feet behind hind it at the bumper. This trailer can’t “wag” the truck…man I hate BS from salesman. If I had the time I would have also told him I used to own a trucking company, and explain to him how most road tractors pull trailers several times their weight with no problems (or “wagging”).

But yes, how these things handle in heavy wind is a consideration. So far though, from what I am reading from Canyon/Escape owners, this combination seems to do Ok in “significant crosswinds” as one owner called it. But until it’s me in the driver seat I can never be really sure…

I am open to tweaking the suspension some too if I thought that was needed and would help with towing too…