Since you are stuck with your truck you might concider a 3/4T rear end from a wrecking yard. An older model may not too expensive. Then you have more options for heaver tires.

thanks for all the suggestions

My first camper was an 8' cab-over on a older F100 1/2 ton truck. I had a set of 16 1/2" load range D tires mounted on spare set of wheels. I would swap them out when I didn't have the camper on as the rear end bounce was bad. I also put one ton overloads over the rear springs. The truck handled fairly well with this set up with the exception of the brakes. The brakes were inadequate for the load. I had them fade on me a couple of times on down hill runs. Pretty scary!

Good luck.

quote:

Originally posted by CD:
Since you are stuck with your truck you might concider a 3/4T rear end from a wrecking yard. An older model may not too expensive. Then you have more options for heaver tires.

If he did that then he would need two different spares as the bolt patterns are different. Plus just upgrading the rear axle won't make his truck into a heavier duty hauler. The frame, brakes, trans, etc will still be 1/2 ton.