Non-truck question - covering the bottom of a camper trailer

[Nothing Special]

The four vehicles I drive most run a pretty broad spectrum of road noise, with mu Bronco the loudest, the E-450 motorhome next (having the engine right next to your knee doesn't make for a quiet vehicle, especially when it's a rev-happy Triton), followed by the pickup with Lesley's 2018 Jeep Renegade the quietest.  I always drive the Renegade too fast, but after a road trip in the motorhome, or any time in the summer when I've been driving the Bronco a lot I end up driving the pickup way too fast too.  It's funny that a 23 year old 6600 lb truck can feel small, sporty and refined at times!

[1986F150Six]

Gary Lewis wrote

As for not hearing what is going on, I'm amazed at folks who can ski or roller blade with ear phones in.  I lose my sense of balance to some degree when I can't hear what is going on.  So I, too, find myself going faster if I try to drive with headphones in - and it isn't legal.

You use noise cancelling head phones while mowing...

[grumpin]

Nothing Special wrote

The four vehicles I drive most run a pretty broad spectrum of road noise, with mu Bronco the loudest, the E-450 motorhome next (having the engine right next to your knee doesn't make for a quiet vehicle, especially when it's a rev-happy Triton), followed by the pickup with Lesley's 2018 Jeep Renegade the quietest.  I always drive the Renegade too fast, but after a road trip in the motorhome, or any time in the summer when I've been driving the Bronco a lot I end up driving the pickup way too fast too.  It's funny that a 23 year old 6600 lb truck can feel small, sporty and refined at times!

That’s funny! I told my wife that our Bronco is like a sports car after driving the truck.

[Gary Lewis]

Technically not noise-cancelling, just something like 24db of noise reduction.  But they work well enough that I can listen to tunes or even hear when the phone rings.

But, mowing doesn't take balance, like skiing or roller blading does.

[Nothing Special]

Yeah, the truck doesn't seem small or sporty after driving the Bronco!  That's after driving the motorhome.  But it does feel refined compared to the Bronco!

[Nothing Special]

I see a lot of people running with ear buds.  If I'm coming up behind them I'll try to warn them with an "on your left", and they still all seem to jump as they are startled when I come by.  I wonder if they take them out when they get out of the park and on the roads???

[Nothing Special]

Nothing Special wrote

....  And while I found it to be impossible to hook up this hitch without loading up the bars with a Hi-Lift jack, others seem to be able to do it using the tongue jack.  If that worked it would make it a lot less of a pain.  But for me it didn't work.  Wasn't even close.

Jim reminded me of this thread so I looked it up to see what I had said last spring, and found that I have something to add here.

This summer we went camping with some friends.  They have a decent sized travel trailer (a little smaller than my folks) that they tow with a newish Chevy heavy-duty 3/4 ton crew cab short box.  So pretty similar to my truck except ~20 years newer.

I watched him hook up the lift bars on his weight distributing hitch.  He used the tongue jack to lift the back of the truck an inch or two, then pulled the lift bars up about an inch by hand.  This compares with my needing to pull my lift bars up probably over 6" (maybe 8"?) which requires hundreds of pounds (over 1000?) of force.

I don't know what to make of the difference.  It could be that his hitch is that much easier to use and I just bought the wrong one.

But I suspect the real difference is that he doesn't have his set up "right".  I could set mine up to hook up as easily as his if I was only deflecting the lift bars an inch or two.  And in fact, it wasn't too hard for me to get the chains to the 2nd link using the HiLift jack under the trailer tongue (3~4" of deflection on the bars).  But the instructions that came with mine said that the front suspension should squat slightly when it's set up correctly, and I had to go to 5 links to get that.  So I'm thinking he's not taking much weight off his rear axle.  But he has a heavy, strong truck and not a ridiculously heavy trailer, so it works for him.

So anyway, I don't know how much that helps, but it's at least a partial data point.