How much 5th wheel can I tow with a early 99 F250 7.3L, auto, ext cab, short bed, 4X2? thanks.
Depends on your definition of "can".
If you never exceed any of Ford's weight limits, then not much of a 5er. The problem is your heavy diesel engine but only 8,800 GVWR.
Your SuperCab shorty 4x2 probably weighs about 7,500 pounds when wet and loaded for the road with driver, passenger, toolbox, cooler, spray-in bedliner, 5er hitch installed, floor jack in the bed, full of diesel, etc. That gives you a max hitch weight of 1,300 pounds, which translates into a 5er that grosses about 8,000 pounds without exceeding the GVWR of your tow vehicle.
But if watch what you carry in the truck so your wet and loaded tow vehicle weighs only 7,000 pounds, then that's a max hitch weight of 1,800 pounds, which is a wet and loaded 5er of up to about 10,500 pounds.
But lots of folks claim that the F-250 is almost identical to an F-350 SRW, so it should really have a GVWR of 9,700 or 9,900 pounds. If you buy that rationale for overloading, then your 7,500 pound tow vehicle would have an unused payload of up to 2,400 pounds, which translates into a wet and loaded 5er grossing enough so that the GVWR is no longer the limit - the GCWR of 20,000 pounds becomes your limit. So with a 7,500 pounds tow vehicle, that leaves up to 12,500 pounds max trailer weight without busting the GCWR of your rig.
The first step is to load your pickup for the road, then weigh it. Subtract the weight of the wet and loaded tow vehicle from 8,800 (or 9,700 or 9,900) pounds, and divide the answer by 0.17 to get the max 5er weight you should consider towing.
In my case my wet and loaded tow vehicle (CrewCab PSD long bed 4x2) weighs about 8,000 pounds before I tie onto the trailer. My 5er usually grosses about 8,000 pounds, so my GVW on the two truck axles is usually around 9,200 to 9,400. One long trip I grossed 9,600 pounds on the 4 truck tires. So I'm usually over the 8,800 pounds GVWR of my tow vehicle, but under the 9,700 pounds GVWR of an F-350 SRW with CA emissions or the 9,900 pounds GVWR of an F-350 SRW with 49-state emissions.
With my mild hot-rodding, Sierra Blanca handles my 5er just fine and dandy, coast to coast and border to border - including crossing the Rockies on I-10, I-40, I-80 and I-90. I-90 was a real workout. I haven't attempted I-70 west of Denver yet.
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My Sierra Blanca is a '99.5 PSD CrewCab hot-rod Towing Machine! BTS tranny; TurboRamAir intake and 4" stainless turbo-back exhaust; DP-Tuner tunes flashed into an Edge Evolution tuner; ISSPRO EV gauges and TTM; AIC; SP-Diesel exhaust brake and torque converter controller. I special-ordered it new and plan to drive it until it quits.
Last edited by SmokeyWren : 03-21-2008 at 12:19 PM.
Reason: fix typo
Smokey, Been awhile since I have been on here, good to see your still cranking out the helping posts. You won't have a bit of problem on I70. I moved to the Devner area from So. Cal about 4 years ago and have been up and down that interstate with my former F250 weighing a lot more that you do. (Fear of the GVWR police prevent me from disclosing the actual weight!) Other than Eisenhower pass and Vail pass, there isn't much else that you have not already seen. The biggest thing with those 2 passes is how to deal with the semi's doing 20 or 30 going up the hill. You either decide to settle in behind them, or keep trying to pass them while dodging the cars wanting to do 75 up the hill.
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Current truck 2005 F350
The biggest thing with those 2 passes is how to deal with the semi's doing 20 or 30 going up the hill. You either decide to settle in behind them, or keep trying to pass them while dodging the cars wanting to do 75 up the hill.
If you try to tow a heavy trailer up I-70 to the tunnel west of Denver at less than 40 MPH, you'll burn up the tranny. So you have to go fast enough to lock the torque converter.
My rig will climb that pass at over 50 MPH, so if slower big rigs are blocking the right lane I get in the nex lane over and tool along as fast as I can go without exceeding 1,250º pre-turbo EGT. The folks wanting to zip along at the speed limit will just have to cool their heels until I get past the really-slow traffic.
I lived in Denver 20 years, and took the kids skiing often. So I know about slow traffic up the pass. The worst was the typical '59 VW Microbus full of hippies blocking traffic at 20 MPH. But that was an earlier era.
Yep, I know what you mean. However with my 99.5, pulling my 34' 5er up Eisenhower, if I stayed down in 2nd gear at lower speeds my tranny temps would stay pretty low. However the last time I did it I was crusing 65 or better. I also had the Gear Vendor and did not realize it was way past a service. My engine and tranny were fine, but it did overheat the GV and blew the seal out of it. After trying to fix the seal a couple of times, I ended up needing to buy a re-built GV unit.
Too bad my 05 won't pull as well as the old 7.3L would. I have to put the foot to the floor to maintain speed with 1/4th the weight.
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Current truck 2005 F350
after gvwr gawr and all that id say as much as you feel safe with your experience on the terrain and distance counted in
the 250 and 350 from 86 to present are all in the same ballpark
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88 F-250 body,550 rear frame setup, 7.3 idi, 3:73 dana 80 rear, srw, dana 50 front, heavy duty leaf springs, back up camera, 20$ wallyworld fog lamps, class 5 bumper hitch welded to frame and gusseted, 32" steering tires all around, ac power converter,jeep bucket seats, deezee runningboards (cab only),cobra 29 cb w/ 102" whip, 2 trucklight worklights on front stake pocket each side,high lift jack behind seat, toolbox for the junk, visor, running lights, 6600 lbs with all my junk
I'm trying to figure out how much I can haul on my GN/F350 rig. Had them weighed today, and the truck weighs 8300#(loaded), GN 4600#(empty) total 12900#
GVWR on door post is 11200#. Don't know where to find GCWR. Using your formula from above, if I subtract 8300 from 11200= 2900/.17=17059#-4600=
12458#. Thats 15 850# rolls of hay. Does this sound reasonable? Where did you get the GCWR number, and what is the .17 divisor? Thanx.
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2000 F350 DRW LARIAT 4X4 AUTO
CREW CAB 150K MILES
DON'TSEE ANY EVIDENCE OF ANY UPGRADES
LAST ONE 1992 F250 XLT
GVWR is the weight that your truck can handle, including fuel, load in the bed, and tongue weight. GCWR is in your owner's manual, which is a number derived from your engine, tranny, frame, brakes, and gearing. I believe a 2000 F series superduty is rated at 20K GCWR. So, if you truck weighs 8300#'s, then your max trailer weight would be 11,700#'s. I did not go back and read Smokey's post, but I believe the 17% was a rough estimate of what the tongue weight would be from the trailer on the tow vehicle. That meaning the tongue weight as a portion of the trailer weight would be transfered to the truck, going against the carrying capacity of the truck. However, with your truck at a GVWR of 11,200#, and a loaded weight of 8,300#, you have a load capacity (tongue weight capacity) of 2,900#.
So, if you go by Ford's numbers, you can have 2,900#'s on the truck, including tongue weight, and a cargo carrying capacity of 7,100#'s (truck and trailer weight of 12,900 minus from GCWR of 20K).
Hope this helps,
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Current truck 2005 F350
I'm trying to figure out how much I can haul on my GN/F350 rig. Had them weighed today, and the truck weighs 8300#(loaded), GN 4600#(empty) total 12900#
GVWR on door post is 11200#. Don't know where to find GCWR.
GCWR is in the PSD supplement to your user's guide. For your truck, it's 20,000 pounds.
Quote:
Using your formula from above, if I subtract 8300 from 11200= 2900/.17=17059#-4600=
12458#. Thats 15 850# rolls of hay. Does this sound reasonable?
No. That formula assumes GVWR is your limiter, the way it is on an F-250.
But on your Dooley, GCWR is your limiter. Your truck and trailer weighs 12,900, so simply subtract that from 20,000 and that's your max net payload on the trailer = 7,100 pounds. Only 8 rolls of hay, plus a little slop.
Quote:
Where did you get the GCWR number, ...
From the 2000 model RV and Trailer towing guide. But it's also in your PSD supplement.
Quote:
...and what is the .17 divisor?
For properly-loaded RV fifth-wheel trailers, those with a GVWR between about 8,000 and 11,000 will have a hitch weight of about 17 percent of gross trailer weight. So if you divide your allowable hitch weight by 17 percent, you'll get a good approximation of the max gross weight of a 5er you can tow without busting the GVWR weight limit.
But goosenecks are another story.
If you put 7,100 pounds on your 4,600 pound trailer, that's a gross trailer weight of 11,700 pounds. But most properly load-balanced gooseneck trailers have around 20 percent to 25 percent hitch weight. So with a trailer grossing 11,700, you'd have over 2,300 pounds hitch weight. No problem for your Dooley, but an F-250 would be severely overloaded.
So if you had an F-250 with only 8,800 pounds GVWR, you couldn't tow much hay on your trailer without busting the GVWR of the tow vehicle.
But back to your truck:
8,300 truck weight
2,300 hitch weight
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10,600 GVW on the truck axles = well below your GVWR.
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8,300 truck weight
11,700 trailer weight
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20,000 GCW = right on the money.
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So when loaded to the GCWR, you still have extra GVWR you're not using. So GVWR is not your limiter. GCWR is.
If you try to tow a heavy trailer up I-70 to the tunnel west of Denver at less than 40 MPH, you'll burn up the tranny. So you have to go fast enough to lock the torque converter.
Smokey, I thought tow/haul would lock the torque converter below 40 mph depending on accelerator position and load in order to keep the trans running cooler. Will tow/haul mode not lock the TC below 40 mph when going uphill?
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2004 F-250 Lariat CC, Short Bed, 4x4, 6.0L, TorqShift, FX4, Metallic Green/Arizona Beige, Medium Parchment Leather, Fumoto, B&W Turnover, A.R.E. LSX Tonneau, Built 4/01/04
Thanks you guys - Everyone around here must grossly overload duallys and goosenecks. I see some humongous loads on them.
My hay farmer loads a 40 footer on an F350 weekly with 33 rolls Chided me when I stopped at 12, said I could easily handle 15.
12 worked fine, plenty of power and plenty of brakes. thought it handled very well. Now I'm in a real quandry. 300 mile round trip @11mpg makes those rolls expensive.
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2000 F350 DRW LARIAT 4X4 AUTO
CREW CAB 150K MILES
DON'TSEE ANY EVIDENCE OF ANY UPGRADES
LAST ONE 1992 F250 XLT
Will tow/haul mode not lock the TC below 40 mph when going uphill?
Sorry, but I don't know much about the TorqShift tranny behind the 6.0L PSD engine. I know it has a tow/haul mode, and that's about it.
But cooljman1 (the topic starter) has a 4R100 tranny behind a 7.3L PSD, and it doesn't have a tow/haul mode. So my reply was aimed at him.
The TorqShift tranny is a genuine wonder of the world compared to our old 4R100s. So I wouldn't be surprized if Mark Kovalsky didn't calibrate (program) it so it could climb slow mountain trails without overheating. Mark is the expert on the TorqShift with the tow/haul mode, so we need him to chime in here. I'll ping him and see if he's awake from his hibernation slumber yet.
Last edited by SmokeyWren : 03-26-2008 at 10:40 AM.
Reason: typo
So I wouldn't be surprized if Mark Kovalsky didn't calibrate (program) it so it could climb slow mountain trails without overheating.
Even in tow/haul the torque converter can only lock in the two top gears. So at 40 MPH and below there is no torque converter lock. There are hardware issues that prevent it from locking in the lower three gears. The truck, however, has a HUGE trans cooler.
With a 2005 F550 I towed at 30,000 pounds GCW up a twelve mile 8% grade. The ambient temp was just above 100F at the bottom, around 95f at the top. The truck maintained 37 MPH with my right foot on the floor the whole time. The torque converter never locked and the trans temp never hit 200F.
__________________ Mark
Former Automatic Transmission Engineer 1988-2007
) Other than Eisenhower pass and Vail pass, there isn't much else that you have not already seen. The biggest thing with those 2 passes is how to deal with the semi's doing 20 or 30 going up the hill. You either decide to settle in behind them, or keep trying to pass them while dodging the cars wanting to do 75 up the hill.
I'm lost Smokey
Automatic Transmission Engineer 1988-2007
Linear Mode
