Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Thanks, David & wife.  I'm adding this post to my "trucks and trailers" 
folder.
Laney

David LeBlanc wrote:
> Tichenor06 said:
>         
> > > I have a short bed.  I know MANY others that also have them.  Truck beds
> are like horse backs.  Shorter is stronger.  With any trailer bumper or
> goose with any truck long or short or flat, you have to learn and know what
> you can and can not do with regards to turning.  Go out in a pasture or
> parking lot and drive it around so you know what you can do and what you can
> not do.
>
> This isn't completely true. First of all, trucks from the same manufacturer
> don't all get the same suspension. The frame isn't going to be your limiting
> factor - the suspension will be. The way to figure this is by looking at the
> GVWR - gross vehicle weight rating. This is the heaviest the truck can be,
> including cargo. In your Ford Super-Duty truck line, the lowest GVWR is on
> the shortest truck at 8800#, and the longer trucks go up to 10,000#. This is
> partially to compensate for the added weight of the bigger truck itself, and
> won't show up in the maximum payload, which ranges from 3200# down to 2600#
> (1.6 tons to 1.3 tons - so much for the 1/2 ton, 3/4 ton, full ton stuff -
> even the F-150 can handle anywhere from 3/4 ton to 1.5 tons). If you go up
> to the F-450 and F-550, then you get a GVWR of 16,000#, and the carrying
> capacity on the bed goes up to close to 5 tons.
>
> It's also not true that the truck doesn't carry much of the weight. If
> everything is standing still, that's fairly correct - but it's still around
> 1/4 of the total trailer weight, so for our 33' trailer, 1/4 of the total is
> 2 tons (fully loaded). Our trailer would overload a normal Super Duty truck
> standing still. For the Chevy fans - they have a lower load carrying
> capacity. Now figure what happens when the trailer goes to stop. The trailer
> brakes are ideally doing most of the stopping of the trailer, and the truck
> isn't stopping the trailer or vice-versa. What this means is that the whole
> thing wants to pivot on the trailer wheels, and the nose of the trailer
> wants to go down, putting a lot of load on the bed, much more so if you're
> pointed downhill. On our older Chevy, which was overloaded, this would cause
> the front wheels to shimmy violently under these conditions because the
> suspension was so overloaded, it wasn't tracking right. The vehicle wasn't
> steerable under those conditions. Our F-550 is loaded well under capacity,
> and we've never seen any of those problems. This also shows that shorter
> isn't stronger - that F-550 has the longest wheelbase you can buy. The whole
> thing is so long it won't fit in a normal parking spot. But that's one of
> the platforms they build tow trucks out of.
>
> Next, the longer the wheel base, the better the vehicle will be able to
> resist side forces, and you don't end up with the tail wagging the dog. This
> is another reason to go for a longer wheel base.
>
> Now for _your_ trailer, _your_ truck might match up just fine, and be
> completely safe. People keep asking the wrong question, which is "what will
> it pull?" The right question is what will it stop, and what happens if I
> have to nail the brakes going downhill - will I still be in control of my
> vehicle?
>
> The way to answer these questions is by understanding GCVW and GVWR. The
> first is what the combined truck, trailer, horses, tack, hay, water, and
> people weigh all together. The second gives you an idea of the load you can
> put on the bed of the truck.
>
> The next question is just geometry - so if the gooseneck ball has to be just
> forward of the rear axle, can we put the truck at a 45 degree angle to the
> trailer, and not hit? If that works, can we get to a 90 degree angle and
> still not hit? Do you want a truck that only pulls your trailer, or one that
> pulls any gooseneck? Effectively, this means you need just over 4 feet (48")
> between the ball and the back of the truck cab. The Super Duty 8' cargo bed
> handles this just fine - it's 98" long. The shorter bed style may not,
> depending on where the axle is relative to the bed - it's only 82" long. I'm
> using Ford as an example because I can easily find the specs, but the same
> thing applies to any manufacturer.
>
> Another consideration is this - say you have the truck at 45 angle to the
> trailer, and then you put one side of the trailer in a hole, and it is
> tipped over. The outside corner of the trailer nose comes down. If you have
> something on the bed, is there clearance for this? We unfortunately didn't
> figure on this part until we were on our way to our first ride and
> rearranged one of the toolboxes =8-O
>
> The funny thing here is that I learned all this listening to my wife 8-)
> She claims this (me listening) rarely happens, but one day I was thinking
> about buying an F-350, and was talking with the salesman about interior
> options, and she was reading the towing guide and doing the math. The
> question of bed dimensions came up, and on the way home to find out what we
> needed for trailer to clear, she pointed out much of what I just outlined
> above.
>
>
>
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
>
>  Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net.
>  Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp
>  Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp
>
>  Ride Long and Ride Safe!!
>
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net.
Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp
Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp

Ride Long and Ride Safe!!

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=