Your towing rigs and trailers

[em14]

Pat,
I have a bug smasher on my 2001 Silivrado 1500 and with 180,000 miles on the truck and the smasher I don't know that anything other than the area of the hood it covers is protected. I decided not to put one on the 2007 3500. As you may know the "Love-Bugs" come twice a year here and all windshields and exposed surface areas will be found by those guys! What mess they make!
Leo

 

[Mike058]

The day I brought home the new toy! L4240HST, FEL, and BH90. Trailer is 18foot including the dovetail at 10,400 lb capacity. What you don't see is the 2004 GMC 2500 HD doing the work. Not sure the total weight of the tractor and attachments, tractor has fluid in tires too, trailer is a little over 2000 lbs, but I think it is pretty much near the limit of the trailer.
I am using the stock hitch (7500 lbs capacity without weight distribution). Because of the weight and the way it pulls I believe I need to change hitch or go to a weight distributing setup. I have a weight distributing set up for my camper. I would need to add the levers where the chains attach to the tongue.
What are y'alls thoughts?

I didn't see any other responses, but I'd say go for the weight distributing hitch setup. It'll really make towing easier on you, the trailer and the truck. It'll be a lot safer and cut down the tendency for fish tailing.

 

[capt_met]

samandothers,
there has been some talk about the strength of the stock hitch used on GM trucks. i would say you would want to upgrade to a class 5 receiver. that should carry your weight fine without a weight distribution hitch. however to go with a wd hitch in addition to a class5 receiver could add extra security. good luck,

 

[patrick_g]

samandothers,
there has been some talk about the strength of the stock hitch used on GM trucks. i would say you would want to upgrade to a class 5 receiver. that should carry your weight fine without a weight distribution hitch. however to go with a wd hitch in addition to a class5 receiver could add extra security. good luck,

At some point as you progress up through more and more sturdy receiver hitches the strength of the part of the truck to which it attaches becomes more of an issue.

I replaced my stock hitch o the '97 Dodge dually one ton with a Class V rated 14,000 lbs and with the weight of the large service body and running 19.5 tires it felt really secure with serious loads. Curiously, the hitch I removed from the dodge was a virtual perfect fit on an '84 F-250.

Now with the '08 Super Duty F-250 the stock rating is 6000/600 lbs load/tongue. This is not a happy situation as I have a couple bumper pull trailers. One is rated 12,000lbs and the other is a 10,400 dump. I will be swapping out the receiver hitch assy for something rated for considerably more... B_U_T no matter which receiver hitch I go for it is being bolted to the same frame on the same truck and I don't know enough to know if the truck will do its part.

Ridiculous examplle to make a point: Bolting a 14,000 pound rated hitch to an eggshell doesn't make the combination able to handle 14,000 lbs.

I'd love to hear from folks who have put class V hitches on an F-250 and done some serious towing over an extended period of ownership and were pleased with the results.

Pat

 

[Diamondpilot]

Pat

I have a Class 5 on both my 2004 and 2006 F-250 and F350 PSD's. What I did was order the 2.5" unit from Ford. The book says it will only fit a dually but it fit both of my trucks fine. All bolt holes lined up perfect. Its rated at 15,000# and 1,500# TW, it is a beast. I have overloaded it numerous times with no issues. The cab and chassis trucks sold with no bed have a narrow frame but on my trucks the frame width and bolt patterns were the same as a bedded dually. The reason I went with a different hitch is I broke the factory F-250 hitch. It was rated the same as yours. Don't even ask what I had behind it for weight.

Chris

 

[GreatWhitehunter]

My 04 250 came with a 12k hitch. It was an option, it's 12k standard 14k wd.
I've pulled 14k twice without an wd hitch. The reciever was solid as were the truck.

Matt T.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

Has that Bug Smasher proved itself to be effective or has it turned out to be a fashion statement? I was wanting to get one for my F-250 SD PSD but wondered if if did much to deflect bugs. I have had them on other vehicles and with the varying aerodynamics of the various vehicles, sometimes they work pretty well and on other vehicles they don't do much at all.

Pat

Pat, on our 92' F-150 we didn't have a deflector on it for a few years and the front of that hood was chipped up real good. We put one on from Quality Farm and Fleet and it lasted a couple years till it broke . On the 98' F-150 we ordered the truck with the deflector on it from Ford. It was a heavy duty Lund with the Ford logo instead of Lunds. The 2002 we forgot to order the deflector and bought one from TSC. It cracked last year and ended up breaking completely in half. On the 2006 we bought that truck off the lot but ordered the deflector thru Ford. Ended up saving a few dollars compared to Autozone and had a nice deflector (well, we bought a deflector for the 06' Escape at the same time so it helped with the price).

I don't like driving trucks without the deflectors as the front edge of the hood will take a heavy beating up here.

 

[patrick_g]

Chris and Matt, Thanks so much for the info. I will be investigating getting the class V for my '08 F-250 to replace the 6000/600.

The Titan class V on my Dodge is a 2 1/2 inch drawbar model which I "shimmed" with a 2 1/2 inch OD and 2 inch ID piece of square tubing. I don't like play in heavily stressed mechanical things so I installed U-bolts to clamp the adapter to the 1/2 inch thick horizontal plate intended to be used on the dock bumper for mounting a ball. One super solid arrangement!

I have an adapter for the 2 1/2 inch Titan class V which is essentially a really long draw bar. It is a snug fit at one end at the receiver and tapers to a snug fit for a standard 2 inch draw bar at the back end. It derates the load capacity quite a bit as it sticks out a few feet and is only supported where it sticks into the receiver. It allows me to tow a trailer or my dune buggy behind a large slide in pickup camper with no attachment to the camper itself. The camper is eleven feet something, the largest/longest Lance made in '97.

Thanks again guys, I gotta get me a class V as the stock unit does not give me a confident feeling at all when it is rated at 1/2 the trailer rating.

Pat

 

[Samandothers]

Captain and Patrick, thanks for the additional input.
I don't feel comfortable with a 10 K load on a 7500 lb set up. I plan to get some input from a truck and trailer place I go to for accessories. I believe I will at least get the pieces for the tongue of my equipment hauler trailer so I may use my weight distribution set up.

 

[patrick_g]

Captain and Patrick, thanks for the additional input.
I don't feel comfortable with a 10 K load on a 7500 lb set up. I plan to get some input from a truck and trailer place I go to for accessories. I believe I will at least get the pieces for the tongue of my equipment hauler trailer so I may use my weight distribution set up.

I do understand how the WD setup works and in some instances it is the best compromise but it is not my preferred solution. I prefer the ease of rapidly hitching and unhitching and changing between trailers (mine or anyone else's.) If you are making a loooong run and will stay hitched up for a period of time and or your tow vehicle is some squirrelly or not capable of safely holding the weight then WD may be THE CHOICE.

Pat