The ash wood is roughly 3000lb per full cord. My old T100 held 2/3 full cord in the box with racks (7ft box, and it's narrower than the ford). Just a rough guess, the full size truck box with racks could probably hold 1-1.25 full cord. The GVWR on the truck is 8800lb but I'm not sure how much it actually weighs, either case the frame, springs, axle can handle a lot more. Generally Fords have good brakes so stopping ability shouldn't be the limiting factor w\o a trailer.
The last time my dad and I were getting wood, I'd haul 2 face cord (1/3 of a full cord) on my T100 and get 3 trips in a day. I mainly moved the wood while my dad cut it. The land owner and my dad also got the same amount of wood in the same time. I don't have a trailer yet, but my dad has a flat bed he built ages ago. It hauls around 5 face cord on it and is 14ft long. It wasn't built super heavy but we've had around 4 tons on it scrapping with no problems. I do plan to get a trailer, but sometimes location doesn't permit a trailer, too much off road to get the wood, or the trails are too tight.
Since I'm planning to get a skid steer, that will likely change how I get wood. I'm thinking along the lines of trailer the skid steer on site (if permitted) and cut the wood to length for the trailer and stack logs and chain down. I'd have to pretty much have a dump trailer to unload with out it though.
I haven't looked up the spec, but pretty sure the F250 should have a GCWR of 15,000+. Here's a quick forum post I found, unsure where the person got the figures from. My truck has 3.55 gearing, but I see no reason why the truck couldn't handle the 20,000 if it's just the gearing, it's saying max pulling power of the engine. Going slower is no big deal to me with that big of a load. CDL requirements kick in at 26,001 lbs btw.
Quote:
|
3.55 gears is 16,000 and 4.10 is 20,000 for a 1997 would be willing to bet that a 1995 would be the same
|
Anyway, that should mean with truck + trailer weight and around 10,000lb load I should be within the actual rating of the truck still (going with the 4.10 gearing spec and going slower). That's around 3.5 full cord or about 10.5 face cord which is quite a lot. To give context, a 40ft x8ft x8.5ft tall shipping container filled to the roof is roughly 50 face cord. A standard semi trailer is 52ft long if I remember right to give context.
Back when my dad was scrapping me, he put roughly 4 ton in the back of his F250, but decided to move the cast iron (engine blocks, heads, etc) to the trailer because the frame was flexing a little. The cab to box gap was closer at the top vs the bottom. Kind of crazy, but on a 1982 Toyota pickup 2wd, he had 4 ton on it when he went to the scrap yard. I was like 5 years old at the time, but I wouldn't doubt he'd do something like that back then. My family is pretty stubborn and push the limits on things as you can probably see. I take after my mom a bit more with is like the exact opposite so I try to stay a bit more within the bounds of what the thing is designed to do, plus there's a ton more traffic now.
Personally, I'd keep driving the T100 if I didn't need to haul the skid steer (8,000-10,000 lbs). I suspect with good driving habits I can get similar mpg though with the diesel, just slightly higher fuel cost. I drove a 1986 Toyota pickup long box 2wd for a while. 5 speed stick and I think the gearing was 3.42 which is super high for a toyota (typical is 4.10) and it would pull around 30mpg empty with a carb over flowing (float too high) and the front right caliper hanging up/dragging. I put oversized cherokee rims and tires on it since the stock ones were super tiny and the tires it came with were dry rotting, so overall even higher geared. It was a truck to get me by till I got what I wanted at the time, a 4x4 Tacoma manual. The tacoma didn't pan out though, leaf spring broke free from the frame and decided to get away from the USA made truck and go back to Japanese made. My T100 is way way way more rusty, but the frame is fine. Dana was the contractor for building the Tacoma and Tundra frames, they really screwed up on them. The T100 was originally bought for a parts truck, non running, bad computer. Paid $10 for tech info access for wire diagrams and such and repinned an automatic computer I had in another parts truck and it ran great so I just drove it. Orig computer for a stick is like $300-400, automatic... $50 replacement cost. I paid $500 for the T100, and $2000 for the Tacoma (and sold for parts/repair for $1000 but sold another parts truck with it for $900 that I paid $650 for, still a loss though).
That load of hay looks tiny compared to the farmers around my area. I helped move hay for a horse farmer for a while. Here's a photo I found that looks similar to his loads, the very top row he didn't do though (unstable at normal driving speeds).
https://i.gyazo.com/17533cd948410744...f4a6c6d373.jpg
Sometimes the farmers would be nice and let him pull a hay wagon to his house to unload, lot slower traveling but a whole lot more transported at a time. I think the truck held like 58 or 60, and the hay wagons would hold 150-200.
One thing to point out, short trips and small loads works fine. However if the distances increase, then the fuel cost and time involve just driving really eats way as a cost. That's why I didn't bother with a trailer for the last place I got wood, it's only like 6 miles away. Also getting wood off people's land, sometimes the owners can be a bit weird so it's best to not cut a bunch of wood up and leave it to make a big load, it might not be there when you go to get it.
The F250 payload (actual weight of the content hauled) should be around 2 ton (4,000 lbs), the actual physical limits looks to be around 4 ton before the frame starts to flex a bit. It's pretty hard to get 4 ton in the back of a truck though, need stone, steel, or something else that's dense.