This truck can haul

[51mavhatter]

I'm building scenery for a college opera production. Nothing too exciting, but it should look good when it's done.

Nice. The show must go on.

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[Thefer]

My cover is aluminum, and it has a listed capacity of 400lbs. I wouldn't say it's made for exactly this kind of job, but I think the designers knew it would come up.

The cover on my F350 is rated for 2,000lbs on top. I've never come close to that, but it's built tough enough.

What cover is this, I pick up my maverick in June and looking at bed covers already.

 

[B. Adams]

What cover is this, I pick up my maverick in June and looking at bed covers already.

It's a Diamondback, specifically the Switchback.

All aluminum and made in the USA by a small company rather than one owned by a private equity firm, with a pricetag to prove it. Be prepared for some sticker shock.

I bought mine on Black Friday, which softened the blow a little bit. It came in a few weeks before my truck did, which worked out well.

Let me know if you go this route. I'll be curious to hear what you think.

 

[Phimosis]

I'll admit you're partially right. At least in principle. Maybe mostly, even, but not completely. Your math isn't quite right though.

The back of wheel wells extend about 30" from the front of the bed. The corner of the tailgate is about 76" from the front of the bed in the middle position. This puts a little more than half the weight on the wheel wells, and a little less than half on the tailgate. After doing some math, the ratio is around 54:46% front to back. In this case, I think the tailgate was supporting about 562lbs at the most, and that's using the high side of average lumber weights. Which is what you must have been using to come up with a total of 1,400lbs. I think the total weight was less than that, but it would be hard to prove now that most of that lumber has been cut up and stapled back together in different shapes.

I took 180lbs off of that 1,400 number for my calculations to accout for the 4 sheets of 1/2" plywood were resting entirely on the bed cover, and not adding weight to the tailgate or wheel wells, only to the bed rails. But assuming there was 1,220lbs total in the bed, 562lbs would be on the tailgate and 658lbs on the wheel wells.

I did not know that the tailgate rating was reduced with it’s in the middle position, thanks for clarifying that point. It looks like it's rated for 500lbs down, 400lbs in the mid position, so I was likely exceeding that rating. But if the total bed capacity is only 500lbs with the tailgate in the mid position, and the tailgate can be 400lbs of that can each wheel well only support 50lbs? Who knows. I'm not sure where they came up with those numbers, or how Ford could advertise that this truck can haul 18 sheets of 3/4 if the total capacity is only 500lbs when the tailgate is halfway up. However it works out, I probably had more weight on the tailgate than I should have. It didn't complain though.

In any case, I hauled as big of a load as I think I ever will with this truck, and everything worked out fine. Maybe it was over the listed capacity for this particular configuration, maybe not, but the truck handled great, and nothing is bent, broken, or stretched. I think I was fortunate that the whole trip was on a fairly new, smooth road. No real bumps to speak of, so nothing experienced much of a dynamic load. Although, I have to assume that Ford's engineers are taking into account that there will be some dynamic loading beyond the listed capacity when they publish those numbers. In any case, I still don't feel like I was pushing things too much, and I'm very happy with how this truck performed.

In retrospect I should have added some 2x6 braces in the provided slots, and I'll certainly do that next time I haul anything like this again. It looks like that takes more weight off of the wheel wells than the tailgate, but it would lighten the load on each a little bit, so I think it's worth doing. Especially since I already have a bunch of 2x6 in my shop.

Thanks for making the points you did, and bringing up those specs I was unaware of. I appreciate it and I see where you're coming from. You've definitely given me some things to think about.

I was just spitballing by guessing the overhang lengths and the fender length and it was not accurate. So I spent the time to find diagrams with measurements and go back and calculate it with the actual measurements and I got 547 lbs on the tailgate. I used the average of the posted ranges for Douglas fir. The lightest would be 1204, heaviest would be 1,489 lbs and average was 1,346 lbs.

But yeah, the point is the same, support the load with 2x6 cross bars to reduce the load on the tailgate.

 

[Thefer]

It's a Diamondback, specifically the Switchback.

All aluminum and made in the USA by a small company rather than one owned by a private equity firm, with a pricetag to prove it. Be prepared for some sticker shock.

I bought mine on Black Friday, which softened the blow a little bit. It came in a few weeks before my truck did, which worked out well.

Let me know if you go this route. I'll be curious to hear what you think.

Thanks I don't actually get my truck until June and have started looking at covers that can handle a beating as I am going to keep tools in the back.

 

[TedTX]

Truck is a car wash now. Just finished with an 800 lb load of dirt

 

[Jah.]

Plenty of hauling here . bag of gravel (700 lbs ) , bricks , cinder blocks and ECT . ECT is bicycles and other things that I pickup and refurbish that people put out during trash day . I recycle those items .

 

[The Real Maverick]

My cover has attachment points for straps right on it, so the stuff on top wasn't going anywhere. I drove a half hour to get home, mostly at 75mph, and nothing moved one bit.

Holy $%#! the weight was ok but your speed was not ok for that much weight.

You had 150% of normal mass to stop with 100% of normal brakes.

The only risky thing you did in my book was went too fast.

 

[The Real Maverick]

With such a small bed, it is difficult to add too much weight to these trucks.

Brick / concrete blocks up to the side rails would overload it. Not much else will.

 

[B. Adams]

Holy $%#! the weight was ok but your speed was not ok for that much weight.

You had 150% of normal mass to stop with 100% of normal brakes.

The only risky thing you did in my book was went too fast.

I was maybe a little over the max payload capacity, but definitely not by 50%. Maybe not at all. The max payload capacity is 1,500lbs, and the lumber was around 1,000-1,200lbs. Plus me, and whatever else happend to be in the cab at the time, I probably wasn't overweight overall.

The speed limit on the interstate here is 80, and plenty of people drive faster than that. For this trip though, I was on a 4 lane highway with a 70mph speed limit. If I'd felt like it was too much, I would have slowed down.

Also, mine has the 4k tow package, so it probably has some advantages on a load like this vs one with the 2k package.

Holy $%#! the weight was ok but your speed was not ok for that much weight.

You had 150% of normal mass to stop with 100% of normal brakes.

The only risky thing you did in my book was went too fast.

I was maybe a little over the max payload capacity, but definitely not by 50%. Maybe not at all. The max payload capacity is 1,500lbs, and the lumber was around 1,000-1,200lbs. Plus me, and whatever else happend to be in the cab at the time, I probably wasn't overweight overall. There was likely a little more weight on my tailgate than there should have been, but I'll plan better next time.

Ford says you can haul 18 sheets of 3/4" plywood in these, and that's about what this load was equivalent to.

The speed limit on the interstate here is 80, and plenty of people drive faster than that. For this trip though, I was on a 4 lane highway with a 70mph speed limit. If I'd felt like it was too much, I would have slowed down. But nothing felt out of the ordinary.

Also, mine has the 4k tow package, so it probably has some advantages on a load like this vs one with the 2k package.

 

[JMJB]

 

[notfast]

I don't think that load posed a safety risk as long as it was adequately strapped down and the vehicle was driven responsibly. Even if that load was carried in an F-350 long bed with the tailgate shut, one should still drive more cautiously than one might while unloaded.

As for the weight taxing the braking system, again, this is where responsible driving comes into play and one shouldn't assume that the vehicle will have similar performance while loaded. Heck, most states will let you tow a trailer without brakes unless the trailer weighs more than 3,000lbs, but even the most restrictive state (New York) doesn't require brakes unless the trailer weighs more than 1,000lbs.

Now if that was a regular load then a truck with a higher payload capacity might be a consideration, if anything so that the suspension isn't on or nearly on the bump stops frequently. But for an occasional load? Seems right up the Maverick's alley. As someone who owned an F-250, I can say that I'd much prefer to drive a Maverick every day than an F-250, especially while unloaded. My F-250 rode fairly smooth when I had a literal ton in the bed and a 5000lb trailer hitched on. Otherwise it was like the truck had solid shock absorbers.

 

[Phimosis]

Holy $%#! the weight was ok but your speed was not ok for that much weight.

You had 150% of normal mass to stop with 100% of normal brakes.

The only risky thing you did in my book was went too fast.

As long as he’s not driving that fast in heavy traffic, he’ll be fine. If you’re out in a rural area with no traffic there’s really no risk. It’s not like a deer could jump out in front of you, or you could get a blow out or there could be debris in the road from someone’s load.

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