Well I drove my brand new 2012 F150 2wd XLT+ Screw over the scales today. The weight with me at 230lbs, truck box with about 180lbs of firefighting equip and a full fuel tank are.

Front. 3260
Rear. *2560
Gross. 5820

So once I turn 1000k miles and hook up my boat I will take it across the scales again to see how the weight distributes with this truck/trailer combo. The boat on the trailer with a half full fuel tank weighs 6200lbs. But given this truck sits lower then my powerstroke did want to see how much the tongue weight is gonna change.

 

Nice to see somebody going about this the right way!

 

I fully agree!

 

That's weird. My 06 FX4 Screw was over 6,000 lbs: 1/4 tank of gas, no personal effects in the cab or bed.

I had to ship it out here to Hawaii and the shipping station weighed her to see if I had to pay extra for shipping

 

2wd vs 4wd and v6 Eco boost vs v8

 

Excellent point

I had a brain fart

 

Lol! No worries. I have a few of those too from time to time

 

Flixden,

I looked the the scale weights for the boat and my powerstroke (previous truck)

The boat on the trailer weighed in at
6140lbs
The tongue weight was
640lbs
Now I realize due the height differences in the two trucks the tongue weight will change a bit. But not that much. My question is do you think I should or might need air bags for that load? I cannot hook up and tow boat yet as I don't have the 1000k miles recommended on the truck yet.
Just trying to think and stay ahead of the game. I really won't know for sure until I am able to pull the boat out of the water on the trailer and tow it around a bit.

 

Fire Rooster, Did you get the Heavy Duty Payload package on your XLT?
If you did could you tell us what the payload sticker says?
Thanks,
Jim C

 

I did not. I got the tow package. Not the Max tow

 

You still have a decent payload of 1280 with you and the gear assuming your GVWR is 7100.

 

Fire Rooster,
air bags won't do much in terms of improving the handling when towing a bumper pull trailer. They will make it look better by reducing the rear end sagging, but won't put load back onto your front axle where you need it.
With 640 lbs on the tongue, depending on your wheel base, a rough guess is that you will unload your front axle by ~ 250 lbs or so, while adding around 890 lbs to the rear axle load. Air bags won't do anything to correct these numbers, only a weight distribution hitch would.
I looked at my hitch, and it has a tongue "weight carrying" limit of 500 lbs and 1,150 lbs with weight distribution. If yours is anything like mine, then you'd need a WDH anyway for a tongue weight > 500 lbs to stay within the limits, which should eliminate the need of air bags. The other option would be to shift the weight (the boat?) back on the trailer, or the trailer axles forward.
I would also compensate for the height difference with a proper shank - to make the trailer sit level when towing.

 

Nice to see somebody going about this the right way!

 

Flixden hit the nail on the head, i just didn't want to be the first to say it.

strictly speaking, a weight distributing hitch is required for your toung weight.

Talking to folks on the boating forums, they tend to shoot for a little lighter static tounge weights, anywhere from 7 to 10 percent. Boats are often times able to get away with less static tounge weight and remain stable at speed, because of the way the bow slices through the air.

if you think about it, it makes some sense. the wind load on a big box trailer will tend to remove tounge weight as you travel down the road. so your 10% static could be, say, 5% with the wind load going down the road.

with a boat, you will loose less tounge weight due to the wind load because of the boat's shape.

This makes me think it might be worth trying to slide your boat rearward to get you down to the 500lbs your hitch is rated for. 500lbs gets you at 8% which is in the range ive seen the boat guys post as a target.

Another option, although admittedly less appealing at first, would be to replace your hitch with a class IV or Class V, which would rated for 1000/10,000lbs and 1200/12,000lbs WC/WD.

As Flixden said, airbags do nothing to correct the weight transfer effect with that much tounge weight, only a WD setup will do that. But they may make the truck ride much better, and they will level the truck out a bit.

 

Problem is that boat trailers cannot use a WD hitch. They work with surge brakes not electric. Thus a WD hitch will not allow the the tongue to slide and activate the brakes of the trailer.
What hitch comes with the tow package on the F150? Is it not a class IV? I haven't looked that closely at the hitch itself yet....
And unfortunately changing the trailer axles and shifting the weight on the from the boat on the trailer is really not an option either. The trailer was custom built for that boat and already distributes the weight very well. And looking at the numbers.... It is already at around 9% for the tongue weight. Once I am able to tow with the truck( mileage) then I can hook the trailer up and pull the boat out of the water, see how it rides, and take it all to be weighed.