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Probably not the biggest or the dumbest...but probably a contender one way or the other. This was with my first Explorer, taken last year. A 1/4 pallet of landscaping stones. Certainly made it squat!
Oh, and I just remembered one from my retail days...I wish I had a picture but this was years ago.
I worked at a local Sam's Club and during the spring and summer months, we sold these plastic "easy assemble" sheds...kinda like Rubbermaid, but a different brand. When a customer bought one, it came on a standard 30x40 pallet and stood 7 feet high. We typically told people they'd need at least an open-bed pickup truck to haul it away...no caps, no SUVs. We would use a forklift to load the whole palletized unit into the pickup bed, laying down on the 30" wide side (of course we weren't going to stand it up).
One time this guy came in with an older station wagon and bought one of these sheds. And he was adamant about taking it with him right then...he insisted on us putting it on the roof of the station wagon. We kept saying we couldn't, it might crush the roof (thing weighed a few hundred pounds)...he said he'd sign a waiver and everything...eventually we loaded it and he strapped it down and off he went. Dunno what happened after that...but it was one of those "shake my head" moments.
Toyota did have a 1 ton model. We had a couple of them at the wrecking yard I worked at 1984-1987. My landlord had a fleet of 10 of them when he had an electrical company.
There are Toyota motor homes still running around that are about as big as that 5th wheel is. I see them on I44 sometimes.
I just caught one today. In the guy's defense, the little truck did have a chrome 1ton badge on the tailgate-
holy crap! if he had any idea how unsafe that was,it makes ya wonder if he'd still do it.though im probably giving him way to much benefit of the doubt that he doesn't know better lol.
theres no way the clutch or auto trans is gunna hold up if he doesn't crash first.
I had a 94 Toyota that was a 3/4ton, it still had tiny brakes. The 1ton srw had tiny brakes too. The dually the campers were built on pretty much only shared the cab and front clip with the regular pickup.
I have dealt with the much older camper conversions, and they are not too enthusiastic about slowing down either.
i don't have a camera, so could not get a pic of it but yesterday in static island i saw an old chevy C-10 2 wheel drive loaded with busted up concrete.
full over the bed sides load. it was dragging the rear bumper every time it hit a bump, and the front wheels were just barely on the road.
and he was driving 45 mph down the highway!!!
Hay for what it's worth 18 bails of corn stocks is way too much, I'm not even going to claim that it was towed. Corn stocks are light he said but didn't figure in the 2 inch rain before.... first time the bump stops have ever touched on the rear axle!!!
I should have probably taken a picture but when I went for my second load there was a trailer similar to mine that was modified so it could hold 20 bails... the front Axel on the trailer had completely sheared off the wheel bolts!!!! They had it hooked to a semi truck. Lol
Not exactly a big dumb load but more of a change away from big dumb loads. A couple days ago I traded my 30+5 GN for a new 20+5 GN, it was almost virtually an even money swap even with the new trailer having the mega ramps. 11 bails is what I'm most likely going to be hauling from now on but if I want to push it 14 can still happen.... with a slightly less insane amount of pin wheight I might add.
