Hi Folks,
I recently purchased a 1973 F350 with duals & a hoist. I intend to use it for hauling some gravel as well as some general farm work. Can anyone tell me how much weight the hoist can lift? The truck has a 4 speed & (I assume) a 390.
Thank you in advance for any information offered.

 

Picture please

 

Will post picture Saturday when I'm home. Thank you.

 

Oh well. Can't figure out how to post pics from my phone. My truck is just the typical 1973 farm F350 with a grain box. Dually, 390, 4 speed.

 

Whats the size of your cylinders? length and width of cylinder

 

Well that certainly provides enough information, right?

 

Front bumper/frame or bed mounted or gin pole hoist? Electric or hydraulic? Spool and cable side? And brand or model #'s on it?

We are good, actually real good, but we need just a bit more info or at least a pic.

 

Thanks for the pointers as to what info to pass along. I'll get measurements & pics Friday night after work. Will post Saturday AM.

 

Depending on who the dealership had building the truck box decides what quality truck box you got. Most times they were a high quality unit, sometimes not. When I was a puppy I worked in 2 truck box shops, New J Industries and Metals Industries. Metals made a good grain box but a lousy gravel box, they didn't put in a plank subfloor and it would cave in around the cross ribs. New J made the Protector truck box, shaped like a grain car with a bottom or end dump. Was to heavy due to panels that pulled together and closed the top of the box, was supposed to replace tarping the load. If you have a twin cylinder direct push ram system and your cylinders are 4" in cross section width, your rams are probably rated at 10,000lb each. Which means that you can safely lift 6,000lb and your box will lift straight and even. This is more than your gvw allows for. Grain boxes are higher than gravel boxes because grain is lighter than gravel volume wise. Your DOT legal load limit will be less than 4,000lb, now you know why we avoid weigh scales. Most of my loads were between 5200 & 6800 lbs.

If you have a scissor lift you could have all sorts of different ram strengths as a scissor lift is based on leverage. If you have a single verticle cylinder on the front of your box you have a widow maker, get rid of it. If you have a chain and gear or spool and cable system your truck box is probably pre WW2.

Twin ram - safest and usually the most popular depending on your area
Scissor lift - good, more maintanence, sometimes they seize up (multiple reasons)
Electric hydraulic is modern technology - first generation were crap. I've got the system on my 88 f450, it's 2nd gen but is modified.

With luck you'll have a Chelsea/Dana system with a transmission driven pto with a drive shaft hooked up to a pump that's fed by a 5 gallon reservoir with twin rams.

 

Jack

People on this site will go out of their way to help you.. but we need good information to give you good information... so maybe a regular computer is the way to go .. you can use any of the picture posting websites like photobucket to upload your pictures. and the link will automatically have them work here

We cannot guess the capacity of your hoist... they start at 2000 pounds and go up forever... one of the other posters here gave you good general info on ram size vs capacity.. but there are a million variables...

1) Measure the rams diameter
2)tell us how they are powered
See if there is any info still left on the rams... and obviously if you have that the internet will be a great resource
3) Without pictures its still a guess


There is a huge source of brainpower here and lots of excellent mechanical experience to provide suggestions
AND
unlike some other wrenching websites like Pirate,, this place is ultra friendly and wont bag on people who dont know how to do things

People here are passionate about keeping old fords// all fords.. running well