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On Friday our van went into the shop, and my F150 suddenly needed to be able to carry our daughter's wheelchair around. Problem is the hitch was too high for the lift without an adapter, so I installed a poor-man's leveling kit. 8 bags of tube sand is 560 lbs, and it lowered the hitch almost two inches.
Add to that 480 lbs of lift and power wheelchair on the hitch, and you have a pretty decent load on the rear axle. Still had between 3-4" before hitting the stops, and of course it rode considerably better with that much weight over the axle.
Lots of folks talk about suspension sag, but not often are there hard numbers behind it. Thought you guys may find this interesting, I'm quite happy with how it rode and handled.
Thanks Tom for providing numbers, now I'm going to ask for a photo from above showing the placement of the sand in the bed. Was it up against the tailgate?
I don't plan on putting 1040 lbs in the bed of a truck, ever, but it's neat to see that it's only slightly down in the back, and the distance to the bump stops sounds acceptable.
Hard for me to tell from the photo - did you end up with the truck being level overall, or is the rear now lower than the nose?
For myself, I would have been tempted to simply use a ramp and run the chair straight into the bed (though it might be too steep for that). In the past I have seen trucks with a small crane in the corner of the bed, too (don't know how cost effective that would be).
Thanks Tom for providing numbers, now I'm going to ask for a photo from above showing the placement of the sand in the bed. Was it up against the tailgate?
Just got to work, and I don't have the truck with me at the moment. Here's a photo just after I got the sand. I removed two of the rear bags after loading the chair and realizing I didn't need the hitch that low. So the photo in the OP is with the following configuration minus the two closest to the battery in the milk crate.
If that makes sense. Think I confused myself!
I could estimate the COG of the hitch setup and calculate the load placed on the rear axle. 480 lbs that far back adds more to the axle, as weight is levered off the front axle. Not sure exactly how much though, as I haven't measured distance from the axle.
Hard for me to tell from the photo - did you end up with the truck being level overall, or is the rear now lower than the nose?
Tough to say for sure. I believe the rear is now slightly lower.
Originally Posted by wrvond
For myself, I would have been tempted to simply use a ramp and run the chair straight into the bed (though it might be too steep for that). In the past I have seen trucks with a small crane in the corner of the bed, too (don't know how cost effective that would be).
Ramps are quite cumbersome to use. It would take a folding 10' ramp to get the chair that high, which would weigh almost 100 lbs. The hitch-mounted lift was over $4,000 and paid for by my health insurance company. Bed-mounted cranes are available, but insurance won't pay for them because they're considered a permanently installed modification.
This thing is power operated, and uses a linear actuator to lower the platform to the ground and pick the chair up. The chair was weighed at 337 lbs last week, and the hitch lift is 142 lbs.
Tough to say for sure. I believe the rear is now slightly lower.
Ramps are quite cumbersome to use. It would take a folding 10' ramp to get the chair that high, which would weigh almost 100 lbs. The hitch-mounted lift was over $4,000 and paid for by my health insurance company. Bed-mounted cranes are available, but insurance won't pay for them because they're considered a permanently installed modification.
This thing is power operated, and uses a linear actuator to lower the platform to the ground and pick the chair up. The chair was weighed at 337 lbs last week, and the hitch lift is 142 lbs.
The extent of my expertise is gained through television and it shows.
True though! I've been blasted more than a few times over the years by the weight police.
But even they shouldn't complain too much about this one. I was within spec, and I think the truck is handling everything great. Count me as a happy regular payload package owner.
Just wanted to leave one more thought here. We all know that applying weight to the hitch levers weight off the front axle, as the rear axle acts as the fulcrum of a lever. Hence the need for weight distributing hitches.
I just measured, and it looks like the front part of the platform is around 5.5' behind the rear axle. So assuming the COG is 6 inches behind that, the 479 lb load has a COG of 6 feet behind the rear axle.
Torques have to equal, so some easy algebra:
479(weight) * 72(length behind axle) = 145(wheelbase) * X
X = 238 lbs lifted off the front axle and placed on the rear with this setup.
So, assuming my sand is evenly distributed over the rear axle, the total added load on the rear suspension is 479(hitch lift and chair) + 238(weight from front axle) + 560(sand) = 1,277 lbs.
Thanks everyone for indulging in some weight geekery with me. I should probably grab a hitch height with everything loaded at some point, but I'll be at work today when they load up.
