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Recently bought a 97 F-superduty with a flatbed on it. Wanted to get a safety check on the hitches on the flatbed, especially the gooseneck.The bed seems to be bolted, and welded on.
Not a fan of that gooseneck, it's not braced to the frame and the bed is taking the load which isn't good. The ball also appears to be a small shank hitch ball and not a large shank gooseneck ball.
UPDATE: Took it to a reputable gooseneck shop in the area. He said that a frame mounted gooseneck setup wouldn't work with my setup, but they have a welded "Coffin" setup like mine that had a slightly higher tow rating than frame mount.... Thoughts?
Also, what about the regular tow hitch area? Same guy said he wouldn't put more than 10 grand on it. Thought about getting a receiver welded to it instead of tow ***** being ripped out of it like the middle one.
I’d do the receiver tube, weld one on and figure a way to box it a little more, Circle D flatbeds had hitches like that and they were prone to torsional force twisting them down. As far as the gooseneck, most flatbeds I see are similar, you can beef up what you have with some triangles to the crossmembers, but as long as the bed is tied to the pickup frame well (side/side shear, front/back shear, and up/down), you should be fine - that one maybe could use some triangles on those vertical channel irons, and maybe more tie-in on the rear hitch that will also tie the bed frame down also - I always fall back on how good of a rep. B&W has, and it’s tied to the frame basically with 1 bolt on each side, with another supporting bolt that pretty much just keeps it from twisting (‘95 250). On a newer tube frame, they’re more/less clamped onto some pretty light gauge stuff. We tend to overkill these things a tad.....
on edit -Y2Ks pic didn’t show up till just now for me, that looks like the perfect fix for yours, make it like that one and you’d be golden!
So drill a few holes where the beam meets the frame and ram in some grade 8s for ease of mind. Sounds good enough. A receiver hitch just seems like a good idea because of options and ease of change. The dude at the gooseneck shop had a lot of confidence in their welds.
In my photo above, the holes in the frame are factory OEM holes, in the same pattern as all chassis cab frames that Ford has manufactured for the last 20+ years.
Since the downward angular C channels are already welded to your longitudinal bed rails and frame, you could replace or supplement the angle iron between the parallel C channels with a 3" to 3.5" square tube, having a 2" to 2.5" receiver tube welded through it or on it perpendicularly.
Aw shoot - I was looking at those pics on my phone, didn’t see the weld from the channels to the pickup frame - yeah, you’re probably plenty solid there, although I’d be tempted to add a couple bolts anyhow - a good jerk could cause enough shock load to crack something, not really knowing how good it’s really welded....... there should already be some holes to re-use in the frame ends, like Y2KW57 mentioned, even a regular box pickup had them.
I didn't see any wood on the OP's truck. The wood on the truck I posted is prevalent in the installation of second unit bodies, and is a method authorized and recommended by Ford.
The wood spacer has no involvement whatsoever with the receiver hitch. The wood spacer rather serves as a compliant, compressible medium to distribute and thereby prevent localized stress risers from impinging on the factory frame rails as they twist.
So the only holes that line up with the C-channels are the two big ones, which I made a pilot hole in and drilled out with a step up bit from the outside. There is a single small hole in the frame that I could use, but I don't think it's worth drilling out.
Ford suggests using a hardened washer under the heads of Gr.8 bolts.
The frame steel of light trucks is mild A36, so the hardened washer will prevent the points of the hardened bolt from digging in.
I'm lost where you put that bolt... in the receiver hitch area or in the gooseneck area?
The visually apparent weaknesses of both the gooseneck and the receiver hitches in the original post photos appear to be the structures supporting the respective b-a-l-l-s, ie, the spans of material immediately supporting said b-a-l-l-s.
Adding shear pin bolts through the frame is still not addressing the spans supporting the b-a-l-l-s.
(Hyphenation is not for emphasis, it is rather to get around the automated content editor of the forum software)
I've seen a couple of hundred trucks with goose neck hitches like that pulling livestock trailers and Hot Shot in the oil fields all over the southern and western US. I believe you are fine with the Goose-neck portion. I would replace where the bumper and ***** are under the flatbed though, to many holes and it looks to be starting to deform. I'd recommend something closer to what Y2KW57 previously posted would be so much better.
Here is another photo of the receiver hitch on our flatbed...
And on a different chassis cab, with a service body, I took advantage of the same bolt hole pattern that Ford has punched at the rear of chassis cab frames for the last two decades, to install another 100% bolt on receiver hitch.
This shows the hardened washers I was talking about earlier (along with useless split spring lock washers, and nylock nuts that have no business under a chassis, due to exhaust heat melting the nylon, but this was a temporary install)
I prefer bolting through, rather than welding to, the oem frame, for a lot of reasons... none of which matter much in this thread as your frame is already welded. You appear to just need a stronger cross tube supporting the b a l l , and that tube can be welded inbetween the sideplates that already extend down from the frame.
This is the back portion of my frame. There is a support beam between the holes I am drilling out. (I have stopped in fear of confusion and re-re) I can take a video if it would help.
Sorry, I'm not a great photographer. I was drilling holes for bolts that go through the C-channels and the frame. Mine doesn't seem to have as many pre-drilled holes in the frame as your last picture. Just two giant, and one small one that barely lines with the C-channel. I'm working with baby steps. Not a lot of free time.
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