I was worried that the winch system would not be robust enough to handle a 200 pound weight like that. I had winched it up and down a few times to test it (and risk damaging the thing) and it seemed to do fine.

Do ya think it'll hold out? I mean I'd only be winching it 2x per year, once in the fall and then again in the spring......

Digger

 

Friend of mine has a length of ninety pounds per foot rail road rail that lays in the floor of the bed against the closed tailgate. It stretches from side to side and is secured somehow. Leaves plenty of room in the bed for hauling and rides smoother too. Don't know the actual weight/length cause it's in the bed of a chebby and I won't go there.

 

Personally I'll reccomend a set of good snow tires and rims over a bunch of bed weight any day of the week..

 

I use six 40lb bags of topsoil (usually $1 per bag) in between the fender wells. When the temp goes down, the soil freezes (formed to the bedline) and they usually don't slide.

Then when spring rolls around, you use the topsoil in the yard!

 

I used to put a little weight in my old '69 Chevy half ton, but I put it behind the cab.

For a while, I had a box about 3x7 feet and maybe 8-10" high, that I'd fill with sand, and put in the back of my one-ton International.

I want to warn against putting weight near the tailgate or behind the rear wheels. Beyond the obvious fact that it will take weight off the front wheels, putting weight out beyond the axles will really mess up your polar moment of inertia.

Think in terms of control and being able to change direction. If you increase polar moment of inertia by adding weight near the bumper (or adding horrible heavy bumpers like they did to the cars in about 1974), you're sort of making a big stiff pendulum that will mess you up when you need to turn. Basic Newtonian physics will work against you, and you may end up swapping ends when you really didn't want to.

If I wanted to add weight (drive wheel weight adds traction, but also inertia when you need to use the brakes) safely and in a fairly useful way, probably a layer of sand in the area between the rear fender wells and the front of the bed would be nice. It's not a solid object, and you can shovel out some sand to help traction if you're stuck on ice.

As always in winter, drive like you had a full glass of water on the dash, and didn't want to spill any. Happy winter motoring!

 

I've seen and done it a number of ways. I used to have a heavy plank across between the fenderwells, and had an old diesel cylinder head and a couple front end weights. I have seen the front end weights bolted in, or wheel weights, but if you don't have acces to such, then you have to find an alternative. I like the spare tire idea, other than it getting in the way if you need to do anything back there, but that isn't an issue with the winch type, except the contant weight on that winch. I personally will always use some weight in the back, as it cuts down on the rear end kicking out when it's slick. Snow tires are a help, but not a fix either. The two in combination work the best. I only do that on 2wd trucks though, as the 4wd generally doesn't need it as much, or benefit as well. I have driven on snowy roads for all my driving years, and I do it to make sure I don't get into trouble. Around here, it is a heavy wet snow that doesn't move that well, and we need every aadvantage we can get. If we get 4-6 inches of the heavy wet stuff, it's like 12 out in the plains in South Dakota.

 

I moved to Florida .... NO MORE SNOW , just a little hurrican once in a while !!

 

I'd rather freeze my *ss off and shovel snow than have my house blown to bits!...LOL

 

Point taken bigblu250 ! Hopefully this hurrican season is a one in a hunderd year thing and not the start of something ! Now I gotta go refill my icetea LOL .

 

I found two used rims with used studded tires for the back. I don't need weights in the bed anymore.

 

Here in Dallas we just had two 92 degree days, one degree short of the record. I've been out in the garage in a sleeveless Tshirt. I'm thinking I will need no weight for the winter.
Dono

 

mike L , We had studded snow tires in Michigan it the 1970s then the MDOT ban them because they did too much damage to the roads !? Even when they were legal there were certain dates you could run them , Dec. to March something like that . I remember how well they worked though !

 

I might as well toss in a reference to this thread here, even though it's drift from the topic of adding weight.


https://www.ford-trucks.com/dcforum/...sion/1754.html


I'm very interested in Green Diamond tires, because they're not studs and they are legal all everywhere, all year round.

I wish they weren't "remoulds," though.

Lane

 

Very interesting Lane . I wouldn't be affraid of running recaps though , 100% of the airlines run recaps on their planes and about 90% of commercial vehicles run recaps . Most of the aligators ( the strips of rubber you see along the road ) come from new tires not recaps .

 

Yeah I hope so too (about the hurricanes). I actually have family that live all over FLA, fortunatley they all got by with minimal damage. I was down there this past June, awfully pretty! I had been before and plan on going back often.....