Can anybody tell me how much weight a 89 f150 4x4 with four, three inch wide springs can cary. My door sticker is gone and I keep over loading the truck, down to the bumper stops! I plan to get over loads later but how much can I cary now? The last time I overloaded it I had 2700lbs of dirt in it. Is that to much for the axle I have a 8.8 I think.

 

If you have an average F150, 1500 pounds is about the maximum.

If your truck is a beater, and you have the tools and smarts to repair a broken spring or shock once in a while, then go for the big loads. I would worry more about the tires under all that dirt, make sure the rear tires are at max PSI..(35 to 40 PSI) and they are light truck rated.
I see concrete workers and stone masons hauling pallets of bricks, sand or broken concrete all the time, and the truck is sitting so low in the back you would think the springs are gone. But those trucks just keep going and going.
"Built Ford Tough" isn't just a line of BS to make us buy the trucks....it's true.

 

2700 pounds of load is not just too much for the springs--but is also too much for the brakes and frame of that poor F150.

What you are doing is dangerous and could kill you or some driver innocent on the road. I dont understand why anyone would want to endanger someone's life just to make one trip rather than two trips.


Get a F450 Super Duty if you want to carry that much of a load.

If the truck is on it's bump stops--it is overloaded. And overload springs will not make it safe nor will it make it reasonable .Have you ever driven over a bump in the road when the back of the truck is on it's bump stops? It results in immediate lost of control of the vehicle if the bump is severe enough.

The GVW for a F150 4x4 of this era is in the range of 6100-6300 pounds. Your truck will weigh in empty in the 4400-4700 range usually--depending on engine and cab and bed size and options/accessories.2700 pounds of payload is way overloaded.

I am tied of seeing overloaded old pickups on the road and highways weaving and driving 20 MPH under and dropping debris on the highway and endangering not just the stupid driver of the truck--but everyone else on the highway!!

I ride a motorcycle on the highway and have almost gotten killed by such drivers dropping debris from old trucks and pickups that were on their bump stops and had their load of scrap iron/wood stacked 8 feet high back in the bed. This is something that you will commonly see in the Third World. We dont need to do this in this country.

 

thats your opinion, the brakes were just fine and my little 4.9 was just fine didn't even need the grany gear to start up a very steep hill and I would never do that if I had to go on any thing but side streets and not far even at that. ps the f250 is rated to cary more then 2700lbs and the frames are the same

 

phoneman has a point, and Ford strongly warns its operators to obey the posted limits as it is a safety hazard. We don't know what your terrain looks like, but if you had some long downhills like we have here on the eastern edges of the Poconos Mts. you might find out how scary a "brake fade" feels.
The term "brake fade" sounds innocent enuf, and the word "fade" makes it sound like you would gradually lose your brakes. But as the pads overheat, they lose their stopping power very quickly and before you know it, you're fighting to stop the truck.
I wouldn't be going too far with 2700lbs in the back, the limit is about 1500lbs.

 

First of all the 4.9l I-6 is not a little engine when it comes to torque. It has 260 ft.lb. torque coming on at 2,000 rpm. Frame/spring/axle/tire ratings are there for a reason. I'd balk at carrying any load that puts the stress on the "overload" springs. Brake area is minimal for this operation and when it fades it means it's gone. On the farm we will load a truck until it cannot take anymore for operation in the pasture hauling hay, on the highway or any other travelled thorofare, we just won't do it. Remember that your vehicle weight rating is purely subjective, load consists of fuel state, number of people in the truck and their gear, spare tire, etc. Use common sense and transport the load in a logical manner that does not over stress the truck. In my major area of operation selling lumber I've seen DOT stop an overloaded pickup as well as an L-9000 with a teledyne lift. It's far easier to handle an issue in advance that get out of the issue when stopped.

 

Esteph:

"it is just your opinion" that the brakes and frame cant handle 2700 pounds of payload ... No--it is also the opinion of the Ford engineers and DOT and every trial lawyer in the country.

Can you imagine what the typical trial lawyer would make of an operator of a overloaded pickup that knowingly overloaded a pickup and then had an accident--even when the accident wasnt the fault of the driver of the pickup?

Go ahead--continue to overload the pickup and overstress all of the components and hope that you dont kill yourself or someone else and hope that you dont become trial lawyer bait.