So I had my first towing experience today, and it was a pretty crazy. My mom's friend needed to transport a bunch of heavy stuff from his old house to his new house (which is near ours). So we hooked up his 2000# trailer and headed out on the 2 hour trip. We got there and loaded the trailer with a 1000# welding table (had a 4'x3' by 1" thick solid steel plate top on it, WHOA!), about 1000# worth of wheels/tires, and other miscelleneous shelves and things. Plus I had around 500# of stuff in the bed of the truck. Ended up pulling around 4000-5000 lbs with another 500 in the bed. My 5.8L pulled it real well but I was worried about my tranny overheating with my little stock cooler, but she did okay too. I was very impressed with the way my little F150 handled this heavy load. There was one really steep grade that I hit at 68mph and reached the top at 67mph, wooo!

On a side note, I took the camper shell off for the first time!! The truck looked awesome. Also she turned 100k on the way back. I'm now officially part of the 6 digit club Here's some pics:







-Chris

 

The truck looks sharpe man! Looks like its time to update your sig now!

 

Thanks dude. And yeah, you're right! Consider it done.

-Chris

 

Good Job Chris! One BIG part of why our trucks do so good when we need them, is that "Ford nut" behind the steering wheel. Taking care of them always rewards that "nut".

I like it better without the cap!........Nice looking truck!!!
Welcome to the 100K club too.

Bob

 

Welcome to the 6 digit club , no looking back now. Keep the cap off , much better looking truck. My truck tows a 24 ft. camper w/ any problems, wouldn't do it everyday ,but she holds her own. I agree time to update the sig.
Mike

 

I agree, the truck looks a million times better without the cap, I personally hate them!

 

Wow, you're trucks looks loads better without the cap. If I were you, I would sell that cap. I don't think 5,000 lbs will hurt anything, even though it sounds like a alot, its not a big load for a Ford.

 

Chris nice looking rig I would put a big trainsmition cooler on there that Little stock one is a joke.

 

that sounded like fun.

no way would i consider your truck 'a little f150', it is 'a big f150'.

time for that trans. cooler.

leaving an extra 500 pounds of stuff in the bed was a nice touch. hahaha

 

I like the way you loaded the trailer and truck. it looks like you had a plan and stuck with it . trailer about 60% to the front and 40% to the rear and another 10% on the truck that combo works well with most rigs.

 

wow man thats a really nice lookin truck with that cap off... u only hit 100k jeez! wish i was at 100k, im at 175k..

 

i like how it looks off, but i'd never sell it either. i don't have a cap but there are times i'd love one. if you build yourself a little holder just above where you park the truck, should be no problem getting it on/off quickly when you want it.

 

I remember I was towing about 4000 lbs. of stuff from Houston to Austin with my old '90 F150 4x4 when it turned 100K and I was thinking I really should not be towing this weight with such an "old" clutch out in the middle of nowhere. I sold that truck with 225K on it and it still had the original clutch in it - that truck showed me not to doubt it's capabilities many times.

 

Wow guys, so nice to wake up with all these replies and compliments!

And yeah, I agree about the camper shell, looks much better without it. Every time I got out of my truck I would stand back and look at it, and turn to the person I was with, and go "damn my truck looks badass." Fortunately I didn't spend the money on that cap and carpet kit back there, the PO did. But I'm going to be building a platform with pullies that hangs from the ceiling in the garage so I can hoist it up and out of the way. Because like Tom said, it's really useful sometimes (such as when I need to take stuff up into the snow and I don't want it getting snowed on, or when I wanna put about 5 snowboards back there but I don't want the bedliner scratching them, the carpet kit takes care of that).

So yeah, the truck did pretty good. The only thing that concerned me was when we were stuck in stop-and-go traffic and off and on my truck was making this rubbing-scratchy noise when I would accelerate. Not very loud, the other passengers thought I was crazy but it was definitely there. Looking back I think it might have had something to do with the combo of my A/C being on and the K&N filter being freshly re-oil, cuz that thing makes a big WOOSHING noise when I accelerate now.

Thanks guys.

-Chris

 

Chris , you done got me thinking about upgrading my tranny cooler now , gonna towing my camper more this year, any good suggestions out there?
Mike