I want to put a flatbed on the F250 in my signature. I was thinking about adding a gooseneck hitch while I do this. How much do you think I could pull behind the truck w/ a gooseneck setup??? And any input on the custom fab and installation of a gooseneck hitch? I was thinking a nice heavy piece of plate w/ a ball in it bolted securely to the frame w/ grade 8 bolts???

 

Realistically ...... not that much, that's likely why you have lots of lookers on this thread but no one is posting. After I post this someone will choose to argue the point, but .... whatever.

Sorry to burst your "bubble". You have at least three hits against you from the start; six cylinder, 3.55 gears and 32" rubber. Having done HEAVY towing with Fords of this vintage I'm not a big fan of manual trannys either.

The flatbed could be cool but be happy to drive it, don't plan to do any heavy towing with it. On the other hand, you could prove me wrong and pull >10,000 # in the mountains.

Good Luck With It.

 

I wasn't really asking how much the truck could pull, I was asking how much the hitch would be able to hold, and some pointers on how to put one in. I've had over 7,000 pounds payload behind/on the truck before, and I was still rolling off stoplights in 2nd gear. I know what it can and can't pull, and how fast it will pull it. I'm not trying to argue any points, I just thought maybe if sometime I had to move a gooseneck w/ cattle or a tractor or whatever, I'd be able to do it.

Let's put it this way. You want to put a flatbed w/ a custom fabbed gooseneck hitch on your F250. How would you do it? how much would it be able to hold???

 

I guess this part of the post is what confused me .....

Never mind.

 

sorry about that, I wasn't clear enough. My bad.

 

Maybe this is what you had in mind.

From 1975 until 1993 I worked as an ag engineer for the research department of an agricultural seed company. In 1979 I purchased one of my favorite company trucks, an F350 regular cab dually with a factory installed flatbed ; 460, C-6, 4.10's with all the HD towing gear and a 10,000# GVW.

We installed a dump body hoist, cut a hole in the bed floor and mounted a sliding steel plate over that hole. Underneath was bolted a press formed, frame width, reinforced sheet of 3/8" steel with a 2 5/16" ball tightened down and then welded in place. We used four properly torqued 5/8" grade-8 bolts (with large washers below the frame and lockwashers), to secure it to the truck frame. We also added large cable clamp u-bolts to this plate for connecting safety chains although the chance of the hitch pulling through the bed were slight.

For many years I hooked that truck to a tri-axle Fruehauf gooseneck trailer upon which we chained down a 300 bushel capacity Parker low profile double door gravity box with a home made roll cover and hauled grain to an elevator in the next state. I'm the only one who ever drove this loaded combination. I have a commercial CDL with air brake, doubles, triples and tanker endorsements and didn't trust just anybody to do it and I made the decisions on this.

Every year I used this combination I hauled an average of 52 loads of grain to the elevator and the average rolling gross weight of the truck, trailer, gravity box and grain over those 52 loads was 29,700 #. The truck was still on the job in 1993 with the original engine and second transmission (only because we loaned it to the idiots in the production division one summer).

That was the average of the loads hauled so you just gotta know that there were more than a few that went in excess of 15 ton. The trailer brakes were set so tight that if I didn't turn the brake controller all the way down all six wheels locked up when empty.

With this truck and many others over the years we also hauled AC Gleaner E and K combines, usually with corn, soybean or sunflower heads attached, tractors, planters, specialized harvestors and equipment interstate. For long hauls with the '79 we mounted an additional 55 gallon L-tank on the bed behind the cab so we could make it between gas stations.

That is what's possible.

I come by my love of Ford towing trucks honestly.

 

Thank you, that is exactly the kind of thing I had in mind.