Have a new customer that wants a full cord of wood. Normally I would do it in 2 trips loading trailer only. Curious if my Chevy 1500 4×4 with a 5.3l would be able to handle 3/4 cord in the trailer with the remainder in the bed. The 1/4 cord would be Hickory and the trailer would be all red oak. All of it is what I would call semi seasoned (18 months split). The trip is only about 5 miles with no interstates.
So lets just say that the cord might weigh around 4000lbs. give or take ( probably less if it is on the dryer side ) that would be 3000 on the trailer and 1000 in the truck , 1500 truck is half ton so that puts that on the reccomended weight then add tongue weight and trailer weight ,. Trailer have brakes? Towing it I would say sure it is only 5 miles , Stopping in a hurry if you had to probably not. Not sure I would risk it, only 5 miles two trips would be the way I would probably go. Less wear and tear on the truck and trailer might be easier to load and unload.
Absolutely yes. My 03 Tundra has been doing this for over 10 years. Oak is not light either. And this would be considered a light load:
I hauled a full cord with a Ford Ranger, with no issues at all. Dry a cord really isn't all the much weight, IMHO.
Yep, agreed. His truck should be able to tow at least 6-7,000lbs. Then payload is not going to equal out to 1k for 1/4 cord. I just pulled a 3500lb car w/ a 22oolb trailer 4 hours with my 4.7L from Ithaca NY to Gettysburg PA, no issues at all. This is what your truck is made for!
I hauled at least a full cord in my Honda Civic once years ago. It was a heaping load of fresh/green oak in a 5x8 trailer with 3' tall sides. Trailer was overloaded for sure...the axle looked like it could double as a bow. Guy who gave me the wood (co-worker) was shaking his head as I drove away, he thought I was . Had to go maybe 15 minutes and I took all the back roads at a -very slow- pace with my hazards on, as I know if I got going I wasn't going to be able to stop very quickly. Every bump I hit with the trailer literally was felt in the car. When I got near the top of -THIS- slight hill, it was scattered with gravel and the car started to lose traction and have torque steer. I thought for a second I was screwed and was going to have to back down and turn around. I made 'er home though.
Did it resemble this? It’s 5x8 trailer and the top of the posts on the front are 4 feet. Wood is cut 2 foot. It has to go all of maybe 250 feet.
Not that tall. 3' sides, so 3' on the sides and heaped in the middle. Plus everything was rounds and tossed in. He basically took down a bunch of large limbs (rented a lift) and didn't want the wood. I didn't want to have to make two trips so fit everything in one load. Everything was cut different lengths and not cut straight. I ended up giving most of it to my dad to burn in his fireplace.
This was my 5' x 10' trailer back in the day. Filled flush to the top was just a full cord. The old Ranger did just fine as long as you kept it under 60 mph.
No way! Yeah, but that was a Ford! Exactly! Just funning with you OD you should be ok as long as you take it real easy and avoid areas with much traffic...and be a super cautious driver...like you said, braking is the biggest issue, so make you are on the brakes at the first sign of a potential issue.
OK I must have two accounts, lol. I had to login with my desktop to post that picture. Anyway. Yeah, breaking shouldn't be an issue with just a cord IMHO. Obviously, take your time extra space and break early. What does a bass boat and trailer weigh?
Not 2 accounts. Suppose you are in any thread and you get a message that someone has sent you a PM, click on that and it will open the PM in another window. Same account.
Ohio dave , you should have no problem. More factors depend on the trailer than the truck. I’ve Hauled 2 plus cord with my old Chevy 5.3 in my tandem axle cargo trailer with no problem. Working trailer brakes and correct tong weight are the key!
Our F150 pulls at least a cord every time we load it with logs or splits. Trailer does have brakes Before we got the dump trailer, we hauled 1 cord loads on equipment trailer
I towed my first "heavy" load with my trusty F150 last weekend. It was only about 6500 but it was super easy. My truck has tall 3.31 gears and a 4.6 so it isn't much of a tow rig. Good trailer brakes will make towing easy... Bad or no brakes can get wild. I spent most of my life with no brakes up until now so it was like magic.