I’m trying to put together a rig hauling a 22,000lb excavator with a chassis cab F550 and a gooseneck. The gooseneck trailer that I want to buy takes a 3” ball instead of a 2 5/16” ball. I’m trying to buy a used truck that already has a flatbed. So far, all of the trucks that I have found are not nearby. I have had to rely on pictures that the dealerships have sent me of the undersides of the beds. On the ones that I have looked at so far, the ball appears to be welded to the bed instead of being bolted to the frame. Is it feasible, or even safe, to cut out the 2 5/16” ball and weld in a new 3” ball? The total weight of the loaded trailer will be around 32,000lbs.
Not safely. I would convert it to a B&W turnover ball or something similar.
I’m assuming that would involve pulling the bed off in order to bolt the new hitch to the frame. Correct?
Yes
I think all the gooseneck I've seen have a removable neck insert. Get one for 2 5/16.
That is WAY too much weight to be towing with a pickup. 32000lbs is a load behind a class 6-7 medium-duty truck, I personally would tow that with a tandem.
I had a 25k lb excavator. No way that load would be safe behind a pickup of any sort. And a 550 is still a pickup. The service life of the truck/trailer components is also going to be drastically reduced.
If the truck was a cab and chassis the ball is more than likely bolted or welded to the bed in which case going to 3” wouldn’t be that big of a deal if the person cutting the old one out knew what they were doing. We periodically change them on our 4500/5500’s and do not have to remove the bed to do so. Most necks that use a 3” ball are larger tubing so swapping in a 2-5/16” is not a direct swap but also not impossible. As far as 22k plus a trailer behind a 550…..certain parts of Arkansas (thinking SE where it’s flat) that wouldn’t bother me too much but others (thinking northern and central with hills and curves) there’s no way I’d do that. All that being said if it’s hauling it a few miles farm to farm or something like that I’d care to wager we’ve all pushed our luck at one time or another.
I have a crew cab before I got it they put in a B&W turn over ball in it, they cut a rectangle in the bed and dropped in a bed liner, I am pretty sure that was bolted in, I have a flat bed that had a in my opinion astupid turn over ball in it we cut the same rectangle out of the flat bed and welded in a B&W turn over ball in it, the picture with the ball is the one we cut out.
22k ex 12k+ trailer 30k ball Yeah this checks out
Trailer weighs 9k-10k and excavator weighs about 22k. (Really closer to 21k but I want to be conservative.) A 3” ball is rated at 40k. I don’t understand what you mean by your post. I’m not ashamed to say that you probably know more about this stuff than I do, so please explain.
You're not listening to any of us. What you are wanting to do is completely unsafe regardless of the hitch, you are way overweight for a F550. As I posted before that is a load for a single axle semi, tandem dump truck or other similar medium/heavy truck. I'm guessing you either don't have a CDL or are trying to skirt around some legal requirement?
have a driver with a CDL and I’m working on getting my own as well. GCWR of truck is 43k. Shortest wheelbase F550 with flatbed shouldn’t weigh more than 10k, right? 22k excavator + 10k trailer + 10k truck makes gross combined weight 42k. Correct? Gooseneck towing capacity of truck is 34k. I’m in the Mississippi River delta and will be doing this work within about a 60 mile radius of home for a few years. Very few hills will come into play. Are you still advising against it?
Might add in chains, boomers, attachments,buckets, hand tools, tool box, auxiliary fuel/tank, humans, and the like.
Absolutely, those manufacturer tow ratings on trucks these days are a joke. Being flat makes it not as bad, but you are still relying on one little blue brake wire to stop the whole thing. Trailer plug comes loose, bad connection, short in the wire etc and you have no trailer brakes. Throw in wet roads, a car that pulls out in front of you, or light that turns too quick and it gets ugly fast. For safely towing a 22K excavator I would recommend either a single axle semi tractor and a drop deck equipment trailer such as this: 50,000 GVWR – 40' Drop Deck Flatbed Trailer | Kaufman Shop the 50,000 GVWR 40 ft. drop deck flatbed trailer with a 35 in. loaded deck height and 39,000 lb. distributed load capacity. View full specs. www.kaufmantrailers.com Or a tandem axle truck, flatbed, dump truck, etc, with a pintle hitch trailer such as this: 45K Heavy Equipment Flatbed Trailer 25ft | Kaufman View the 45,000 GVWR 25 ft. air brake pintle flatbed trailer with ABS, oak flooring, 35,500 lb. capacity, and optional hydraulic ramps for paving. www.kaufmantrailers.com Being as it is fairly flat where you are you could maybe get by with a single axle class 7/8 truck and pintle trailer. Regardless air brakes are the way to go. Your cost per mile is going to be less to operate a medium/heavy truck vs a F550, it will last many times longer and it will be safer. Not sure what your budget is but you could probably be in a good used truck/trailer for $25-30K, or a good used truck and new trailer for $40-50K.
I should add I have always been told it's not whether it'll pull it it's whether it'll stop it.
thank you
I'm just a Monday morning armchair quarterback but this is what will happen. Too small of trailer Too small of truck Too little experience of a driver Driving too fast By the way a tandem dually trailer you can only put around 10k on, not 22k! Towing at max load and at max speed, it's a new truck it can handle it after all, will end this piled up on the interstate. If it doesn't your repair bills will end it for you. How well will those electric brakes work after a few weeks at 75 mph.
We need to go back to the days of semis having 200 hp
To be fair, there are a lot of different electric brake axle combos rated for the weight he wants to haul. Dexter offers 10K, 12K and 15K dual wheel electric brake axles, which would translate into 20k, 24K, 30K GVWR or more depending on tongue weight, I've seen electric brake trailers up to 38K GVWR (pintle hitch not gooseneck.) Regardless, the truck size is still the most important factor. The absolute bare minimum to haul what he wants would be a class 6 truck and 30K gooseneck or pintle trailer. Even an F650 is a big step up truck wise from an F550. I partially agree, I think pickups especially have way more power than they should these days. People obviously can't handle the temptation of pulling semi sized loads with them.
The roofers round here at notorious for ordering dump trailers and upgrading the ram on the lift to get more dump, my neighbor is a tree guy and they overweight their dump trailers pretty much every time they load it. There will one guy pushing the dump button and the other 6 are pushing up on the trailer. They also have a truck with a dump bed when they back down their driveway the front wheels come off the ground now they have a grapple truck and I am sure doing the same. Don't be that guy! The rules suck but they are there for a reason, your and more importantly other people's safety even if they are the idiots that pull out in front of you. That won't matter if you are over weight
Reading all the comments so far. the gist of everything is; it will work until it won't. There is no date that it will fail so you can stop just short. It may fail in 10 miles or 10,000 miles but when it does, it will be a catastrophic failure. More than likely someone will either get badly hurt, perhaps permanently or even die. I wouldn't want to spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair getting fed and having my diapers changed. Nor would I want to be the cause of someone else being put in that situation.
People have been overloading trucks, trailers, wagons whatever since the beginning of time. We'd all be lying if we said we hadn't done it at least a few times. The difference now though is it's almost standard, accepted, even promoted, I think this is for a few reasons. Let me preface this by saying I'm mainly referring to light duty trucks (F150-F550, 1500-5500) and the homeowner, contractor, farmer, etc types. As mentioned trucks have gotten a lot more powerful. Used to be your half ton with a 305, 3spd and 2.75 gears wasn't going to tow much of anything, now were seeing v6 half tons with 13-14K tow ratings. Yeah trucks have gotten a little bigger (but no heavier in many cases), and brakes are better, but at some point you can't escape physics. Second is a complete lack of knowledge and common sense. Even as recent as 20-30yrs ago many tradesman, farmers, and the like still had some working knowledge of the vehicles they were driving. They'd do their own maintenance, some repairs, and generally know how things worked. Being able to see and identify potential problems (like those tires bulging , springs on the bump stops, smell of hot brakes) made you second guess and maybe back the next load off a little. Third is trailers in general. When I was growing up in the 80's there wasn't the plethora of pickup sized trailers available like there is now. Instead of dump trailers everyone used medium duty dump trucks. There were some gooseneck trailers around but mostly cattle trailers. Hauling equipment of any size was done either a straight truck, pintle hitch trailer behind a dump truck, or a semi. Its real easy to overload a trailer behind a pickup and not realize it until it's too late. Lastly is this crazy, frantic, gotta-have-it-done-yesterday mentality that so many people seem to have nowadays. I think this may be partially driven by lack of financial stability/too much debt/living paycheck to paycheck, but also just our current society. Everyone tries to buy the cheapest, smallest, truck/trailer/equipment/whatever and push it to the max thinking they'll make more money. You might in the short term, if you're lucky, but long term I can promise it doesn't pencil out.
Very few 550 and gooseneck trailers are going to hold up to that weight, either driving or loading and unloading. Get a short wheelbase day cab semi, and a short single drop lowboy with good ramps. Or a tandem dump with a heavy air brake pintle trailer. Nothing wrong with used, it will be cheaper than the 550, and you will have a much better truck and trailer.
So a 20k, 24k and a 30k gvwr can put 10k 14k, or depending on how much those axles weigh 20k- on them not including the 1500 or so you put on the truck....... The excavator is 22k.......
Not that I'm necessarily recommending them, but they do make heavy electric brake trailers capable of handling that kind of weight or more. Just a random selection of 12-15 ton electric brake trailers: Deluxe Tandem Dual Gooseneck Trailer | Call Kaufman Trailers This Deluxe 30000 GVWR Tandem Dual Gooseneck Trailer comes with heavy duty bud style dual wheels and LED lights. Learn more about this 30' trailer. www.kaufmantrailers.com 38,500 GVWR Heavy-Duty Flatbed Trailer | For Sale Choose a 38,500 GVWR heavy-duty flatbed trailer with triple 10K axles, oil bath brakes, and a reinforced frame for the toughest hauls. www.kaufmantrailers.com Hudson Brothers HTD18B 15 Ton Deckover This rugged deckover equipment trailer has a 15 ton capacity. www.hudsontrailers.com Hudson Brothers HTD20C 12 Ton Til Trailer This rugged tilt equipment trailer has a 12 ton capacity. www.hudsontrailers.com
Not one of those trailers can you put 22k on
?????? 22K is 22,000lbs, All I posted are rated to haul 24,000 to 30,000lbs. Click on the links and read the specs.
Kaufman says 24k with 6k hitch load on the gooseneck. That is the max load, max, and only if you put a ton of weight on the truck which has to be loaded correctly. The rest are pintles in a gooseneck post I bet you $1 the it's trailer can haul 10k, and you better pay up
Must be some of that "common core" math going on here...