Time for a different truck and trailer

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jkwilson

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Just thinking out loud and prowling for opinions here. I currently have a Chevy 1/2 ton extended cab short bed and it's time to start looking for something with lower mileage. I also have a 16ft bumper pull stock trailer that I'd like to upgrade as well.

My initial thought was to go with a longbed F250 for the added capacity, better usability with a gooseneck and my local Ford dealer's service department is head and shoulders better than anybody else in the area at working you in when you are in a hurry and doing good work. I don't owe anything to Ford, Chevy, Dodge or Toyota, so I buy what makes sense at the time.

I only use my stock trailer to haul an animal to the vet or AI tech, swapping a bull with somebody, taking a couple of cull cows to the sale barn, kids 4H calves here and there a few times a year and the occasional breeding cattle auction. When I need several animals hauled, I hire a neighbor who is well equipped to do it, charges a fair price and I don't miss work or strain my truck.

As much as I'd like to go out and buy a new Super Duty Diesel and a new 24 or 30' aluminum gooseneck, I'm not going to spend that kind of money for a capacity I don't need 99% of the time. It's a rare day I need more truck or trailer than I've got, but I would like to have the handling of a gooseneck on the road.

So...I'm starting to think more about going with another shortbed 1/2 ton pickup and hunting for a used aluminum 16' gooseneck with a tapered nose. There's a big chunk of change to be saved staying with a 1/2 ton and a shortbed is easier to find on a dealer's lot used and easier to handle in a parking lot.

I know everybody's situation is different, but does it make sense to go that route?
 
I priced a super duty the other day. 50k, that's 4 times what I paid for my first house and it had 2 bathrooms.
 
They'll be money saved by keeping the trailer you have also. Have you priced a used aluminum stock trailer? WOW!! I looked a long time before I bought mine. Needed it like I needed a hole in the head. Kinda wish i'd kept my steel trailer.
 
If the half ton does basicly what you want, just get a newer version of the same thing and keep the trailer.
 
I should have added that the trailer is almost 30 years old. Been a good one, but will be needing some work on the sheet metal in the not too distant future. If I could find another one to last 30 years, I'd be doing pretty well.
 
I have a 2008 F-150 crew cab short bed and I pull a 20' flatbed gooseneck with it. The heaviest thing I pull is my Ford 3000 and an implement and that is only occasionally. It pulls it ok, but then again I'm not pulling it everyday either. The bigger problem is stopping. I would make sure the trailer you buy has a good braking system. Mine has brakes on both axles and it makes a huge difference if you need to get stopped in a hurry when loaded.

Also if you go with the crew cab short bed, the gooseneck is only about 16"(?) from the front of the bed in my Ford, so your stock trailer would need a pretty good taper to keep from hitting the cab in a sharp turn. My flatbed doesn't come close to hitting but I've been looking for a stock trailer I thought would work. They also make an adapter for your gooseneck that moves it back 4 or 6 inches, but never seen one in person.
 
killingtime":130ntqsz said:
They also make an adapter for your gooseneck that moves it back 4 or 6 inches, but never seen one in person.

Why not just position the ball in the bed back that much, it would put less stress on the hitch
 
dun":1dtgobnx said:
killingtime":1dtgobnx said:
They also make an adapter for your gooseneck that moves it back 4 or 6 inches, but never seen one in person.

Why not just position the ball in the bed back that much, it would put less stress on the hitch

Wife's horse trailer has a wide neck on it, I put one of those extended couplers on hers. It extends the hitch out 16", pretty neat set-up seeings she already had the pop-up ball in her truck. This extender has a long lever that cams down under the ball when hitched up, some how I got my hand pinned between it and the trailer tounge when checking it for fittment. I don't know which hurt worse, my hand from being crushed by the trailer or my pride for screaming like a little girl 'til she came and jacked up the trailer.
 
cfpinz":hjjwzz8l said:
dun":hjjwzz8l said:
killingtime":hjjwzz8l said:
They also make an adapter for your gooseneck that moves it back 4 or 6 inches, but never seen one in person.

Why not just position the ball in the bed back that much, it would put less stress on the hitch

Wife's horse trailer has a wide neck on it, I put one of those extended couplers on hers. It extends the hitch out 16", pretty neat set-up seeings she already had the pop-up ball in her truck. This extender has a long lever that cams down under the ball when hitched up, some how I got my hand pinned between it and the trailer tounge when checking it for fittment. I don't know which hurt worse, my hand from being crushed by the trailer or my pride for screaming like a little girl 'til she came and jacked up the trailer.
What pride?
 
How do the extenders affect the handling? And if I'm going with a short trailer, would there be an advantage going with the 8 or 9" extender or just going with the 16" to get the most clearance/shortest turning radius?

I always figured the ideal setup would be the hydraulic 5th wheels like they have for RVs. You pull it up close for travel, then push it back to get get clearance to maneuver.
 
jkwilson":23dweedf said:
How do the extenders affect the handling? And if I'm going with a short trailer, would there be an advantage going with the 8 or 9" extender or just going with the 16" to get the most clearance/shortest turning radius?

I always figured the ideal setup would be the hydraulic 5th wheels like they have for RVs. You pull it up close for travel, then push it back to get get clearance to maneuver.


OVER-KILL!!! :D
 
dun":1v2vmoqy said:
killingtime":1v2vmoqy said:
They also make an adapter for your gooseneck that moves it back 4 or 6 inches, but never seen one in person.

Why not just position the ball in the bed back that much, it would put less stress on the hitch


I have one of the B & W turnover balls and your can't move the location of it. The plate mounts under the bed and fits in between the frame rails and the ribs in the bed. The hitch is a tight fit so you can't move it front to back. The advantages of this is you only have to drill one hole in the bed, for the ball and there is no drilling of the frame, which voids most warranties. When your not using your hitch you can turn the ball over and you have a flat surface again.
 
your best bet is to get a heavy duty f150.an that will pull a 16 to 24 ft gooseneck.ive got a friend that has an f150 4x4.an he pulls a 24ft gooseneck cattle an a 20ft gooseneck flatbed.
 
killingtime":1vbjdaek said:
I have one of the B & W turnover balls and your can't move the location of it. The plate mounts under the bed and fits in between the frame rails and the ribs in the bed. The hitch is a tight fit so you can't move it front to back. The advantages of this is you only have to drill one hole in the bed, for the ball and there is no drilling of the frame, which voids most warranties. When your not using your hitch you can turn the ball over and you have a flat surface again.

B&W has an offset ball that you can put in place of yours, gives you some more clearance. But of course I had to put that frigging Pop-Up in my wife's truck, pos.
 
jkwilson":kbv2r8zg said:
How do the extenders affect the handling? And if I'm going with a short trailer, would there be an advantage going with the 8 or 9" extender or just going with the 16" to get the most clearance/shortest turning radius?

If you need one of those extenders, I'd go with the shortest one that will do what you need. Extra length is just more stress on the trailer neck. That being said, the wife's is on an aluminum horse trailer and tongue weight will be minimum.
 
cfpinz":270d6290 said:
If you need one of those extenders, I'd go with the shortest one that will do what you need. Extra length is just more stress on the trailer neck. That being said, the wife's is on an aluminum horse trailer and tongue weight will be minimum.

Sounds like I'd need to find the truck and trailer and then do a lot of measuring to figure out the best deal.

It seems to me that most of the additional stress from the extender is going to come from tongue weight. The pull and push is still going to be at the same spot on the trailer, but down pressure will also try to bend the trailer side of the hitch instead of pushing straight down on the ball.

My understanding is that moving the ball back takes away some of the stability advantage of a gooseneck.
 
jkwilson":19kuusm8 said:
cfpinz":19kuusm8 said:
If you need one of those extenders, I'd go with the shortest one that will do what you need. Extra length is just more stress on the trailer neck. That being said, the wife's is on an aluminum horse trailer and tongue weight will be minimum.

Sounds like I'd need to find the truck and trailer and then do a lot of measuring to figure out the best deal.

It seems to me that most of the additional stress from the extender is going to come from tongue weight. The pull and push is still going to be at the same spot on the trailer, but down pressure will also try to bend the trailer side of the hitch instead of pushing straight down on the ball.

My understanding is that moving the ball back takes away some of the stability advantage of a gooseneck.
buy a gooseneck with a 1/2 nose or No nose and you will not have any problems with a short bed all of the new dodge mega cabs are short beds and we have pulled 7 ft wide full nose trailers with them you just got to watch when jack knifing the trailer which you have to do with any Gooseneck
 
Just resurrecting this old post with an update:

I wound up buying an 08 F150 4X4 with the heavy suspension package, 5.4 V8, 6.5ft bed, super cab. Good truck so far.

After a lot of looking and phone calls, I found a 16ft aluminum gooseneck. 4000lbs empty. Great mechanical condition, needing some rust removal and paint on the steel parts (rims, jack and gooseneck structure). Bought it where I believe I could turn a profit on it if I wanted by doing the painting and an acid wash and reselling. I come from a long line of tightwad Germans.

From what I've seen, I believe that buying the aluminum and taking care of it until I'm ready to get out of the cow business will have the lowest total cost for me. I've seen aluminum trailers sell for more used than they did 16 or 17 years ago new. I've never seen an aluminum gooseneck sell for less than $7500 in any condition but wrecked or tree-smashed.

I shopped steel trailers, but I have a real problem buying something that's already rusting when sitting on a paved lot, and seeing them sell used in pretty bad shape at 10 years old for very little money didn't sit well with me. I don't believe we have good quality steel trailers available around here though.

I went with the B&W turnover ball with the setback adapter. I can go to 90 degrees easily with my trailer with its tapered nose.

Yesterday, I drove 2.5 hours on a variety of 2-lane state highways and 30 miles on the interstate to pick up a bull. Truck and trailer handled very well, both with and without 2000lbs of bull loose in the front half of the trailer. I can honestly say I didn't know he was back there except when he moved around while I was stopped or rattled his nose ring on the side of the trailer. I didn't race away from stop signs or try to hold my speed up bigger hills, although I could have. I don't believe in using up something that costs that much.

I don't plan to make long drives frequently or haul large loads, so I think this rig will be just right for me for getting animals to the vet, calves to market etc..
 
I think the majority of the opinions about going to a F-150 are along my lines. I have had several of all types and the GM products are fine if you are highway and city driving but after many years of having various Chevy's-GMC, they don't hold up as well as other brands and seem to have obscure problems that are expensive to fix. I can't afford newer 3/4 tons anymore but have an older one, a good half ton can do alot. Things to consider, a short box will have increased payload (i.e. short wheel base) while extended cabs with long or extra long wheel base will have decreased payloads.
 

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