How much wood will a pickup truck hold?

Me and my buddy think it's due to trying to get a nice cushy ride out of your truck. You can thank american truck manufacturers for that one. The Toyota Tacoma 4X4 got bad reviews due to a stiff ride, hell ya they had a stiff ride that's how they handle the back road of Maine. So G.M. and Ford came out with the leather and cushy ride so Toyota had to follow.

Cutting oak, I can get two rows high and three row length of about 22-24" cuts (between 21 and 24 pieces) and the springs are starting to settle. I'm thinking about 1/2 cord. Maybe a bit less, and with the fathers tacoma, I'm going about 1/3 per load with some limbs instead of the second row top and third row if that makes sense.

That's the beauty of my 250SD. As full as it was it was barely sagging. If I could put more on and feel safe it wouldn't fall off I would. But I try to be smart and safe. A couple extra sticks isn't worth losing it in the middle of the road and result in some kind of accident.

I went to the church to get another load of oak in the ranger...all the brush was gone and most of it was cut to 14-16 inch lengths I have never loaded the truck so quick! I don't know if they are cleaning it up and trying to get me to hurry since teh brush was gone, or someone else started cutting? I wayyyyyyyyyyyyy overloaded the ranger. The tranny (automatic) actually feathered itself when I took off too quickly...Need to go back to my 90% rule cause it was too much weight

I've got both a 3/4 ton Dodge and a 3/4 ton Chebby and both of them can safely take about 1/3 of a cord (hauled a fresh cut face cord[sorry, it's a regional measurement] of ash this spring and that's about all I felt comfortable with. I've done that many a time and if I just throw the wood in, space wise, that's about all the room there is. I could get more on if I stacked it but I don't need to tweak any iron. You gotta remember whatever the truck's load capabilities, live loads (hitting bumps, R.R. crossings, etc.) is MUCH different than static loads. Like was said above, just by loading a truck bed you are not likely to bend or break anything....hit good bump, dip or RR crossing with a full load and the likelyhood of breaking your truck goes WAY up.

The load ratings for your truck ARE the live loads assuming lots of active and moving worst case scenarios. There is even a safety margin over that. If your truck has a 10,000# stickered GVWR then you can weigh 10,000 lbs and drive down the road with confidence that your truck was designed to run that way.

1/3 of a cord in a 3/4 ton? Folks here are putting that much in a mini truck.

1/3 cord of what in a mini truck?. A 1/3 cord of ash will heavily squat both the Chevy and the Dodge.

Look back... oak for one. You might have found wood that's heavier than oak and in which case your information might be more useful if you knew the actual weight.

I have coil helpers on my ranger, I just loaded Friday with a face cord worth of oak. Too much for the truck! I usually fill it 90% and that is plenty. 5.5ft bed 4ft wide and approx 2 ft high is 44 cu ft. A face is like 42.5 With that weight you need to go slow and know your stopping distance. I do have heavier tires on it as well!

Holy chit, I found a site that gives the weight. Now this was red oak was dropped 3 weeks ago so it is losing some moisture but wow, check it out

http://www.csgnetwork.com/logweight.html

Boy, I would think so. I had a stock bone stock Ranger after college. Nice little truck but wasn't much for hauling.

When stock 800 pounds of concrete would bottom it out. The helpers add 1500 pounds capacity to payload. They are monroe, when I buy a new f150 they will be going on it as well. I think the shocks were 200 bucks and I put them on in about 15 minutes. Amazing part is the ride is better? The coils only pick up after the truck is down 3 or so inchs.

Hmm- so doing the math I'm lookin' at about 2500lbs for a cord wet wood...........

Edit; Never mind.........................

1900 pounds for a face of red oak per the site give or take. This is log so lets guess that space considered it is a hair under so say 1750. Consider stock for the ranger is like 800, add 1500 capacity to it... 1900 is not out of line. Granted too much for the brakes and axle but it held it.

You need to watch more than just the GVW.. You have to watch the individual axle weights! We had a F250HD 4x4. We were well under the GVW, but our horse trailer (without horse or water) was 300# overweight for the rear axle. It PULLED the trailer well, even stopped it well, but it had a bit of "give" even on mild curves. We upgraded to a C3500 dually and it's rock solid.

BTW, I have the scale tickets here. F250 supercab, diesel, no load: front 4360, rear 2920, total 7280. IIRC, the rear axle was rated for about 5800, which would give you a net allowable rear load of just under 3000#. Note, the rear 5800# rating means 2900 pounds on each tire, quite possibly more than they are rated at. Definitely not your typical tire for a half ton truck.


Figure a full cord of green hardwood at around 37-3800#. Of course, some of that will go to the front axle, a 3/4 ton can probably handle the weight of a full cord.

Another point: everyone worries about the axle and springs, but what are the tires rated at? Half ton trucks are likely to have lightly rated tires. You really don't want a blow out while you're travelling down the road, overloaded, at 45 or 50 mph!

I have hauled two tons of pellets in the dually. It was a bit light in the front but I was only going about 20 miles.

And DON'T TAKE THE SPARE TIRE OUT for more room! We were hauling 108 bales of hay home the other day on the double axle trailer (car hauler). Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump Thump. Yep, one tire gone, no spare and the other tire was really sagging! I managed to make it about three miles (and across the narrow bridge) to the nearest tire dealer!

Ken

Good point Ken, the GVWR as well as the GAWR are stamped in the door jamb of your truck. Note that the sum of the axle ratings will be more than the allowed GVWR so you've really got to check all three. Then there are the individual tire ratings. I've done a few things to my half ton pickup like use D rated LT tires in place of the stock light duty ones, added timbren overload springs which engage after about 500 lbs of payload and then prevent excess saggage up to well beyond my legal limits.

I was thinking about it. When I picked up my gun safe at farm and fleet it was 692 lbs not including the metal and wood palet. The truck went down but not very much. The coils really are the way to go to add capacity