Truck Bed Load

Hello! New to this thread and I wanted to find out how many pounds of pea gravel is it safe to load in my truck?
Thank you!

 

Look inside your front driver door, you should see a label with the exact weight of cargo you can carry

 

Welcome to TW!

 

Not a lot. Bout 1200 pounds, give or take. 1400 if you want to push it.

Maybe half a yard or so.

Rule of thumb if you don't have a scale: Have the loader add gravel in 1/4 bucket increments, and watch the rear bump stop under the leaf spring. Tell them to stop loading when there is at least 1.5" to 2" of air space remaining between the spring & the bump stop. Then drive very cautiously until you get to your destination.

 

single cab, double cab, 4WD?

 

From experience. What looks like a little bit of pea gravel, weighs a lot.
I hauled it ONCE in the bead of a Ford Ranger. When I went over the scale, it was at 1.13 TONS.
Never......will I do that again. I bought a utility trailer.

It's not that the truck wont haul it. But STEERING was scary.
Braking was not good either but steering was the worst.
The tires would squeal in curves and the truck wanted to keep going straight.
It was a LONG ride home.

 

Yeh that's why I'm suggesting 1200 lbs or so max.

On a truck bed that's roughly 4'x6' = 24 sq feet, that's only 6" depth of gravel.

GRAVEL 6 INCHES DEEP, no more. (Distributed evenly across entire bed of truck.)

 

That could be way overloaded depending on trim. My Pro only has 990 lbs. Of payload. 1200 would be high end on a Taco, would it not?

Also have to leave room for diver, passenger, and any other stuff in the cab. Personally I wouldn't haul more than 500-600 lbs of gravel in ANY 3rd gen bed.

 

I mean, yeah, I guess technically, but kinda going by rule of thumb. I don't think going 300 lbs past a 950-lb rated payload is going to result in a grossly dangerous driving condition. But that's just an opinion.

I've put 38 standard 8x8x16 concrete blocks, at 38 lbs each = 1,368 lbs, in the bed of a stock-suspension 2014 AC TRD OR. It definitely squatted notably, but there was 1.5" of air space between leafs and bump stops, and it wasn't dangerous to drive cautiously. In this photo the blocks are 2 layers deep. Plus another 50-60 lbs of steel T-posts, plus me the driver, etc, brings it closer to 1,600 lbs of cargo.

EDIT: Blocks are actually 28 lbs each, not 38 lbs, and it was 40 blocks total, = 1,120 lbs + 50 lbs T-stakes + 200 lb driver = 1,370 lbs, which is 18% overloaded past the nameplate "not to exceed" load cap. for the truck, including the driver/passeners, of 1,160 lbs. With that considerable (but not ridiculous) overload it was riding low but not bottomed out on the bump stops. Did not experience any drastic problems with steering or braking, inc'l 55-60mph on the highway.

Notably, this is an "ideal overload" situation in that the weight is evenly-distributed across entire rear bed, so at least several hundred pounds of load is being shared to the front suspension. It would be problematic to put >1000 lbs of cargo at and behind the rear axle only, as that would take a lot of load off the front tires leading to squirrely, light, and dangerous front steering response, as well as putting lots of cantilever load on the portions of the rear frame rails that hang out behind the axle.

 

Don't look at the overload as a weight. Look at it as a percentage. That 300 lbs doesn't sound like much but it's a 30% overload factor.

If you had a wheel barrow rated for 50 lbs. but put 100 lbs. in it, sure it's "only" a 50 pound overload but it's double the rating.

Plus, putting 1200 in my truck puts it solidly over payload without anyone in the truck.

Nobody is saying your truck will burst into flames, but the ratings exist for a reason. To add perspective, the dodge dually that broke his frame in half was only something like 40% overloaded. It may not bite you now, but that doesn't mean it's smart.

 

Yeah, I suppose. Idk what the actual engineering safety margins are on these load ratings.

In the example I gave above, with actual numbers on a real trip, I was 37% overloaded past driver's-door name-plate cargo capacity, and the vehicle was still very driveable and didn't (to my knowledge) experience any permanent damage, i.e. bent frame etc.

In the Ford Dually example you give, hard to judge without knowing the total picture, i.e. was the load concentrated on the rear 1/3rd of the bed behind the axle? Was there appreciable frame rust? And especially -- was that vehicle routinely overloaded, perhaps 100s of times, leading to failure through fatigue cycling?

 

It was a dodge/ram, new, and yes he put a bed camper in that had it overloaded. He got 20K miles before it broke. It's an extreme case, but it's used to illustrate the point of there being no visible problem is not proof that there is no problem at all. His truck was fine in all aspects according to him, and then it was a sudden catastrophic failure.

 

Whoops, stop presses -- major error on my part which I have to own here. My calculations were based on googling the weight of an 8x8x16 concrete hollow block. Google said 38 lbs per block.

BUT -- I actually weighed one of these blocks on a scale, and made notes about it, at the time I carried the load pictured. Just reviewed those note. The ACTUAL weight is only 28 lbs per block.

So that means the actual weight of the load as-pictured is 40 blocks (not 38) x 28 lbs = 1,120 lbs, +50 lbs T posts + 200 lbs driver = 1,370 lbs.

Which makes more sense when you compare that number with the amt of visible squat on the springs. At 1650 lbs it would've probably be bottomed out completely.

 

Welcome!