First thank you to everyone that has posted.
Second I’d like to clear the air as far as F350 or F250, And I am only speaking of the 99.5 – 2003 or 2004 year Superduty trucks. The spring packs are Coded different but some of the F250’s were optioned with the heavier packs (camper pkg and/or sever duty pks ) and in those cases the springs on the F250 are the same as the F350 mine happens to be optioned and I have confirmed that with the local ford dealer. And to save argument even if the spring are not the same changing out leaf springs for higher capacity sets is not rocket science along with the option to add Air Bags to the rear. Now with that said does that allow the truck to payload more (pin weight) yes, can it payload what a SRW F350 can yes. Can you do it legally, that’s another topic.
Do I want to spend 30K+ on a Newer Used or 50K+ on a new Cummins/Dmax or Powerstroke. Not really. Especially not when my truck only has 90k miles on it and it all works. I can work on it for the most part. The newer trucks are wallet suckers after the warranty is up. They will pull a house, at full hiway speed. But I also do not want to be the one towing up a grade at 30mph. When my truck is further up in miles I’ll trade up to a newer truck but it just doesn’t make sense to me now.
Originally I had looked at a 10090 dry weight, 2090 dry pin Full profile Fifth wheel. Those numbers when used against a F350 SRW even push it’s GVW, GCWR with very little room. I expected 1300lbs of gear.
I’ve reevaluated and have decided with that weight I really don’t want to pull that on a SRW truck anyway.
I’ve done some looking and have re-evaluated to a 8400 Dry weight, 1400 dry pin 5vr, that will put me in mid upper 9K range. And place my GCWR in 17-17.5k range.
I’m willing to drop some $$$ for intake, exhaust, Torque Converter, Valve body and guage pod setup, and gears if I need to 3.73 to 4.10 . (currently use the infinity to monitor all my EGT, Trans Temp etc.)
Even with all that it’s still far less than 30-50k for a new truck.
