Truck for Eagle Cap 1165?

There is not much of a price difference between the F450 and F550, but the 550 can carry up to 10,000 lbs. Once you have storage boxes on a flat bed, you can significantly add weight to your rig, so I would avoid the F450.

Palfinger makes the Badger flatbed with low sills allowing the camper to sit lower than some of the other beds. You can get it with a goose neck trap door if you have a need.

These chassis cabs typically have a range of axle ratios available from 4.10 to 4.88. The middle 4.30 or 4.44 is a nice compromise between highway cruising and trailer pulling capacity.

The engines are derated with a lower tune than the pickups to allow longer duty cycles at maximum output. I'm not sure if this will help or hinder fuel economy, but it will increase engine life.

Just for a kinda-sorta similar comparison, I get about 10.5-11 with my EC1160 on an F350, running 4.10 gears. 10 or under with the trailer in my sig pic added on.

I have considered in the past getting a Gear Vendor over drive. But the cost vs. Return On Investment in fuel savings didn't pencil out well.

I am running an 08 F550 with the 4:88 gears. My curb weight is about 15,000# and the 6.4L Ford PS only gets us about 8 mpg which I feel is too low. I will be looking at programming and other modifications in the spring to improve on this mileage. With all of that said, this truck pulls great. I tow an enclosed tandem axle trailer loaded with a work bench, tools, generator and an 87 Jeep rock Crawler and I towed this setup over Cottonwood Pass in Colorado last August. I am careful with my equipment so when we were on the extremely steep inclines I ran about 20 mph. No sense in stressing that trany while I was out in the middle of nowhere.

The newer trucks have an upgraded transmission with more gears than I have. I believe my '08 is still running a 4 speed

Don't be too afraid of that gearing because the auto trans has a double over-drive.