what defines a 3/4 ton?

My 1981 @ 2000 Chevy C2500 had/has a 9.5" semi floater. A BB, or 6.5TD would have had a FF. Same 88-2000 body style, had FF axles in 1500s with the 6.2/6.5TD diesels. Granted 8-10" versions.... 5 or 6 lugs too.
Marty

My 86 C20 8600 GVW had a semi floater.

Huntindog wrote:
A 3/4 ton truck used to have 8 lug wheels and a full floating rearend. These are signifignant things.
But the manufacturers have been marketing 1/2 tons which do NOT have those important items as having 3/4 ton capabilities.... Sadly it has gone on so long now that many do not remember, or never knew the difference.

Chevrolet's and GMC's 3/4 ton trucks (C20) from the 70's thru the 90's always had semi floating axles.

Ford's 3/4 ton trucks (F250) from the 70's to date have mostly been a full floating axle with the exception of the light duty F250 produced for a ~couple of years during the late 90's which were semi floating.

When light-duty trucks were first produced in the United States, they were rated by their payload capacity in tons (1/2 ton-, 3/4 ton - and 1-ton). Over time, payload capacities for most domestic pickup trucks have increased while the ton titles have stayed the same. The now-imprecise ton rating is presently used to compare standard sizes, rather than actual capacities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truck_classification

If I want to get groceries and a few bags of snowmelt plus some landscaping blocks, I use the Toyota Tundra

If I want to tow the boat, or the 23' flatbed with ATV's or sno-gos, I use the (new, yay!) F250 (replacing the soon to be dearly departed Chev 2500HD)

If I want to haul 3.5 yards of gravel, or tow the dozer around, I use the F550

One of those is a 1/2 ton, one's a 3/4 ton, and one's medium duty. Darned if I care about which is which, I just look at what I want to carry before I pick the truck....even if I sometimes mistakenly pull the boat with the Toyota.

What I am most concerned with my trucks is axle and tire rating, GVWR, and what level I have to register it.

For instance, in my state, I have to run a 12K plate on my Frontier, because with the funfinder hooked to it, I weigh 8500 combined. Because of that, I cannot run just a 6K plate. If I never towed anything with it, I could run a 6K registration.

The reason we "pay" for the weight of the trailer in the truck plate is because our trailers get a "permanent" (one time) plate, and the cost of that registration is basically just a paperwork cost.

If you look under the rear of a F350 SRW vs a DRW, the pieces and parts are the same, yet the DRW has a much higher axle and gross rating. The limiting factor on the SRW is the tire capacity. My dually has a 9K axle rating, where the same truck that year in a single was 6K.

The payload on my F350 is 4800 pounds. So I guess that makes it a nearly two and half ton truck. Sometimes when running empty, I think that's an appropriate designation !

I suppose eventually people will drop this idea of calling these trucks out as half ton, one ton, etc. Old habits die hard.

To make it even more confusing. Back when these terms actually meant something, Ford F series trucks were names F-1, F-2, F-3, and F-4. The Ford changed their naming and the F-1 "1/4 ton"(or 1/2 ton depending on who you ask) became the F100. The F-2 "1/2 ton"(or light 3/4 ton depending on who you ask) and F-3 "3/4 ton" (or heavy 3/4 ton depending on who you ask) both became the F250. The F-4 "1 ton" became the F350. Ford later started making the F150 as their " heavy 1/2 ton" along with the F100. The F100 was discontinued years later.

For a long time, GM didn't even use numbers for most of their trucks. They had names like Apache for light duty trucks, Viking for medium duty trucks, and Spartan for heavy duty trucks. Many of the trucks that did have numbers didn't coincide with their payload like the 3100, 3800, and 9310. So saying that the Asian trucks not using the numbers system is not the norm was actually the norm for some US makes back in the day.

I wonder if the heavy half tons were the first ones to to have a GVWR over 6000 lbs which put them into Class 2. The 60's trucks (like a C10 or F100) only weighed about 3000 lbs when empty.

Since these topics always become a discussion of overall confusion, let's throw this in too: remember back when for instance, a Chevy 1/2 ton was called a C10 ? Well, then we got "heavy half", and from that I suspect is where the marketing dept took it and ran with it, and started calling the 1/2 ton a 1500, So of course everybody else had to follow suit, or be lost in the rating wars.

If I remember correctly, at the time, moving the designation up to a "heavy half" had some implications regarding either meeting safety regs or emissions regs.

JRscooby wrote:


Friend of mine had a cab fire in a old F-750. A few weeks later, one of his F-250s was rear ended hard. Then he needed to downsize his company, sell a bunch of equipment. We put the cab off the 250 on the other truck. Weight watcher looks at cab ID number, no issue for no CDL...

LOL!!!