1999 F150 towing 6500# 26' travel trailer question

[Pacnwguy]

I have a 1999 F-150 4x4 short bed 5.4 Triton A/T with towing package, voyager brake control, oil cooler and 130,000 miles. Axel is 3.55 LS with light duty brake option. I am buying a dual axel 26' TT that will end up weighing 6500# including a distribution hitch and sway bar. The manual says I should be able to pull 7700#. ???

After reading some threads on pulling with a 1/2 ton truck with a 5.4 Triton, I couldn't find any that would address a 99 with over 100k miles.

I will be traveling from Portland OR the coast pretty often and we have some hills to climb. I am a little concerned as to how the truck will handle the job?

Thanks for your comments.

[Pacnwguy]

Thanks for the tip about cummins NW. Gutless was mostly referring to a ford power stroke I drove a few times. You hit the gas and had to wait for awhile to get going. The cummins is a whole different story.

[rhagfo]

Pacnwguy wrote:
Sorry about the mis-spelling. Loaded the TT to 7,000 and a few hundred extra in the truck bed. The diesel 3500 was night and day different over the F150 Triton. Zero lateral movement. Brakes were great and the speed on the same hills was about double without even pushing it. Really nice. Wife dozed most of time compared to being wide eyed hanging on to the hand grips. I really like this truck. Never drove a diesel much in the past but am blown away at its "off the line acceleration". I figured they were pretty much gutless but couldn't be more wrong. Thanks everyone for your comments

Why would you think a diesel would be gutless?
I have an 01 with a small chip still only about 270 to 280 hp, but about 600# of torque. We pull 11,000+# of 5er over those hills at 60 or so, that is with 287,000 miles. Maintain the body and running gear and you will not need a new TV for a long time!

PS: you will learn the correct spelling of the name. You should also be aware that then best place to buy parts and sensors if needed for your engine is Cummins NW located down on Swan Island in Portland.

[Pacnwguy]

Sorry about the mis-spelling. Loaded the TT to 7,000 and a few hundred extra in the truck bed. The diesel 3500 was night and day different over the F150 Triton. Zero lateral movement. Brakes were great and the speed on the same hills was about double without even pushing it. Really nice. Wife dozed most of time compared to being wide eyed hanging on to the hand grips. I really like this truck. Never drove a diesel much in the past but am blown away at its "off the line acceleration". I figured they were pretty much gutless but couldn't be more wrong. Thanks everyone for your comments

[blt2ski]

What is a "CUMMINGS" motor? are we talking some sort of PORN here?!?!?! not on a family forum please.....CUMMINS I have heard of, good motor......

RPM and speed is about what I would have expected frankly with your now soon to be old setup. That motor in a 24 series would do the same speed wise. But the pushing on suspension etc would be less.

Trailer brakes may or may not need adjusting. They should not be squishy. May need to be tightened. Then what are you calling steep grade too? 3-5% on an interstate is not steep IMHO. 15-20% in a forest service campground is STEEP! OR a city road etc.

Marty

[Pacnwguy]

I appreciate all your comments. I towed the TT to the coast and it did OK but was in 3rd 90% of the time running 55mph at 2k RPMs. On grades speed dropped to 35mph with 2.8k rpm. The truck moved around a lot especially with small wind gusts. I never felt comfortable with the handling which caused a lot more concentration than I liked. The TT brakes worked fine but on steep downgrades they felt a little mushy. Long story short, I put the F150 on Craigslist and went shopping. Ended up getting a killer deal on a 2004 Dodge 3500 club cab 5.9l Cummings with 150k miles. It drives like a dream and I am amazed at the acceleration with the 5.9 diesel. Not worried about weighing everything wife puts in TT now. Got a new trip planned over labor day with new rig. Thanks again

[gijoecam]

I have almost the identical combination to you. I used my 2000 F150 5.4 4x4 to tow our new (to us) Jayco Featherlight 29y (30-ft, 6800lb loaded) the first summer we had it. The truck had about 85k on it then, and wasn't my daily driver at that time (it is now). On paper, all was good. I dialed in the weights with the WDH, and we set out on our summer of camping.

Did it get us there? Yes.
Was it a pleasant experience? No.
Would I do it again? If I had to, and only then, not happily.

We have a Reese WDH with a friction sway control. Even with the sway control locked-down tight, I still got pushed around a fair amount. I never had any times where I felt out of control, and was white-knuckled a bit in heavy semi traffic on the freeway, but it was never a relaxing trip.

The next summer, we upgraded the tow vehicle to a 2010 V-10 Super Duty. Had I known how much better it would tow the trailer, I wouldn't have suffered through the first summer with the F150. The Super Duty is downright pleasant to drive pulling the trailer. Same trailer, same hitch (I think I tweaked the head angle one notch to account for the longer wheelbase of the truck), same sway control; night-and-day better towing experience. The drive is downright relaxing now. No concerns about insufficient brakes, I don't get blown around by passing trucks, and the rig is downright planted. I do, on occasion, get pushed around a bit in heavy crosswinds, but we're talking 30-40mph gusts that would blow the truck about unloaded too. It'll drag that trailer all over town all day long and never break a sweat.

In terms of power, the F150 had a tough time holding overdrive at 55 or 60 on the flat lands. Any mild hill caused it to drop out of OD, so on the west side of Michigan, I spent a lot of time screaming in 3rd gear.

The V-10, by comparison, still needs to drop a gear or two from time to time, but the tow/haul mode makes short work of it, but the added ponies help it hold the higher gears a lot better. Mileage while towing is about the same (9-10), but the available power is night-and-day by comparison.

Good luck!

[campigloo]

I had a setup almost identical to yours. Towed from BR to Long Beach,Ca several times. We usually took different routes for sightseeing. It pulled it fine, ran in third all the time. It was strong enough, but boy did it like plugs and coil packs. We alotted one day one each trip to replace at LEAST one. Got 7mpg uphill, downhill, headwind, tailwind or perfect conditions. Basically, it was an adequate truck.

[jerem0621]

Pacnwguy wrote:

APT wrote:
I had a 99 F-150 Supercab and then a 2003 Supercrew, both 5.4L/3.73. Loved those trucks! We towed our current TT at 6500-7000 pounds loaded with the Supercrew for 2 seasons. With a properly adjusted WDH, it was great. Performance was ok at best, but it was never unsafely slow. You have two acceleration gears and one cruising gear. 4.10 axle would have been a better match for that engine as it liked cruising at 70mph/2800rpm more than 62mph/2300rpm. So 6500-ish pounds assuming your dry weight is more like 5500 or less should be good. Change all the fluids, probably shocks, and get a WDH with integrated sway control.

Is the integrated sway control that much better than friction? I was reading that you can add dual cam sway control to an existing WDH for about $200.

You will hear people say YES... integrated sway control is better. My experience with running both is that they are about the same.

I have had both and I prefer the dual friction sway control over integrated sway control. Of course, with a properly set WD hitch.

I ran both Dual Cam sway control after I was sure it would be a massive improvement over 2 sway control bars. I didn't have any problems with my dual friction bars, I just found a smoking deal on add on dual cam and decided to give it a go.

properly set up they either will serve you well.... improperly set up and either will drive you crazy.

Anyway, nothing to fuss about... pick a hitch... set it up well.. if you go with add on sway bars, run two if your trailer is 24 plus ft long.

Thanks!

Jeremiah

[APT]

You can add dual cam to some existing WDHs, but some designs make that cost prohibitive compared to just buying a whole new system, at about $450.

[Pacnwguy]

APT wrote:
I had a 99 F-150 Supercab and then a 2003 Supercrew, both 5.4L/3.73. Loved those trucks! We towed our current TT at 6500-7000 pounds loaded with the Supercrew for 2 seasons. With a properly adjusted WDH, it was great. Performance was ok at best, but it was never unsafely slow. You have two acceleration gears and one cruising gear. 4.10 axle would have been a better match for that engine as it liked cruising at 70mph/2800rpm more than 62mph/2300rpm. So 6500-ish pounds assuming your dry weight is more like 5500 or less should be good. Change all the fluids, probably shocks, and get a WDH with integrated sway control.

Is the integrated sway control that much better than friction? I was reading that you can add dual cam sway control to an existing WDH for about $200.

[APT]

I had a 99 F-150 Supercab and then a 2003 Supercrew, both 5.4L/3.73. Loved those trucks! We towed our current TT at 6500-7000 pounds loaded with the Supercrew for 2 seasons. With a properly adjusted WDH, it was great. Performance was ok at best, but it was never unsafely slow. You have two acceleration gears and one cruising gear. 4.10 axle would have been a better match for that engine as it liked cruising at 70mph/2800rpm more than 62mph/2300rpm. So 6500-ish pounds assuming your dry weight is more like 5500 or less should be good. Change all the fluids, probably shocks, and get a WDH with integrated sway control.

[Greentreena]

our friend's has a very similar truck and trailer and its fine. They travel with the fresh water tank near empty and dump the holding tanks before they leave the campground (when available). They travel at about 90 km/h on the freeways and take it easy on the hills and they get about 10 mpg. They've been camping all over western North America with this set up.

[jerem0621]

Had a 97 F150, 5.4, 3.55 ls, supercab... towing a 7000 ish lb 32 ft TT... Approx 900 lb tongue weight.

The WD hitch was dialed in and I used dual friction sway control bars.

Did great on the interstate, rolling hills on back roads, pulled some pretty steep grades at 40 ish mph...

Towed with OD off, geared down as needed.

Just let the 5.4 rev... I pulled 5,000 RPM's on one grade... don't let the RPM's scare you... the 5.4 needs to rev to make power. Just mention that because the motor sounds different when its working.

Its okay.. just let it rev.

Thanks!

Jeremiah

[blt2ski]

Being as those hills are lower than 1500' or so for the most part, elevation will not kill the OP that much if at all in reality.

Only real issue I see, is how much payload the truck may or may not have. That will be the biggest issue I see. It will be slower on the 4-6% grades than many like, but it should get up the hill, fetch a pail of water and make it down in one piece. Chassis size is not first choice with a family. I had a SW 9200 gvwr 35 series at gvwr with over 2600 lbs of payload. A 26' fleetwood 24C trailer, usually around 6500 on axels, and 650-750 of hw.

Marty