GVWR 2k under minimum

[hucklefeller]

Hey fellas,
I recently bought a 2001 F550 in pretty great condition. Currently, it has a flatbed on it, but I want to replace it with a chipperbox by Arbortech that I am buying used off a friend (smallest box 11'). Arbortech's minimum GVWR is 19,500 lbs. Unfortunately my 2001 F550's GVWR is 17,500 lbs. How big of a problem is this? Should I just plan on dumping it more often or is this a legal concern which I could be sued for? I see plenty of 3500 chassis' out there rocking boxes well over their payload, but I want to cross my t's and dot my i's.
Thanks for the help!

 

[ZinTrees]

is it legal? yes until you overload it
is it safe? yes, until you overload it
will you overload it? yes, every time you use it

even at a 19,500 GVWR, you likely can't fill the 11ft box legally, my 26K truck has an 18K rear axle, and I'm over weight with around half my 14ft chip box filled

what I would do is build a shorter box (7ft maybe) and do a section of flatbed behind the cab to carry tools and random equipment, or upgrade to a bigger truck

 

[pdqdl]

I'd bolt it up and try to remember that overweight tickets are very expensive. Then I'd do some experimentation to see how much wood in the bed puts you overweight.

Empty, that truck is going to weigh about 11k-12k pounds. That will leave you room for somewhere around 5-8,000 lbs of men, gear, and wood chips. Let's not forget that you will almost certainly have a chipper on the back, so watch out for your licensed weight and the gross carrier weight to not exceed 26,000 lbs. Otherwise, you had better have Class A CDL as well.

If you get it all built up, then shoot it half full of chips and then go weigh it. Be sure to get axle readings as well as the total weight. I'd guess your front axle has a 7-9k limit, with somewhere less than 18k on the rear axle. To be honest, I never recorded the axle weights, but I am positive they are not as high as a full sized single axle dump truck.

As to whether or not your truck can carry the load? You should have good confidence. I have a 2000 F-550 also, and loaded the hell out of it one day, and yes, I got caught by DOT. We had 5 tons of gravel on the same 17.5 GVWR truck as yours. The empty weight is 9120lbs with a 9' dump bed. I was towing a 20k rated trailer (4500lbs) with my 10,500 lb bobcat on the back. I think we may have had an extra attachment as well as the bucket.

Ohhh Yes! He had me dead to rights. After inspecting my lights and finding a couple of faults, he asked me where I was going with that load. As it happens, I was headed for the City auditorium to do some work for the City, his employer. He just looked at me with a smile and said "Well, we'd better get you down there, if they are waiting on you."

Yes, the little truck carried loads like that quite often, and never had any trouble. If any of my guys drove it but me, the transmission would overheat pulling a big load in the summertime, but I never had that problem. It is as simple as not putting your foot in it going up a hill. At 1/2 throttle in low gear, it will pull almost any hill. I have the V-10 engine, and it would sail up and down hills until the transmission got smoking hot.