KR Kodi

iTrader: (1)

You say your GVWR is 6700 (max allowable weight), and your payload capacity is 1457 (which is quite good).

Therefore the weight of your empty truck (nothing in it at all except for a full tank of gas) is 6700 - 1457 = 5243 lbs.

What will you carry in the truck when you're towing?

If you've just got a couple people and some luggage - let's say 457 lbs just to work with round numbers - then your truck would weigh 5700 lbs, and you'd have 1000 lbs of payload remaining to carry the weight of your WDH and tongue weight of the trailer.

That would be 100 lbs for a WDH, and 900 lbs of tongue weight - and with a 12% tongue weight of 900 lbs that would be a 7500 lb trailer. Pretty good!!

BUT WAIT!!! Your max tow rating is 6400 lbs!!

BUT WAIT!!! #2 Your GCWR is 11,100. That's the max your rig (truck and trailer together) can weigh. Your truck weighs 5243 lbs completely empty, so 11,100-5243=5857 lbs max trailer weight with nobody in your truck to drive it!!!! - i.e., you can't tow anywhere close to that 6400 lb max tow rating listed in the "sales brochure"!!!

If, like in the earlier example, your truck is loaded to weigh 5700 lbs, then 11,100-5700=5400 lbs.

So, depending on how much weight you carry in the cab and bed of the truck, a 5000 lb (maybe a little more if the truck is lightly loaded) would be the max that would be a comfortable and safe tow.

Also, what kind of towing will you be doing? If you'll be pulling 50 miles to local camping grounds a couple times every summer, then you can pull a heavy trailer.

If you're going to be towing cross country for thousands of miles every year, then you definitely want to stay conservatively within the rated limits of your truck for long term durability of the truck, and especially for safe towing.

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PerryB

Be aware that those numbers are the structural limitations of the hitch itself, and not what the truck is rated to tow.

rolandr

Great tips here, now all I've got to do is raise the roof on my pole barn. It's about 3" short. Looks like I may be renting a sky jack.

smokeywren

That means you have the regular towing package. The regular towing pkg was std on the Lariat and FX trim, but optional on XL, STX and XLT.

For 2013, the towing pkg included the 7-pin RV wiring harness, auxiliary tranny cooler, class IV trailer hitch receiver, Select Shift transmission with tow/haul mode, and upgraded radiator. Everything you might need except tow mirrors, the integrated trailer brake controller(ITBC) for anyone that tows a TT. And the trailer tow pkg doesn't include an engine oil cooler needed only by those that go nuts and overload their rig while towing in mountains.

The "class IV" hitch means it's rated for at least 1,000 pounds hitch weight with a WD hitch.

The tow mirrors and ITBC are available from the parts department, as well as from the F-150 accessories catalog. An engine oil cooler is not available from Ford, but it's easy to install one yourself using an oil filter sandwich adapter and an aftermarket oil cooler (heat exchanger) and common plumbing fittings.

There is no "sway control" switch, as such. Sway control uses the Advance Trac with Roll Stability Control (RSC) system. So the only sway control switch is the stability control switch on the bottom-left of your dash.

Your Owner's Guide says if you have trailer sway, you're towing too fast for conditions, so slow down. "Conditions" might include not properly adjusting your WD hitch, or not properly distributing the weight within your trailer.

Requirement for trailer brakes is set by state laws. Most states require trailer brakes on any trailer that might be considered as a travel trailer or camping trailer. My rule is if the trailer might gross more than about 1,500 pounds when wet and loaded on the road, it requires trailer brakes. Some states require brakes on any trailer with a GVWR over 2,500 pounds.

You might "get by" without a weight distributing (WD) hitch if your max tongue weight will never be more than 500 pounds. But again, if it's my trailer then it's going to have a WD hitch with sway control if the tongue weight is more than about 250 pounds.

"Sway bars" indicates the cheap friction sway bars that make up the sway control on cheap WD hitches. Not good enough for me. I insist on the built-in sway control of a Reese Strait-Line dual-cam sway control hitch, or at least the friction-based sway control of an Equal-I-Zer or Reese SC WD hitch. If your WD hitch costs less than about $500 from discount sources such as ETrailer.com or Amazon.com, then it's a cheap WD hitch. Spend the money and get the good stuff with good sway control for towing your trailer.

And I don't go for "do as I say, not as I do". My hitch for my TT is a ProPride 3P, which cost a lot more than $500.
www.propridehitch.com
And my hitch for my cargo trailer is a Reese Strait-Line dual cam trunnion bar WD hitch.

Brake controller: As others have suggested, settle for nothing less than the Ford OEM ITBC. Here's a direct-from-Ford source:
http://accessories.ford.com/trailer-...trol-9197.html
But you can probably beat that price from on-line discount sources such as Taska Parts.

WD hitch: In the "reasonable" price range, I prefer the Reese Strait-Line. If you promise to never tow a trailer that grosses more than 5,333 pounds, then you can use a WD hitch rated for 800 pounds tongue weight. In that case, here's your hitch:
http://www.etrailer.com/Weight-Distr...e/RP66083.html

Tow mirrors. Yes, they are mandatory for safe towing if your trailer is higher and wider than the tailgate. Best is the Ford OEM tow mirrors. You can order them from the Ford accessories catalog for $450 for power mirrors, $400 for manual mirrors, or $650 for power mirrors with memory. Ignore that blurb that states "dealer install only". After you learn how to find one screw in the armrest door pull pocket, the rest of the R&R is a routine DIY project for any handy man, and the wiring is plug and play.
http://accessories.ford.com/kit-rear...ror-10319.html

KR Kodi

iTrader: (1)

rolandr, if you haven't seen the thread linked below, take a look. He has a truck similar to yours and rented a 26' TT. It sounds like it was a little heavier than he should have been pulling, but his big problem was the lack of a weight distributing hitch and no sway control.

https://www.f150forum.com/f70/3-7-to...rience-270205/

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