woodway

Documenting my 2 horse gooseneck trailer, experience - maybe it helps someone down the road.

Truck:
2020 XLT, 3.5L EB, 6.5ft bed, 3.73 Max Tow.
Payload (Yellow Sticker): 1842lbs
Front GAWR: 3525
Rear GAWR: 3800

Trailer:
2015 Sundowner 2 horse gooseneck
GVWR: 8750lbs
Payload: 5510lbs

My wife has two horses that she pulls around for riding, shows, etc. I originally bought her a Maverick 2 horse bumper pull trailer, and it worked fine, except when she wanted to load both horses she had to use the WDH (with only one horse loaded the tongue weight was right at 500lbs, so no WDH required). She complained that it was hard for her to wrangle that WDH by herself when I was not around to help. I agreed with her.

I told her that the only way to dispense with the WDH was to: (1) step up to a F250 or F350 or, (2) find a gooseneck trailer that our truck could pull. She likes our truck and did not want to spend the money on a F250, so she went out and found herself a used Sundowner 2 horse gooseneck trailer. Here is a photo:



The dealer installed a B&W gooseneck hitch in the bed and wired the 7-pin connecter as well. The hitch is great...when you are not towing you pull the pin, flip the ball over, drop it back into the hole and now you have your entire bed to use. This is really a sweet setup.



On the way home, I passed by a CAT scale, so I stopped in for a quick weigh.



Unfortunately, I did not have time to drop the trailer and make another run through with just my truck, but when I got home I put my Sherwin tongue scale in the bed and dropped the trailer pin onto it: 600lbs. That gives me an empty trailer weight of about 3260lbs which ties well with the trailer GVWR (8750) - Payload (5510) = 3240lbs. It also means that about 18.5% of the trailer weight is on the truck.

So now I can do the math:
Trailer empty: 3260lbs
Add Ronnie (horse 1): 1100lbs
Add Rowdy (horse 2): 1000lbs
Add Saddles, tack, clothes, stuff my wife will put into the trailer: 300lbs (and this is generous for her)
Total Trailer: 5660
Pin weight @ 18.5%: 1047lbs

Truck Payload: 1840lbs
Minus Linex: 50lbs
Minus Mats: 20lbs
Minus hitch: 65lbs
Minus Pin Weight: 1047lbs
Minus Me+Wife: 300lbs
leftover payload: 358lbs <----- Plenty of payload left over

Now to check rear GAWR. It's not clear to me exactly how the pin weight distributes between the front and rear axles of the truck when the trailer is hooked up. Any experiences to relate here? Let's say 90% rear, 10% front for now.

Rear GAWR: 3800lbs
Weighed rear axle with empty trailer pin weight (600lbs) and me (180lbs) on the truck: 3320lbs
Add delta for my wife (her weight will be further forward, maybe distribute 50/50?): = 120lbs*.5 = 60lbs
Add delta to weight pin for the trailer load = 1047 - 600 = 447 * .9 = 402lbs
Total rear axle weight:: 3320 + 402 + 60 = 3782lbs <---- Slightly under, but bears watching

As soon as I get time, I'm going to have my wife load the horses, her saddles and we will throw some hay bales into the trailer and then drive down to the CAT scale for a re-weight. I suspect that with the horses in the trailer, the pin weight ratio will actually drop for the incremental horse weight due to most of the horses standing over the trailer wheels (the trailer is a slant load, the wheels are pushed to the rear). This is what I saw with my Maverick trailer which was also a slant load with the wheels pushed to the rear.

I can say that my truck pulls this trailer beautifully, and I will feel good about my wife setting off with her "boys":


Ronnie

Rowdy

This was a good exercise for me, and reading the various threads here taught me what to look out for. If anyone see's mistakes in my calculations, I would love to hear about it!

Flamingtaco

Here's how your pin weight will be affected. I took the mfg's trailer layout and laid it over a grid to get a good approximation of the sections of the trailer and where the horses will be center in relation to the pin Vs axle centerline.

The rear most position centers a horse's weight at about the axle centerline, maybe a touch behind it. Using this position should make almost no change to the pin weight.. The forward most position centers a horse's weight about 18.5% towards the pin from the axle centerline, so that much of the horse's weight goes to the pin.

The standing height section of the tack room runs from that same 18.5% to 50% of the pin to axle centerline distribution, and the overhead is 50-100%. Stuff added to the standing section will add only 18-50% of it's weight to the pin. Stuff in the overhead adds 50-100%.

I don't think you will see your pin weight change much with the horses, and I don't expect the trailer to remain at 18% TW unless you bulk up in the overhead. It's looking like you may only see 300-400lbs added to the tongue when using the front stall.

With the wheels mere inches from the rear of the trailer, I'll be surprised if you or your wife ever have an uncomfortable tow. IMO, your wife picked a winner across the board. Let us know how the weights play out, and how it feels when loaded up.

jeffinthebag

Nice write up. There was a person on here that had a regular 2013 with a 5.0 and 3:55 rear and had a 2 horse gooseneck. They were a regular and said it was great and they scaled it and showed the papers a few times.
Goosenecks tow and track so much better than a bumper puller plus like you said, no WDH to ever worry about.

Gene K

In my opinion this is a winning combination With the typical drop in pin weight percentage you see fully loaded with that type trailer it's a well matched combo.

You also have a high quality trailer and hitch setup.
I suspect you will be very happy.

I would suggest installing a high quality camera that mounts in the bed light location. It will make solo hookups a painless affair.

woodway

@Flamingtaco - Thanks for that. I'll post up new numbers as soon as I re-weigh the truck/trailer with the horses and tack in the trailer.

@jeffinthebag - Thanks!

@Gene K - I had been thinking about installing a bed camera...did not know they made one to replace the bed light. Do you have a camera that you like/can recommend?

Gene K

I will have to ask. I don't personally pull a gooseneck but have several friends that have those cameras it really makes it easy getting hitched solo (Not so easy with a Crew Cab without). I don't think they actually replace the bed light / third brake light but they integrate the camera with it and the head is adjustable. They are adaptable to work through the factory screen.

Edit: Called a buddy and he said his is a BRANDMOTION he got through Home Depot. He said he can't really give a recommendation other than to say his has worked well but he hasn't used any others.
​​​​​

woodway

Thank you @Gene K - I have been doing some reading and found the Brandmotion option, they sell a wiring harness and a camera that installs underneath the existing Center Mount High Stop Light (CMHSL):

Ford Third Brake Light Cargo Camera F-150 2015-2019/Super Duty 2017-2019 FLTW-7625 | Brandmotion specializes in OEM-grade backup cameras,blindspot monitoring,collision avoidance,parking sensors,wireless charging and vehicle integration services

I've read rumors that the F250 CMHSL with the integrated camera will fit onto the F150. If I could combine this with the Brandmotion wiring harness, that would be the real winner (depending on how much the F250 CMHSL with camera costs). I'm doing a little digging on this option.

In either system you install a switch that allows you to switch between the tailgate backup camera and the cargo camera while the truck is in reverse.

First thing I am going to do before I drop a few hundred bucks on a camera system is to install a piece of tape on the tailgate that my wife can see when she backs and see if she is able to use that to line-up the trailer pin with the hitch ball.

RickC137

I had that B&W Turnover Ball on my F-250. Installed it myself. Towed a 5th wheel with the "Companion" hitch, and a gooseneck equipment trailer..

The hitch is bolted directly to the frame, with just the ball "socket" sticking up through the bed. It's an excellent, heavy duty hitch. It will tow effortlessly.

woodway

We loaded up the trailer today with all the saddles and tack (plus I threw may another 50 pounds in the tack area), loaded both horses and this time both my wife and myself were in the truck. Over to the Cat scale we went for a weigh. The results surprised me a bit, as I did not think we would transfer quite this much of the additional weight to the trailer pin:



We are right at the rear GAWR, so will need to be careful of that when we load and go in the future.

When we got home I left the trailer fully loaded and dropped the trailer pin onto my tongue scale: 1100lbs. If I do my sums right, that mean that the total trailer weight loaded is about 5820lbs and 19% (1100lbs) of the trailer weight is transferring to the truck.

On the handling side, we drove about 20 miles each way to/from the nearest Cat scale including climbing/descending up a 1000' 6% grade and 20-30 mph side winds. The truck and trailer handled beautifully. At 60 MPH and even with the wind gusts we always felt in full control. It's like we were driving one vehicle, not two. My wife is super happy.

Here is a photo I took as my wife was loading the horses. The truck is wearing winter rims/tires and it's really dirty, so it's not exactly a beauty shot. But, I think that truck and trailer are a great combination.

Flamingtaco

I'm surprised your tongue went up that much. I may have underestimated, but I've got a feeling the line drawings may not have been vaguely precise. I went with 60/40 for the horses. They haven't been skipping (rear) leg day, have they?

Glad it worked out for you. Maybe you can look for some more rear axle room on the next truck, but def well within the range of the 150. I'd check the room behind the axles under the floor, might be able to mount a water tank to unload the pin some, can use it to clean up after muddy/dusty days.

Is there room to the left of the tack room door for the spare?