Ton of gravel in a half ton pickup???

[Tony H]

Check around one of the quarries near me has been running a deal 12 ton for 105.00 delivered up to 20 miles and of course they will dump it in one big pile or in a run as you wish. I am going to get a load in spring and then use a buddies skid steer to push it around.
IMO would not use the 1/2 to haul that type of load I would use a bigger truck or a trailer if I had to self haul .

 

[mayhem]

Christ on a crutch Highbeam, thats a ludicrously heavy half ton truck. Any chance it was a mislabeled 3/4 ton truck? We had an 85 Sierra when I was a lad...it was a 2500 and had the badges, door sticker...everything. Except it was a 1 ton truck. Had the 1 ton frame, suspension, axles, had zero pollution equipment, ran on leaded gas...it was a 1 ton truck that was mislabeld on the assemnbly line. My brother once loaded over 4000lb of sand in the bead and drove it on a 3 hour trip to another brother's house in CT (no, i don't understand why they didn't buy sand in CT...IIRC it was because their sand came from part of the Housatonic river watershed in CT, which at the time was so full of pCBs from GE in Pittsfield, MA that it practically glowed at night)...the truck would not squat down on its suspension and it was bought new, no suspension mods.

My brother replaced that truck wiht a 97 Sierra 2500 rclb. I used it a few times to haul gravel...the scales at the gravel pit had its unladen weight right around 5500lb, which lines up well with my ecbs 2500's weight of 5800 or so considering it has a heavier motor and alot more steel in the extended cab.

One of the biggest differences I've noted between half and 3/4 ton trucks is the frame. Many half tons use C frame cross sections and are fully boxed only at the max load points where the axles are located and 3/4's are typically fully boxed end to end...that right there is worth several hunderd pounds of weight. When i was truck shopping I looked at several half ton and 3/4 ton Chevy/GMC trucks...both OBS and NBS. The halfs tons were always alot lighter...you could feel it. I drove a half ton and 3/4 ton OBS ecsb back to back (both late 90's...forget the exact years) and while they were both Vortec 5.7 V-8's with pushbutton 4x4 and 4 speed auto transmissions, the half ton was clearly a lighter truck. It was alot quicker from a dead stop and you could feel it was less massive when turning and braking. Had similar experiences when test driving NBS trucks. Drove my 6.0 2500 compared to a 5.3 1500, both ecsb 4x4 trucks...2500 has 4.11 gears, 1500 had 3.73's...despite the quicker gears and more powerful motor in the 2500, the 5.3 was alot quicker off the line and I had a difficult time keeping the rear tires from breaking loose (rainy that day). The only good reason I cna think of is significnatly less weight on the 1500.


Not looking to start an argument of course, I just can't get my head around any circumstance where you can buy a half ton pickup that weighs 5800lb, resuling in a 400lb load capacity...if you take a couple friends somewhere with you, you couldn't put their golf clubs in the back. It just doesn't make sense for any manufacturer to make a truck like that.

All that said, yes, you and I are in agreement on how to determine the safe loading capacity of a pickup truck.

 

[Highbeam]

I really liked that truck. Items that may have made it heavier were the sprayed in bedliner, LT tires, normal tools under the rear seat, and the leer canopy that was flush with the cab. It was an ECSB too. The frame was C channel up to about the driver's feet and then boxed in from there on up which is the same way the the F350 frame is built. The only vehicles that I've ever dealt with with fully boxed frames were toyota pickups and a post 76 Jeep CJ. Maybe the spare tire was stuffed with drugs or something sneaky like that. I ran 177000 miles on that pickup without catastrophic failure.

The half tons felt faster because they had the 4l60e transmission which has a very low first gear. Much lower than the 4l80e from the 3/4 tons which use that great transmission but they don't have the snap from that low first gear. You did good to buy the 6.0 2500 combo, the later years fixed up that cold start knock issue but the engines seem to be properly sized.

I'll never know why that truck was so heavy. It was a major factor in selling it. I had pretty much destroyed the rear end in it already as well with my hauling work. The actual housing was bent which was discovered when replacing the bearings. The differential shop pointed at my hitch and said "that's your problem, you need a bigger truck".

I live near a DOT weigh station that is seldom open but the scalehouse window is open to allow me to weigh my trucks one axle at a time. The front axle was always around 3500 and the rear was near 2300. When loaded with the proper trailer and WD hitch the truck was over the GVWR (of course) but not over the axle or tire ratings. I'm a stickler for getting 10% of the weight of a trailer on the hitch to prevent sway and with an equipment trailer you can position the tractor to change that percentage. I did it at the weigh station.

 

[leftyscott]

BTW..... At the quarry scale my Z71 Silverado weighed in at 5160 with my 165 lbs & 1/2 tank of gas. I checked out st 7100 lbs..

Note: Door sticker shows 6200 lbs as max weight. I guess that means a half ton truck equals a half ton load.

 

[SolarAndWood]

You did good to buy the 6.0 2500 combo, the later years fixed up that cold start knock issue but the engines seem to be properly sized.

What's the deal with that knock? My 01 started doing that at about 120K.

 

[Highbeam]

BTW..... At the quarry scale my Z71 Silverado weighed in at 5160 with my 165 lbs & 1/2 tank of gas. I checked out st 7100 lbs..

Note: Door sticker shows 6200 lbs as max weight. I guess that means a half ton truck equals a half ton load.

If you weighed 200, your fuel tank was filled up for another 70-80 lbs, and maybe you had a dog in there you would be down to 4 fat chicks of cargo capacity. Considering that you probably have 5 more seat belts to fill you can see how there isn't much cargo capacity in a half ton truck.

The early 6.0 engines had a problem with cold start knock, often called CSK, that was allegedly caused by the very shallow piston skirt allowing the piston to rock and slam around inside the cylinder until the engine warmed up and all the tolerances tightened. GM tried some fixes in later years including coating the piston skirts with teflon and such but ultimately said that the rattle isn't hurting anything.

Since then they dropped the larger gas 8.1 engine so if you want a truck you either need a diesel or that 6.0. This means plenty of 6.0s are out there and they haven't totally died yet.

 

[mayhem]

Yeah, the 6.0 is a great motor so far. Bought it with 91000 on it and its at 127000 now, no issues. I do experience CSK, basically it sounds deisel-ish for the first 60 seconds or so of driving when the temps are cooler...say under 45 degrees or so. It goes away when I change the oil and comes back slowly as the oil gets dirty. I do my oil every 10000 miles and the filter every 5000 and use about a quart per filter change...which is not bad considering the filter holds about 3/4 of a quart.