First time I towed the big trailer (about 10,000lbs) since I got my 4.56s and 87 octane tow tune from PHP. It did surprisingly good. If I kept it under 60mph on the interstate it did very little searching for gears. The only problem was balancing since the tractor is too long for the trailer. It did some fish-tailing, but I made it home. It does better than my dad's stock 2009 5.4 with 3.55 gears. I averaged 11mpg pulling it which isn't as bad as I expected

 

cool job. Thanks for the pics.

If this is something you plan to do often- or tow anything often? I would look into some rear airbags to help out with the leveling/ balance. May help the fish tailing???

Just IMO

 

I'm probably putting AALs in to clear 37s in a few months so that should take care of it

 

You NEED a weight distributing hitch with that kind of weight. With a weight carrying set up like that, your hitch is rated for 5000 pounds. Hope you don't get involved in an accident towing over your limits like that

 

You also need a drawbar with more drop.

 

Good example of why I will hever put a lift or leveling kit in my trucks. As soon as you put any weight in the box or hook something up to it they look like they are severally over weighted. Your trailer is sitting pretty level though.

 

Yep. If you are going to make a habit of towing that thing, you need to get a WD hitch and a drawbar with the correct drop. Looks like you didn't get a new drawbar after you lifted it.

 

I keep the drawbar a little tall so the jack of the trailer doesn't drag and get torn up when I go over a little hill or dip in the road

 

If your back end were level with the correct drop, the trailer would still be level.

 

The trailer is too short to be able to balance the tractor right, so it has to have a lot of tongue weight. There's really no way to keep the back end of the truck level until I get AALs

 

You need a WD hitch before you get AAL - and air bags would probably be better than AAL. Without WD, you are WAY over your hitch max, to the point of being dangerous.

 

What exactly is a weight distribution hitch?

 

Here's a pretty decent video- and they use an f150 at one point too

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2WMeZy07Jg

 

A WD hitch transfers some weight toward the front axle. Without WD, a Class 3 hitch is only rated for a 5000# trailer and 500# tongue weight. WD will double that.

If you are towing a 10k trailer with a heavy tongue, you will probably be over the hitch rating even with WD. Like I said, if you are that far over rating, that's dangerous. A 1/2 ton truck is not designed to tow with a tongue weight over 1000# or so.

 

that does look like a good idea