Thread: WDH Needed?
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Old 04-23-2006, 11:06 PM   #3
rickst29
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Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Reno, NV
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Wink Maybe not, in this special case (MONSTER truck)

The wheel base is almost 140 inches, and the curb weight is almost 5300 lbs. Unlike the equivalent SUV, (the Armada), the pickup truck has very little weight on the rear axle-- there's almost no body structure back there, particularly if you don't have the 2-seat "crew" cab. A little bit of front end lift will actually help to balance the weight on the axles: In handling terms, the Titan is definitely too heavy on the front, although I didn't see any Interenet reference to indicate exactly how far out-of-balance the loading is (relative loading % on each axle at curb weight).

Also note: Since the front axle is so far from the rear axle (and the hitch), a large weight on the Hitch has much less effective "lifting power" on the front axle of the Titan than it would on a small SUV like mine... or, for that matter, on your Tahoe. The Titan will balance a lot of hitch load with only a small amount of front axle unload, because the geometrical "moment" (i.e., the length of the arm going back to the axis or rotation rear axle) so long. As Archimedes said, "give me a lever long enough and I can move the earth". The Wheelbase of the Titan is a heck of a big lever, compared to the Tahoe. So only a relatively small amount of weight will come off the front axle.

- - - -
PBUCK1 has created wonderful spreadsheets for calculating TM trailer loads. You plug in your TV wheelbase, distances TV rear axle to tow ball, TM tongue weight, and it'll spit out your rear axle load and front axle unload. If you want to add additional inputs "weight of TV luggage behind rear axle" and distance from rear axle to the center of this weight, then it'll show the the loadings for that stuff too. In your special case, pay attention only to the firwst 6 results, (the pre-WDH values).

He posted this in a thread I started a couple weeks ago,
Tongue Weight versus WDH sizing. I think Paul's spreadsheets deserve a thread all by themselves, they're absolutely outstanding.
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