Quote:
Originally Posted by Barry C Anderson
Yes the loads could have been fairly high on the hitch, but I sold the Ford Explorer earlier this year which was the vehicle that I damaged the swing hitch with and now have a chevy trailblazer with a fairly heavy hitch and no longer back up a steep driveway with the spring bar chains on a full setting which, was a mistake. In that way, I have no concerns about my hitch on my new vehicle. I do have some concerns about the training wheels, as I estimate that they are loaded to about 500 lbs each (1000 lbs total)and pick up about 1/3 of the 3000 lb back end of the trailer each side. I have not measured this but lets say when you jack up one side of the trailer to lift the tire off the ground, you have to jack up the trailer frame beside the wheel about 7.5 inches (assumption only) and this lifts up the 1500 lb one side of the empty trailer. Correspondingly if you lift the trailer frame by the trailer wheels only say 2.5 inches instead of the 7.5 inches by the effect of the training wheels you are only lifting about 1/3 or about 500 lbs of the trailer weight one each side with the training wheels. I will keep an eye on the trailer frame but am quite sure it will take this load, as it already had done once. The other thing I am concerned a little bit is the bike hitch frame which is only rated to about a 100 lb load, however it is bolted to the frame directly with a couple about 1/2 inch bolts each side which should take the 500 lbs in shear each side (250 lbs/bolt). The load is directly in line with the bolts in this case. In the summer I plan on taking my 3 ton jack and lift the back of the trailer up an inch or so and then drop it down on a scale to measure the force more accurately. Yes it is something I need to watch but if I do get around to measuring the force I will submit my findings later.
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Barry,
Does your TM have a lift kit?
If not, that could go a long way toward solving your problem You could even go 4" on the lift kit. The steel yard that I went to had 4"x3" tubing with 1/4" wall thickness. I almost used it on my trailer. I'm glad that I didn't. I used 2.5" tubing and I ended up with 1/4" clearance between the A/C unit and garage door.