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Old 02-21-2015, 03:23 PM   #29
Bill
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Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: The mountains of Scottsdale, AZ, and the beaches of Maine
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I'm not sure about your math, and I'm not sure where the 152 pounds came from. Let me try it another way.

The attached picture shows the basic operation of a lever. I've shown two pylons bearing some weight, with a beam across them. You can think of the two pylons as being the front and rear axles of the tow vehicle, and the beam as the frame of the vehicle. The distance between the pylons is the wheelbase of the vehicle.

Then I have shown some weight placed on one end of the beam, out beyond the pylons. The added weight causes the beam to act like a teeter-totter - in other words, to pivot. Think of this weight as the hitch weight of the trailer. In this example, the addition of a 500 pound hitch weight causes the pylon on the right to be unweighted by 100 pounds, while the weight on the left pylon increases by 600 pounds.

Makes sense? Hope so. Questions?

Bill
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