TM angle while towing

[RockyMtnRay]

Originally Posted by PopBeavers

Well, I finally had the TM out of the garage and took some measurements. however, I forgot to measure lift on the front of the TV.

Measure this. It's at least as important a number as the rear sag because it will tell you how much the front is being unweighted...and front unweighting greatly reduces front tire steering and braking. Weight that's coming off the front due to unweighting is also being transferred back to the rear suspension, compounding the load problem there and further increasing your rear sag.

When the TM is hooked up to the TV the front of the TM is 2.75 inches too low to be dead level. This is more than I had guessed. If I flip the hitch bar upside down, to get a lift instead of a drop, then it would be dead level. Sounds like I ought to put the hitch bar in upside down.

Yep.

The TV rear end drops 2.25 inches as measured at the receiver socket when I attach the TM. This is with 1.5 propane bottles full, water full at 40 gallons. Water heater full. Toilet empty. Gray water tank empty. Fridge empty. Other cargo normal for a weekend trip. I have no idea if the front lifted or not.

What I am real curious about is at what point in trailer weight or tongue weight should one consider adding a WD hitch? There is a big difference between towing a motorcycle trailer and a 30 foot TT. The TM factory, I can't recall who I talked with, said that I probably had no need to use sway bars or WD hitch because of the size of the TV. The 1500hd is essentially a 3/4 ton truck. It has a pretty long wheel base with the full crew cab and 6.5 foot bed. Overall the TV and the TM are both pretty close to 20 feet long, each.

There is no hard and fast answer...it depends on lots of variables (like size, weight, wheelbase..or more accurately ratio of wheelbase to rear overhang) of the tow vehicle. My standard is if hooking up the trailer removes more than 5 to 10% of the weight on the front wheels, you need a WDH. Only way to know this is to go get each axle weighed on your tow vehicle with/without the trailer attached...which is exactly what the folks from the RV Safety Education Foundation do at their RV safety weighins. Until I got my WDH properly adjusted, the area that caused me the most concern was front axle unweighting and corresponding loss of steering and braking effectiveness plus a tendancy to have front bounding/bouncing on poor roads.

I was originally concerned about some bouncing that was happening when I hit large bumps at freeway speed. Adding air to the tires seems to have helped a lot. Also, the original shocks have 64k miles on them so I should probably consider replacing them soon.

Things may change in the future. I'd like to aquire an ATV (quad) for my wife and an offroad motorcycle for me. That will quite likely result in more sag in the TV due to the increased cargo. Until I weigh it all I don't actually know how much additional cargo capacity I have.

Exactly. Since you have a 1500 series, even with the HD option, I suspect you'll find that a Quad and a M/C in the back in combination with the undistributed tongue weight and the transferred weight from the unweighted front suspension will put you near or even over your rear suspension's axle rating. A WDH will make a big difference because it not only transfers a lot of tongue weight to the front, it also prevents the transfer from the front to the back due to front unweighting.

For the moment, since it is towing well and stops well I don't think there is any *NEED* for a WD hitch. Maybe when I add more cargo next year.

Someone mentioned that a WD hitch was pretty cheap. Cheap to me is under a hundred bucks. My guess is that a WD hitch is somewhat more than that.

A bare bones, non-name brand, round bar, no-sway control WDH runs around $200 to $250...which is pretty cheap to me. Name brand round bar hitches w/out sway control can be had for around $250 to $350. I paid about $300 for my Reese brand round bar WDH from my TM dealer and was told that was his dealer cost. Go to cam type sway control on a trunnion bar style WDH and the price shoots up to well over $600.

[fcatwo]

On getting the jack wheel off: I seldom use the wheel unless I know I'll need to maneuver the TM after unhitching. This is especially true when The TM is on an unlevel surface. I normally use a gizmo that is similar to the wheel & housing but has a flat, 8" round base. My real preference is to not unhitch at all if we are stopping for only one night-- or longer if we won't need the truck for a grocery run. I carry several 2X8X12" blocks that I use under the rear truck wheels or the TM's wheels in various combinations to level the TM while it is still attached to the truck. I just like the solid feeling the TM has when still attached to the TV. I do lower the tongue jack and stabilizers, release the WDH bars and unplug the power cable from the truck.

[Denny_A]

Originally Posted by PopBeavers

For the moment, since it is towing well and stops well I don't think there is any *NEED* for a WD hitch. Maybe when I add more cargo next year.

Someone mentioned that a WD hitch was pretty cheap. Cheap to me is under a hundred bucks. My guess is that a WD hitch is somewhat more than that.

Well, since I totaled my 2720, guess what I don't use anymore! Right; my WDH. I paid $180 for it and used it from Mar. '02 to Feb. 05.

If you are ever interested, I'm prepared to offer it to you for $90 (or?) + shipping. Since the whole magila weighs 85 lbs, it would cost $30-40 to ship. I paid about $35 for shipping fron Tuscon to N.E. WI. If interested PM (private message) me.

Link to mfr site: http://www.quality-s.com/children/hitch/wtDist.htm

Unit is the DELUXE, ADJUSTABLE, 750 lb rating.

Link to Instructions: http://www.quality-s.com/PDF/wdh1002a.pdf

Model #752A.

The WDH is just gatherin' dust (rust - will clean up aand repaint also).

Denny_A

Originally Posted by RockyMtnRay

Measure this. It's at least as important a number as the rear sag because it will tell you how much the front is being unweighted...and front unweighting greatly reduces front tire steering and braking. Weight that's coming off the front due to unweighting is also being transferred back to the rear suspension, compounding the load problem there and further increasing your rear sag.

Front end lift due to hitching up the TM is 3/8 inch. Seems pretty minimal to me, but what do I know, I'm the one with all the questions.

I haven't taken the time (yet) to wiegh the TV alone. However, the last trip out I loaded the TM up to try to simulate a pretty heavy load. On the theory that another newcomer might be interested in my weights, at least as a point of interest here goes:

2002 Chevy Silverado, 4wd, crew cab, 6.5 foot box, 6 liter engine, not sure of the trans
Wife and I in the truck
gas tank nearly full
rear seat folded down and loaded with:
Coleman electric cooler with food for 2 for 5 days.
Two laptops
clothes for 2 for 5 days
ice chest full of cold drinks and ice
some other stuff
truck bed loaded with:
two bicycles
Honda 2000i generator
box of blocks, chocks, etc.
TM 2720 loaded with:
40 gallons fresh water
water heater full (6 gallons I think)
toilet charged (guess 2 gallons)
propane, 1 full other 90 percent full
3 gallons bottle water under curb side dinette seat
well stocked bar
fridge half full of beer/soda/juice
normal (for us) load of pots/pans/dishes etc.
some clothes
2 travasaks
8 folding chairs
1 folding table
1 small bbq in rear
TM factory options:
awning
swing away hitch
over sink cabinet
microwave cabinet
a/c

Weight was:

front axle 3500
rear axle 3860
TM axle 3380
total 10740

What I learned is I was approaching maximum for the TM. This is OK as I had loaded the floor of the TM much more than I normally would. The bed of the truck was mostly empty, except for the bikes. In any normal trip most of the stuff on the floor of the TM would have been in the bed of the truck.

When I have a moment I'll dig out the truck limits. Still need to see if I have the capacity for a quad ATV (probably 350-400cc) plus a street legal offroad motorcycle (probably 250cc)

One of these days I'll weigh the truck empty.

One of these days I'll weigh each side. With all the water on one side I could be pretty lopsided.

One of these days I'll try to see if I can find a recommendation for tire pressure based upon load for the truck. I don't think I really need to put all 80 pounds in the rear with only 50 in the front as posted on the driver's door.

The CAT scale in Dunnigan said I would need to weight the combo twice as it was too short. The cost was 9 dolalrs per weigh. I left.

The CAT scale in Orland (at TravelAmerica) said they would do a two part weigh for the single price of 8 dollars. But I was able to stradle all three scales so we weighed it all in a single shot.

Didn't catch his name, but the guy at TravelAmerica in Orland was very helpful.

I did flip my hitch bar upside down. Now the TM is a little high instead of a little low in the front. So far I have never scraped the ground at all with either setup. Front high does give me a little more roof clearance getting the a/c through the garage door. The a/c dropped slightly as it is mounted behind the axle.

[fcatwo]

PopBeavers

Thanks for sharing your weight info. Am I correct in assuming you are still not using a WDH? I'm asking because it occurs to me you may need one if you start hauling several hundred lbs of ORVs in the back of your truck. The WDH will not only shift weight from your rear axle to the front but back to the TM axle as well. You may not want that.

As an aside, I've been looking for a place to post some info I picked up a few days ago and will do so here: I was comparing the specs on both the Suburban/Silverado and Tundra/Sequoia and noticed that the SUVs have close to equal weight on their front and rear axles (like 52%-48%) while the pickups are closer to 60%-40% with significantly more weight on the front. This is probably why you've been getting by without a WDH and would probably need one if you had a Burb. It also tells me that the "one-size-fits-all" rule for setting up a WDH needs to be adjusted for the type of tow vehicle and the load it's carrying. Ray is right; we need to weigh them as you have done.

Just one other minor point: I noticed in your packing list that you carry bottled water under a seat. I'm probably overly-cautious but we always carry our bottled water in the tub. I'm afraid one of the bottles will get tired of being bounced around and look for a sharp corner to relieve itself of the weight :-). We use the spendy blue tinted bottles and even those eventually crack and leak. The thicker 2 & 5 gallon bottles probably last mush longer.

Originally Posted by fcatwo

PopBeavers

Thanks for sharing your weight info. Am I correct in assuming you are still not using a WDH? I'm asking because it occurs to me you may need one if you start hauling several hundred lbs of ORVs in the back of your truck. The WDH will not only shift weight from your rear axle to the front but back to the TM axle as well. You may not want that..

If I move some of the excess weight out of the TM and into the truck bed that should help. Another thought is to add a front receiver hitch to the TV and put the 250 cc motorcycle (when I get one) on the front of the TV. Not sure about that. It is just a thought for the moment.

By the time I actually get around to buying the ORV's the current TV might be getting old enough that it will be time to consider replacing it. Since February this year I have already driven over 10,000 miles.The next TV could be bigger. For the moment I really like the size of the 1500hd. Big enough without being too big.

It may become very interesting to get the weight spread evenly across three axles without going ove the limit of them.

Originally Posted by fcatwo

Just one other minor point: I noticed in your packing list that you carry bottled water under a seat. I'm probably overly-cautious but we always carry our bottled water in the tub. I'm afraid one of the bottles will get tired of being bounced around and look for a sharp corner to relieve itself of the weight :-). We use the spendy blue tinted bottles and even those eventually crack and leak. The thicker 2 & 5 gallon bottles probably last mush longer.

Never thought of that. My strategy was to try to offset the weight of all the water on the street side by locating the bottle water to the curb side, in front of the axle. I'll have to rethink that one.

Hi:

I have a 2004 8 cyl 4WD Toyota 4Runner and use it to pull a 2003 2619. When I hitch the trailer to the TV is almost level. I just spent a week in Northern Michigan which is about 500 miles from home and drove 65 to 70 on freeways with no sway, even when passed by a semi.

When I bought the 2619 this Spring, the seller included a 300-500 lb WDH. he had a front wheel drive mini-van. I asked the service guy at my local TM dealer and he said he didn't think I needed to use it.

What is the consensus?

Don in Columbus, OH

[Bill]

There is near-universal agreement that a TM doesn't need sway control.

Re a WDH, the best way to answer your question is to ask you to weigh your tow vehicle four times. First, with no trailer and with the tow vehicle empty except for the driver, weigh the front wheels, and then weigh the back wheels. This is the weight distribution that the manufacturer intends. Then, load up the tow vehicle with the "stuff" you will carry in it when you camp, pack up the TM with the "stuff" it will have when you camp, hitch up the TM, and again weigh the front wheels and the back wheels of the tow vehicle. If the weight distribution (percent of weight on front wheels and on back wheels) has not changed, then you probably don't need a WDH.

Let us know your results, and we can go further.

Bill

I bought a Rapid Hitch which allows numerous adjustments up and down. They are pricey but I think are well worth it. I previously towed with a F150 and now a F250 and agree that a WDH is not really necessary with those vehicles.