WDH with Swing-away Tongue

[scrubjaysnest]

When using a WDH I have never removed the spring bars before backing and never had a problem with standard trailer tongues. This has been my concern with the 2720SL and the swing hitch all along. When I put the WDH on and towed the TM to a large parking where I could check for issues the first thing that popped up was the standard spring bars are to short and cause interference with the swing hitch mounting brackets. I would still like to be able to use a WDH but am still researching to see if anyone makes one that will fit. We towed the TM 1100 miles without one with no problems.

a RV trailer. Why do TM owners need a WDH? The information that I read stress the ease of a TM in towing. Do most TM owners use a WDH? Like to hear from TM owners who don't use a WDH. Just wondering.

Thanks to everyone's patience in my pursue of information to whether I should purchase a TM.

[scrubjaysnest]

Originally Posted by Beach Boy

a RV trailer. Why do TM owners need a WDH? The information that I read stress the ease of a TM in towing. Do most TM owners use a WDH? Like to hear from TM owners who don't use a WDH. Just wondering.

Thanks to everyone's patience in my pursue of information to whether I should purchase a TM.

With my TV I don't think I really need the WDH. For smaller SUV's the owners manual recommends using a WDH.

[scrubjaysnest]

Originally Posted by M&M Hokie

I have a WDH and swing hitch. It was installed by the guys from CustomRV when I bought the TM but after having a look at it, there is not much to installing it yourself.

I wonder what CustomRV does differently from other RV dealers?

[Barb&Tim]

Have the Swing hitch on the TM and we are using a Reese Trunnion style WDH that was originally installed for a previous 2003 Trail Cruiser TT. I had to re-adjust the WDH when we got the TM in August but once adjusted, have had no problems with it. Will keep an eye on it though, just in case

The main reason i use it is to level the load on the TV, front to rear.

Tim

[Wavery]

Originally Posted by Beach Boy

a RV trailer. Why do TM owners need a WDH? The information that I read stress the ease of a TM in towing. Do most TM owners use a WDH? Like to hear from TM owners who don't use a WDH. Just wondering.

Thanks to everyone's patience in my pursue of information to whether I should purchase a TM.

I do not use a WDH but I have a 157" wheel base on my tow vehicle. A long WB makes a WDH ~less needed in most cases.

The TM is built with the trailer axle farther back than most camping trailers. This makes the TM much less apt to sway but it also makes the tongue weight quite heavy.

The heavy tongue weight results in added weight and friction to the rear tires on the TV and removing needed weight from the front tires of ALL tow vehicles. The shorter the WB on the TV, the more the tow vehicle is effected.

This imbalance of weight/friction from front to rear tires will lead to loss of braking/friction in the front and increased braking/friction in the rear. When heavy braking occurs (especially on wet roads) the front wheels may lock up (skid) and when that occurs, the driver will have no steering control. The vehicle will take much farther to stop and will travel in a straight line (no matter what the driver does to try to turn away from a collision)).

When one uses a WDH, part of the tongue weight is distributed off of the TVs rear wheels and placed on the front wheels of the TV (using leverage). This results in much better braking and control. A by-product is that it also makes for a better ride......

Another by-product is that the WDH also transfers part of the tongue weight back to the trailer axle. The owner must then decide if the trailer axle can handle the additional dead weight PLUS the additional shock loading on road surfaces that are not perfectly smooth.

There are compromises in everything that we do when setting up a camping trailer. The best compromise decisions are always toward the safety aspect of the towing rig.

Some of us have reached the age (and bad back condition) that dealing with the heavy WDH is almost as bad as risking some loss of TV control. That is my case. My TV is well suited (due to the 157" WB) for towing without a WDH but it does come with a certain risk. I am set-up for a WDH and if we will be making long trips or towing in the mountains or if it may rain, I will use it. However, most of our trips are within 150 miles and living in SoCal the risk of wet highways is minimal.

There are a lot of things to consider when setting up for towing. Myself.....I would not tow any TM without a WDH if my TV has a WB less than 140". I would not tow anything larger than my 2720SL without a WDH with any tow vehicle............ but that's just me.

My last TV had a WB of 127" and I experienced front wheel lock-up on a few occasions. It was always on the freeway and always when traffic suddenly slowed from a blind curve in the road. It is the scariest feeling that I've ever had while towing. The driver is totally helpless and can only hope that the rig will stop before impacting the vehicle in front. I soon installed a WDH and it helped tremendously. After realizing that I was placing added weight to an already over-burden trailer axle and tires, I purchased our current truck.

I hope this helps........just my experience......

[Bill]

Barry / Big Bear -

Your driveway doesn't look particularly steep to me. By itself, it should not cause the problem you have experienced.

It appears that the tips of your springbars are WAY too high, and that would be a big part of the problem. As I think you observed in the narrative with the pictures, a tight turn (as shown in one pic) can cause the tip of the bar to hit stuff on the underside of the A-frame at the snap-up hook area. It can also cause the chain on the outside of the turn to snub up against the A-frame, effectively shortening it. Either one will cause immense stresses on the various parts, with the result you have experienced.

With the tow vehicle and TM hooked up on level ground, and the springbars raised to the proper tension, the bars should be level with the ground, or even pointed slightly down. If the tips are too high (as shown in your pics), you can tilt them down by tilting the ballmount backward. This will increase the distance between the tips and the snap hook, and therefore between the tips and the A-frame. Compare the first picture here with the pictures of your rig.

It appears to me that the biggest part of the problem occurs during a tight turn - and the transition to a sloped driveway merely makes it worse. The quick answer, as others have stated, is to release the springbars before backing in. But get those tips down first!

Bill

[Barb&Tim]

Originally Posted by Bill

It appears that the tips of your springbars are WAY too high

Bill

I thought the same thing, they do appear to be too high.

I know it took me an entire afternoon of trial & error settings to finally get ours adjusted properly:

Varying:
Hitch height adjustment
Hitch tilt adjustment
# of links to use

To get:
a level TM
front & rear settle on TV close to equal
and level bars that did not bind anywhere

Tim

[gmferg]

I agree that the tips look too high. OP states that they have max tilt setting on hitch. Even at that setting, the tips look a little high. It looks like the receiver on the TV is not level, it points upward which causes the WDH to point up and even the max tilt setting does not bring bar tips down far enough.

My spring bars only came up high like that after the swing hitch plate was bent 3/4 inch and the whole swing hitch was tilted 3 inches upward. Yes, you are right, you need to reduce the number of links on the chain as much as you can before backing up a steep abrupt grade. With my setup 4 links is the full set up and 3 links is only partly on and 2 links are slack. I probably bent the swing hitch when I was on the full link setting. However in my case you can't take the equalizer bars off completely because then the front on the trailer jams on the driveway and then I need to get a 3 ton floor jack to lift the front of the trailer off driveway. If I had reduced the WDH setting to 3 links before backing up, perhaps it would not have bent. The thing that exagerates it worse in my case with the way my street is sloping, is that I am backing up with the right side of my trailer on the high side of the driveway and that is the same side of the trailer that has the locking pin on the swing hitch and it is the force on the right side locking pin that bends the vertical plate on the swing hitch. My spring bars are 750 lb.
What others could learn from this is that if you were to say turn around and back up a steep driveway anywhere in the country this could perhaps happen.