Got Mine!!!

Picked up my new (well, new to me) 2004 2720SL in Arkansas yesterday. Drove home to Austin today, 500+ mile trip. Pulled by my 2002 half-ton Silverado with trailering package. Trailer wasn't loaded for camping, but it trailed very nicely at basic weight. Not an inch of sway, ever. Don't have a WDH. Wanted to see how it behaves nekkid (without the sissy bars), first.

Got a bit of bounce over rougher sections of highway (man, between the construction and roads that desperately need re-constructing, that I-35 south of Dallas is some of the worst in the country). I'm used to being bounced by trailer tongue weight. Thought for years that's what trailering was all about. But some of you may be convincing me to take a closer look at WDH.

Planning a 9,000 mile trip next Summer (2005) to Alaska, so if a WDH smoothes the ride as much as I've read on this website, it may warrant a closer look.

But first, gonna load for camping and weigh the rig, one axle at a time (already got my truck's basic operating weight). If I'm close to rear axle limit, I'll get a WDH for sure. If not, I'll try a trip nekkid, and if the bounce becomes wearing I may give WDH a try.

What is the concensus on best hitch for a good balance between effectiveness and ease of use? What do you do with the hardware when you unhitch? Can the bars stay mounted to the trailer, or do you just drag 'em behind your truck like a Native American Indian travois? (Just kiddin', but I'd 'preciate a serious answer.)

OpenRoads

[G-V_Driver]

The most serious answer I've heard about your plans is that you should assume that any vehicle you drive and/or tow to Alaska and back will be junk by the time you're back home.

I've heard incredible stories about the rocks (thrown up from the road, mostly by trucks) that break the glass, break the headlights and dent everything else--sheetmetal, muffler and exhaust systems, mirrors, trailers--beyond recognition. Somebody said to buy a couple of rolls of 1/4" metal mesh and fashion covers for anything you don't want broken. Pretty much convinced me to forget about that adventure.

Congrats on your new addition. You're gonna love your 2720SL. It's great for two people, cozy and comfortable. Regarding the WDH, it was the best investment I could have ever made. It worked great with both TMs and both TVs.

I stow the bars in the back of the SUV or leave them on the ground under the trailer. I guess someone could steal them but I have good karma .

Enjoy your adventures and remember, "It really is the greatest thing on wheels".

Yeah, I've heard the stories, too. But my daughter and her mate have between them six trips on the ALCAN, with nary a word about trashing their vehicles. Guess we'll take the chance.

Supposed to be a fabulous trip. We love the Northwestern states and have taken many trips through the Rockies. We hope the Canadian Rockies and Alaska will be even more worthy of a few dings and breakage along the way. Let's call them badges of honor!!! Combat medals!!

I do plan on devising and installing plastic covers for the street side windows for that trip. Meanwhile, I have plenty of time to check out the TM, to see if it is too fragile or I am too meager a TM mechanic for such a journey. If the trailer proves over the next year to be unworthy, I can always fall back on a tried and true Airstream for the Alaska trip. But one way or another, we will be there next year. Got a granddaughter graduating high school in Anchorage. Besides, adventure is what Open Roads is all about--the venture yet tried, the roads yet traveled, the sights yet seen.

OpenRoads

A WDH will make a great difference in ride wheather you need it or not. Try it you'll like it.

[Bill]

OpenRoads -

The AlCan trip sounds great, and I know you'll love your new 2720SL. But I think you are missing one of the basic concepts on the weight distributing hitch. The purpose of a WD hitch is not to improve the ride - though it will do that as well. The purpose is to distribute the 400-500 pound hitch weight to where it belongs. There are two aspects to this.

First, if you toss 400-500 pounds on the rear suspension of your half-ton, that's a lot of extra load. Add another 500 pounds of "stuff" in the back of your half-ton, and you are really stressing the tires, shocks, and so forth. Now, go and beat that overloaded rear end over 1000 miles of AlCan highway, and ... Well, it just isn't smart.

The second aspect is actually more important. If you drop 400-500 pounds of weight on the hitch (and the hitch is a ways behind the rear axle, of course), then the vehicle tends to pivot - as the weight presses down on the hitch, the front end of the truck tends to lift. In fact, you are lifting about 200 pounds off the front wheels. Your half ton wasn't designed to run that way. The wheels will bounce up off the road on that AlCan washboard, and the steering will be squirrelly as heck. In the worst case, you'll lose steering control as that front end floats around. Again - not smart.

The weight distributing hitch distributes the weight of the trailer tongue (hence the name) so that some of it rides on the rear axle, some of it rides on the front axle, and some of it rides on the trailer axle - all evenly distributed.

Like my Dad always told me, you get to choose your own poison, but once you've chosen it, you don't get to complain if you don't like it. Been there. Done that. Wouldn't even CONSIDER doing it on a long rough piece of road like the AlCan.

Bill

I picked mine up on Friday.(2720sd) It lowered the rear about 1 in. and mayba raised the front 3/4 in. The rear overload springs just touched in the rear. Its about 2 1/2 hrs. from the dealer to my house. It towed fine but did add some bounce. When I talked with the folks @ Equilizer they said with my truck and the weight of the TM I shouldn't need the hitch. Would it help take some of the bounce out of the traler? Just hate to spend that much money and not get much benifit out of it.

Thanks for your comments, Bill. I believe I understand the concept of a WDH. So, correct me if I'm wrong.

Until the weights on my rear axle, front axle, gross TV, gross TM and combined gross weights approach their limits, the rig is safe (weight-wise), or at least the rig can be operated within its designed parameters. And if the hitch weight leverages a couple hundred pounds off the front axle, or even several hundred pounds when bouncing over rough roads, a couple thousand plus pounds of front wheel bite still remain for safe (normal) steering and stopping (I'm not addressing emergency handling here, most of which can normally be avoided by alert and skillful driving. Unalert and unskillful driving can't be helped, even with a WDH, although I might grant that a WDH could delay the inevitable.) In fact, if a driver lets his TV "BOUND," that would indicate a driving error of simply going too fast for the road conditions, rather than a weight distribution problem. Is this not so?

While you're at it, Bill, please explain this. TM went to great lengths to design a trailer with an axle far enough behind the hitch and the trailer's center of gravity far enough ahead of its axle(s) to put nearly 15% of its gross weight on its tongue. That magic 15% ratio is needed to maximize trailing stability (fifth wheelers put an even greater percentage on the hitch and "big rigs," more yet.) TM also designed the trailer light enough so that a 15% tongue weight would not overload the rear axle of a typical light-duty TV. Then we come along and redistribute TM's designed weight distribution by removing some of the tongue weight and placing it back on the trailer's axles. How does the resulting lower tongue weight percentage and aft movement of the trailer's CG not affect towing safety?

What happens to the magic 15% tongue weight ratio (and optimum stability) when we redistribute the trailer's weight? Seems to me that when none of the limiting weights are exceeded, the only real reason for using a WDH to reduce tongue weight is for riding comfort, rather than safety. (Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to increasing TV comfort.)

Maybe this has been explained elsewhere on this website, but I've read extensively and have not found explanations to the above questions.

OpenRoads

Live2shopnc, I can't imagine how your three-quarter ton TV would benefit enough to warrant the cost (and more importantly, the hassle) of a WDH. My half-ton seems to work fine without one, so far. Course, I haven't really loaded it down yet. That's why I've asked the questions.

If a WDH can improve comfort (less bucking, by reducing tongue weight and percentage) without compromising safety (from a reduced tongue weight and therefore a lower percentage), I want to understand how that works and why. Hopefully, folks like Bill and others who've been there, done that, and thought it through can help us (me, anyhow) understand.

OpenRoads

[RockyMtnRay]

[quote author=OpenRoads link=board=1;threadid=1851;start=msg13122#msg13122 date=1082291750]
Thanks for your comments, Bill. I believe I understand the concept of a WDH. So, correct me if I'm wrong.

Until the weights on my rear axle, front axle, gross TV, gross TM and combined gross weights approach their limits, the rig is safe (weight-wise), or at least the rig can be operated within its designed parameters. And if the hitch weight leverages a couple hundred pounds off the front axle, or even several hundred pounds when bouncing over rough roads, a couple thousand plus pounds of front wheel bite still remain for safe (normal) steering and stopping (I'm not addressing emergency handling here, most of which can normally be avoided by alert and skillful driving. Unalert and unskillful driving can't be helped, even with a WDH, although I might grant that a WDH could delay the inevitable.) In fact, if a driver lets his TV "BOUND," that would indicate a driving error of simply going too fast for the road conditions, rather than a weight distribution problem. Is this not so?

While you're at it, Bill, please explain this. TM went to great lengths to design a trailer with an axle far enough behind the hitch and the trailer's center of gravity far enough ahead of its axle(s) to put nearly 15% of its gross weight on its tongue. That magic 15% ratio is needed to maximize trailing stability (fifth wheelers put an even greater percentage on the hitch and "big rigs," more yet.) TM also designed the trailer light enough so that a 15% tongue weight would not overload the rear axle of a typical light-duty TV. Then we come along and redistribute TM's designed weight distribution by removing some of the tongue weight and placing it back on the trailer's axles. How does the resulting lower tongue weight percentage and aft movement of the trailer's CG not affect towing safety?

What happens to the magic 15% tongue weight ratio (and optimum stability) when we redistribute the trailer's weight? Seems to me that when none of the limiting weights are exceeded, the only real reason for using a WDH to reduce tongue weight is for riding comfort, rather than safety. (Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to increasing TV comfort.)

Maybe this has been explained elsewhere on this website, but I've read extensively and have not found explanations to the above questions.

OpenRoads
[/quote]
The stability/resistance of a TM to sway is not an outcome of putting 15% of the trailer's weight on the hitch. It is an outcome of TM putting the trailer's wheels farther behind the it's center of gravity (CG) and aerodynamic center of pressure (CP) than most RV makers do...the 15% is simply a metric of how far behind the CG the wheels are. TM can move the wheels back further simply because the ultra light construction (and low profile) allows this without generating 1000 lb hitch weights.

Using a WDH changes where the downward forces apply...and undoubtedly unloads the hitch area somewhat...but a WDH does not change the relative position of the trailer's CG/CP to its wheels, therefore it has little to no effect on the trailer's stabilty and resistance to sway. Bottom line: Hitch weight as a percentage of trailer weight is strictly a metric of the relative position of the CG to the wheels and though there is a correlation between high hitch weight percentages and good stability, it is not in and of itself the the causal factor in trailer stability/instability. This is a classic case of correlation not being the same as causation.

However, changing the position of the trailer's CG relative to its wheels does have a great effect on its stability...people who have placed moderately heavy loads (e.g. 4 steel frame bicycles) well behind the rear bumper of a TM have notice a significant drop in the trailer's stability...with or without a WDH. The reason is they moved the trailer's CG significantly backwards...not by adding lots of weight but by adding moderate weight on a very long moment arm.

As for the affects of not using a WDH and therefore unloading the front axle of the tow vehicle, that's more than just a comfort issue. It does affect steering and definitely affects front wheel braking, particularly on shorter wheel base tow vehicles. On a longish wheelbase half ton (or bigger) truck...or a full size SUV, the reduction of front wheel braking effectiveness is probably not noticeable unless the road surface is loose (gravel, snow) or wet. But on a shorter wheelbase vehicle (e.g. the Jeep Cherokee (103 inch wheelbase) I used to use), the loss of front wheel braking is immense. I skidded halfway into an intersection last year with both front wheels locked up (no ABS) because the bars on the WDH I was using simply didn't transfer enough force to the front wheels. When I upgraded from 550 lb spring bars to 750 lb spring bars (same number of chain links dropped), I finally solved a very dangerous front wheel braking/skidding problem.