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Old 12-04-2011, 11:07 PM   #21
ShrimpBurrito
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John / Redhawk - When you have your TM in tow, and the ATV and the rest of your camping gear in is in bed, have you ever weighed all 3 axles? Therein lies the answer. If, after the WDH is attached and the scale says all 3 axles are all within their weight limits, your gross combined vehicle rating is not exceeded, and the TV and TM are level (without the air bags inflated), then it is my humble opinion (FWIW) that if air bags help your ride, then that sounds like a good application.

Dave
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Old 12-05-2011, 04:50 AM   #22
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thanks RedHawk. For the reasons you state, I agree. You have said it better than I was explaining. When I said it was increasing load, I was mis-stating.... It rides like a bigger truck with the firmness and weight control. I have weighed the combo with TV, MC, and TM. With all, its within factory spec's. I am not overloaded. That would be dangerous, unsafe and foolish.
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Old 12-05-2011, 06:14 AM   #23
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Default Airbags vs WDH

I've been working on calculations to get to an engineering analysis of the WDH numbers, and I still have a ways to go before I have the illustrations needed to make it more understandable. I'll try to get this done in a week or two, and I will post it here when I do.

Meanwhile, in round numbers, without a WDH: A 500# trailer tongue weight will add something like 700# to the rear axle of the tow vehicle, and subtract the excess from the front axle. Your tow vehicle stopping and steering traction will be reduced by approximately the front axle weight reduction percentage. The rear mounting bolts of the trailer hitch receiver will each carry almost 2 times the tongue weight because of the lever advantage at the hitch ball (in addition to what happens on the bumps). The axle effects are easily checked on the truck scale and will come out the same with or without air bags.

With a WDH: the front axle unloading goes away, the tongue load that otherwise would go to the rear axle is reduced by the loads that get moved to the front axle and the trailer axle, and the loads on the rear hitch receiver bolts are about zero (except on the bumps, of course). The front bolts on the hitch receiver are loaded with respectable numbers, but there are four of them to share it and no single one of them is more than the tongue weight.

A WDH is mandatory for most of us.
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Old 12-05-2011, 08:14 AM   #24
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Quote:
No air bags. Big letters - NO AIR BAGS!
Bill
That was a pretty strong statement. I guess I will back off a bit, and echo Dave / Shrimp Burrito's more reasoned assessment.

Air bags are not inherently evil - although air bag advertising is, in my opinion.

IF your tow vehicle is level, and
IF your TM is level, and
IF you have weighed all three axles, and
IF you know the real tongue weight, and
IF none of the weight ratings of the tow vehicle or the TM is exceeded (check them all - there are quite a few)
THEN air bags are probably not going to hurt you.

But IF you believe the airbag hype, and use it as a reason to overload your vehicle, then you may damage your vehicle, and you certainly put yourself in danger.

Not many of us have a vehicle where all this is true, but if you do, OK.

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Old 12-05-2011, 10:22 AM   #25
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. Adventure View Post
I've been working on calculations to get to an engineering analysis of the WDH numbers, and I still have a ways to go before I have the illustrations needed to make it more understandable. I'll try to get this done in a week or two, and I will post it here when I do.
Don't overlook the effect of the distance from the tow ball to the rear axle of the TV. Shorter is better for more than one reason.
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Old 12-05-2011, 02:49 PM   #26
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I have a 96 Ford F-150 with a 5.8 motor. I bought it with towing a light travel trailer in mind. Then when looking for a used trailer I happened on an add for an overhead camper right along my route home from work. I stopped and looked at it and it was in excellent
condition. The price was great! So I bought it. Took up a lot less room in the driveway for sure.

Many of you have already thought something like, "hey, an F-150 is too light a truck for carrying an overhead camper". You are correct in most cases. Overheads tend to start at about 2000 lbs and go up from there.

In this case the camper was a SixPac and weighed 1440 empty. The GVW is 6250 and the truck weight (empty) is 4000. So I figured that with the camper, (1440), two tanks of gas, (about 250 ), and both of us, (320) added up to 2010 lbs. Add in 4000 lbs of truck and you get 6010, leaving 240 for some clothes and groceries before you exceed the GVW. I am sure that I exceeded it by 1 or 200 pounds on occasion.

I did not check the weight on the rear axle, rated at 3800, but since the fore and aft weight center of the camper was slightly ahead of the rear axle, I don't think I exceeded it by too much if at all.

Anyhow, the point of all this is that I put air bags on it in order to do two things: 1. keep it level. 2. Eliminate sway, which is a real problem with truck campers.

I drove that rig across the USA and back twice, and from south to north, southern California or Texas to Missouri, Wisconsin, the Dakotas, or Canada several times. Never a bit of trouble with tires, springs, axle, rear end, or transmission. It is sitting in my driveway right now with 135,000 miles on it. I sold the camper for $300 more than I paid for it after 8 years of use.

The point is that many folks are talking as if a couple of pounds over the line will make your TV fall apart. I think it is safe to figure on a little wiggle room. Big wiggles, maybe not so smart.

A question. Anyone ever see or experience an overloaded hitch breaking off?

You know that some folks are oblivious to weights, so there have been some egregious offenders out there.

Tom M.
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Old 12-05-2011, 03:05 PM   #27
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Folks,

Two more things before leaving this topic:

1. When I discussed air bags with Matt at Custom RV he recommended them. That was for my 2010 F-150. Basically he said that the bouncing motion of the trailer could cause metal fatigue on the rear leaf springs.

2. Last summer I went down there to pick up my 2330 after some work was done. When I arrived Matt was giving the new owner of a 2720 the "here's how it works" tour of his new trailer. Meanwhile Scott was installing a brake control and hitching it up. The guy's TV was a long wheelbase Jeep Grand Cherokee with a V8.

I asked him, "Are you going to use a weight distributing hitch?" His answer was "What's that?" Matt was standing there and answered the question. He said, "Oh that's a type of hitch that some owners like to use. You won't need one though".

I figure that Matt knows TrailManors and their use, so I said nothing else about it.

Interesting, what?

Tom
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Old 12-05-2011, 03:11 PM   #28
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I have never seen a hitch break, but I have seen:

1. Cracked frame on the tongue of my 2005 TM 2720 (well documented around here in 2006). I am pretty sure the failure was a combination of a bad weld for the bracket for the swing away tongue and the load at that point, especially during bumps.

2. I once watch my neighbor haul some old broken up concrete to the dump. The bed was loaded to the top of the rear window. I have no idea what the weight rating is for a Hudson truck (remember those?), but the rear springs were fully compressed and the rear bumper was nearly scraping the ground. His route to the dump included Devil's Slide in California. Some people do the darnedest things. How many air bags would have been necessary to level this load?

3. When I was a Boy Scout Explorer we had a home made trailer that we used to haul gear, towed behind a 1965 Jeep CJ5. We did not have a hitch failure, but the tongue bent enough that it scraped the ground. We used a hi-lift jack to straighten it out. We jacked up the low point and then put 300 pounds of scouts on each side jumping up and down. We strapped the jack (3 feet long) to the tongue using bailing wire. We might have been overloaded. Or it might have been from towing at 45mph on dirt roads with gullies.

All of these are unusual situations. The first was an engineering design flaw. The second was clearly a violation of weight limits. I am not entirely sure what the third failure was caused by.
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Old 12-05-2011, 06:26 PM   #29
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I certainly agree that the advertising for air bags is evil...LOL According to the literature they are a cure all for all your towing issues. As stated above, if you overload the TV and use the bags to level, you will eventually pay dearly.

I have not weighed all the axels Dave, but did the calculations years ago and was in spec. I really like using the WDH and bags together since the WDH will transfer some of that weight to the TM and the front axle. I'll try and get it weighed this year. I'm curious.

Thanks for all the kind replies. It's bitter cold now and I'd love to be somewhere in the TM camping instead of shoveling snow and sitting by the fire. It seems like a long time till Spring.
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Old 12-06-2011, 05:51 AM   #30
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Quote:
Originally Posted by T and C View Post
...
A question. Anyone ever see or experience an overloaded hitch breaking off?

You know that some folks are oblivious to weights, so there have been some egregious offenders out there.

Tom M.
Tom,
When you google "trailer accident" you get pages and pages of stories about trailers coming loose from their tow vehicles (with the lawyers running after them, because loose trailers kill innocent victims). A few involve hitch component failures, most involve a failure to use proper equipment like safety chains, and the majority seem to be short on common sense in some important way.

And yeah, I suppose we could think of the egregious offenders as some kind of wacky test pilots (like the guy I saw coming into the campground on last 4th of July weekend with a 27 foot TT on a bumper hitch ball, with no wires or chains attached; I was hoping that maybe he just lived up the road and never goes over 40mph with that).

And, speaking of wacky test pilots, the Boy Scouts offer a lot of those opportunities. Somehow important lessons don't get taught at home, like "You'll be hungry if you don't pay attention and lose your dinner into the fire."
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