Posted by jon f mn on April 28, 2014 at 18:43:03 from (70.194.135.220):
I honor of rick deere's post about problems with his trailer I thought it might be helpful to post some helpful hints, debunk some myths, and offer some advice where I can. My creds in this area, for those who don't know, come from being a welder for nearly 20 years before I became a truck driver. Part of what I did was design, build, repair and maintain trailers for my customers. I've built many dozens of trailers and seviced and maintained even more.
So, if you don't mind I'll start with Rick's problem today. If you like what you read I'll tackle more things later, maybe one subject at a time. If you have questions or comments or disagree with what I say feel free to say it.
The problem with the trailer whipping around the truck, or " the tail waggin the dog", comes from not enough tongue weight. Other things like worn suspension, inadequate or under-inflated tires, poor alignment, tow vehicle problems, can all aggravate a low tongue weight problem and make it worse, but that is NOT the root cause of the problem. If you have enough tongue weight you can have any or even all those problems and the trailer will still follow straight behind. It may dog track and pull hard, but it won't whip the truck. If you have marginal tongue weight, then add one or more of those things, it can be enough to push you over the line. Make sure that you are not confusing instability from over loading the tow vehicle with the trailer whipping the truck. They are similar so make sure you know which you have before you go making changes.
So, how do you determine proper tongue weight? Well that is a complex calculation and is different with every tow vehicle/trailer/load combination. So lets start with ricks. He says he has a 3 axle trailer with brakes on one axle. That tells me they probly are 3,500 lb axles giving him a 10,500 lb trailer. He pulls it with a 1/2 ton pickup. The first thing to figure out is how much tongue weight you want. There are lots of "rules of thumb" out there for this. One poster said 2" drop at the bumper, another said 9-15%. Both are correct, but incomplete. There are others too, but the truth is that it varies hugely depending on the vehicler/trailer combo and personal preference. For that truck you want to get to about 750-1,000 lbs at fully loaded, but for a 1 ton dually you might want 2500 lbs, and for a small suv you would need to limit it to 500 lbs. You will want to stay pretty close to the vehicle recommendations because they tend to get mushy in the tires and suspensions if you go much over rated.
Keep your ball as close to the differential as possible too. I have seen some hitch bars, especially the adjustable ones, that get a long way back. Even a few inches makes a big difference here. Do yourself a favor and throw the adjustable stuff away and buy a hitch bar for each job.
On hitch height the goal is to pull the trailer level when fully loaded. Lots of folks set their rig up to pull level when empty, then when they get loaded they are in a front down situation which can cause problems. To get the right hitch height, decide what tongue weight you want and put that much weight on the bumper area of the tow vehicle and get a hitch measurement. Then jack the trailer so it's level and get one there too. Don't forget to subtract about 2" from the trailer height for spring and tire sag. Then get a hitch bar to match. This will give a nose up ride when empty, but level loaded which is where it's important. It also gives a good way to tell when your properly loaded because your trailer will be level.
After you've done that, then your ready to look for other things that can contribute, but I think I'll stop here for now. As I said, feel free to ask questions or add comments, if you think it's been helpful I'll do another subject later.
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