Trailer not level towing

[CharlesinGA]

I don't recall the Thor's tongue weight. Its long gone. Bars on an Equal-i-zer® hitch are NOT interchangeable. 1000 lb hitch and bars is unique and if you want 800 lb bars, you buy an entirely new hitch head and bars (the shank being the only thing that is universal). One inch solid steel bars have so little flex its crazy and they are extremely heavy.

The Blue Ox Sway Pro has shorter bars that are designed to flex and they do nicely. In addition, they are interchangeable and identified by the machined dimples in them.

My "21" ft Bigfoot has the forward cargo pod and a FW tank in the very rear. I have to be careful to have lots of tongue weight, and typically it runs about 850 lbs with 6500 lbs or so of total trailer weight (haven't been on the CAT scale in a while, need to do that again. So I am sitting about 13%. The frame is 3/16 thick 2x5 tubing but the tongue frame, being so long, is 1/4 thick 2x5 tubing.

Sadly, the exterior placard on the outside of the trailer (front LH side) is damaged and the GVWR is not readable. The two sheets inside the wardrobe (which I have removed and laminated) disagree with each other. I am pretty sure this is a 7500 lb GVWR but do not know for sure as one sheet says 7000 and the other says 7500.

Charles

[rubicon327]

Originally Posted by CharlesinGA

Sadly, the exterior placard on the outside of the trailer (front LH side) is damaged and the GVWR is not readable. The two sheets inside the wardrobe (which I have removed and laminated) disagree with each other. I am pretty sure this is a 7500 lb GVWR but do not know for sure as one sheet says 7000 and the other says 7500.

Charles: You should be confident using the 7500#. The early Bigfoot brochures I’ve found always listed the 25B21RB as 7500# GWVR with two 3500# axles. Obviously some of the weight is on the hitch.

[John in Santa Cruz]

with 7500 lbs GWR, the tongue weight should be between 750 and 1125 lbs. Definitely 3/4 or 1 ton truck land. and mandatory WDH even with a dually 1ton.

[Dave Miller]

My 23 Ford Expedition manual indicates I should measure the body drop at the rear axle after hitching the trailer. Then set the weight distribution such that the drop is half of what it was without the weight distribution.

Once you do that, you could measure the drop at the ball and know how high to set the ball.

IMO, there is little reason to be perfectly level. Too many weight variations of what’s where in the car and in the trailer. How much propane, how much water, holding tanks, etc.

The axles are 3500 pound rated, and the trailer is 5000 pounds total max load, so uneven load on the axles by 10-20 percent won’t overload anything.

Mine was dead level when we hooked it up at Escape with an empty trailer. Once loaded at the first camp, with empty tanks, it was still “bubble in the lines” level. I’ll check it again now that I added new batteries, etc.

[Crows Nest]

Thanks to everyone. Got heavier WDH. All good