I just purchased a 2005 F-150 4WD with the towing package. The truck has a receiver for a trailer hitch. Being this truck is much higher than my 1993 F-150 2WD, I'm going to need a drop ball mount.

I will be towing a 5x10 tilt trailer.

My question is, with the trailer connected to the truck... ¿Do I want the trailer tongue to be as level as possible? or ¿Do I want it tilted up or down a little bit?

Thanks in advance,
J.B.

 

you would probably want the trailer to be about level as far as i can think of.

1. reason for something different would be to clear an obstacle such as drive angle with the front or rear of the trailer (my pops car trailer always rubs with the rear x-member going in and out of folks drive)

2. Reason for front to be higher would be if something cant break the angle of ramp to deck if really low clearnace height.

cant think of any others.

 

The TRAILER must be level or "tilted" slightly forward. Never have the front of trailer pointing up higher than the rear. You can encounter dangerous sway. What you are aiming for is weight, yes, weight. You want to have about 10% of the total trailer's weight actually on the tongue, and you need to have it level or slightly nose down to achieve this typically. And if the trailer is still tipping to the rear, you need to rearrange the contents of your trailer to the front. If not, you can lose control of your trailer.

 

That's good general advice about trailer towing .

Since you're only towing a 5x10 utility trailer (I'm assuming this is an open, flatbed trailer) and have a full-size truck, I doubt there will be any sway. How much weight are we talkin' about?

I'm also assuming this is a single-axle trailer. It's more important for tandem axle trailers to be level than single axles because you want the weight evenly distributed over both axles in the tandem and tilting the trailer puts more weight on one axle than the other. Alot of the lawn care guys run their little single axle utility trailers high in the front so they can pull their mowers up onto the trailer without bottoming them out when going up the ramp onto the trailer bed. In that case, load most the weight AHEAD OF the trailer axle and it will tow OK.

Normally, on a trailer that sits level, you want MOST of the weight OVER the trailer axle and SOME ahead of it (referring to the above-mentioned 10-15% tongue weight guideline -- 1000 lb trailer = 100-150 lbs on the hitch) . This is achieved primarily by how the trailer is loaded, and is affected somewhat by how level/unlevel the trailer is sitting.

Anyhow, you can get an adjustable-height ball-mount to slide into your receiver hitch so you can play around with different hitch heights to find what works best for your setup. They are available at most trailer supply shops or online at places like www.etrailer.com. The adjustable ones are handy to have for towing more than one trailer with the same truck.