Final got a trailer and now trying to figure out how to setup the Jeep. I am trying to figure out the right amount of drop on the tongue when loaded. I could use some help.



Trailer is a 14' + 2' dovetail.

Empty:


1st Attempt:


2nd Attempt:

 

load up and go to a cat scale. they will tell you what your exact weights are and then you can move them around to get what you desire. best thing i can tell you is that each truck is diffrent and setups depend on that. so its kinda like a trial and error thing. t odont want to much bounce and to much rear weight. but it looks like your in the ball park on the second one.

 

Hard to tell from the pics, angles are slightly different it seems.

I would lean more towards the tongue being heavy rather than light. If the tongue is too light it will make the trailer squirrely.

If you had a weight distributing hitch this would be easy. But without it, I would go for a few inches of depression of the bumper of the tow vehicle. You don't want to be dragging the tail but you don't want the trailer pulling a lot of weight off the ball especially on bumps.

Wild guess is that picture 2 shows the tongue being a bit heavier than 1 so I would go with that. Of course be sure to chain that sucker down, You don't need the excitement of being passed by your jeep, seen that before it was funny and that guy was lucky.

One idea, take a tape measure and measure the rail height of the trailer front and back before and after. Look for the heights to change downwards an almost equal amount but tilted towards the front. For example, lets say your trailer rails are 14 inches in front and 13 inches in back before loading. Then lets say your trailer drops about 4 inches. I would lean towards say 5 in front and maybe 3 in back or 9 and 10 on the rails. Or if your rails were level, say 12 and 12, I would go to maybe 7 and 9 or even 8 front to rear.

If you had a scale you could weigh the tongue and go for between 10 and 15% of the load. You could guess based upon the Gross Vehicle Weight Rating of the Jeep. Or better, if you had an actual weight of the Jeep and trailer, you could base it on that.

This is really a matter of eyeballing it and making a judgement call. If you have experience it is not hard.

I am not sure if this helps.

Good luck,

Jim Henderson

 

Jeb, When I load a vehicle on my trailer, I use the tape measure method. I measure a spot usually on the bumper to start. I pull the vehicle forward until that spot drops 2" and I stop loading forward. 2" may not be best for you, but it works good for my setup. I want the trailer to carry the load, and not overload the truck.

You might want to use that method, and test it for 10-15 miles to see how you like it.

I also like to air my tires up a little higher than normal. Low pressure in the tires will cause them to run hotter.

John

 

I've seen a method where you'd use a bathroom scale to determine the proper tounge weight. I'll google for it

 

Here's that "bathroom scale" method Jake mentioned: http://www.rverscorner.com/articles/tongueweight.html

Steve

 

How does that work with a trailer that has a variable load weight, or with the same load weight that can vary tongue weight by moving it on the trailer? Moving a vehicle on the trailer 6" will vary the tongue weight, while the load weight remains.

Once an RV is outfitted it's weight shouldn't vary much at all.

John