Hey all, whats the deal with tongue weight ? Many folks I see pulling trailers in my area almost always seem to have the load way too far forward. I see a lot of cars and trucks with the back end pushed way down low and the front of the trailer is carrying all of the weight. When I load a trailer, I try to balance the load over the trailer axle(s). I have always thought 150-200lbs on the hitch was more than enough, reguardless of the weight being pulled. Am I off base or do I live in a town full of weirdos ? DF

 

I seem to remember some rules of thumb that say try to keep about 10-15% of the trailer weight on the hitch, in order to avoid sway problems. It stands to reason that many, if not most, cars and/or baby pickups (no problem with our full-size Man's trucks) probably don't have a suspension set up for that much weight applied all the way back at the bumper, thus the tail-draggers. Better to have your tail draggin' than watch your trailer come around to kiss the front of your rig or drag you off the road? Or better than tail draggin', get a rig that's capable of the job! IMHO.
Steve

 

Yep, I think also it's 10% for bumper (reciever hitch) and 25% for gooseneckers. If your towin just the trialer (say a dual axle enclosed 16ft or so) you probably have about 150# to 200$ empty or maybe less. The trailer probably weighs between 1700 and 2000, so the trailer makers kinda set the standard for you at or close to 10%. If your fully loaded with 7000 total lbs, you outa have about 700lbs on the tounge.

No sway, NO WAY:-X23

TG

 

[link:www.sherline.com/lm.htm|Sherline.com]

The explain it, and offer a cool little scale to know it. I've got one, changed my boat trailered position, spray painted where the tractor should sit on the trailer, figured out the weight on each wheel of my boat trailer, determined a trailer jack on one of my trailers was overloaded, weight my scrapebox... even figured out a cool way to weigh the tractor with it and a little math.

Robert

 

 

I've heard the 10% suggestion before, and I'll read the Sherline stuff and see if I can maybe learn something (thanks harryball). But I still am thinking there is something here I must have a mental block on. Why do we need tongue weight at all ? I have pulled trailers before that were balnced well enough to pick up the tongue with one arm (single axle, 3800lbs), what is the tongue weight supposed to do for you ? I mean, it is not as if the coupling can come up off the hitch after it is locked on.....or have I just been lucky so far ? DF

 

Tongue weight reduces sway and also adds weight to the rear axle of the tow vehicle.This is especially important when the trailer doesn't have brakes.It helps keep the trailer from pushing the rear of the vehicle around in sudden stops.Never unload the rear of a tow vehicle with a trailer.
Can you say JACKNIFE?:-X23

 

I'm not quite sure how the physics behind it work, but if you don't have enough tongue weight trailers tend to jerk back and forth and pull the tow vehicle around - sort of a "tail wagging the dog" type of thing. Usually you can get it to come back in line by either applying the trailer brakes (if you can) or by accelerating...but accelerating isn't a good answer because you still have to slow down eventually. In my experience they are most likely to start to move back and forth when they are in a neutral state - like coasting down a hill at constant speed, where there isn't much force being applied to the hitch.

I had this happen once when I was using a 20-foot bumper-pull stock trailer to move from one house to another. I'd loaded the whole thing up with furniture, and at the last minute realized that I needed to haul some hay to the new place for the horses. What I should have done was empty out the truck bed and put the bales in there, but being in a hurry I stacked them in the rear of the trailer - about 10 100-pound bales, or 1000 pounds of hay right up against the back trailer door. This was enough to decrease the tongue weight on the trailer to about 150 pounds or so on an 8,000 pound trailer. I headed out and all things were well and good until the load started shifting towards the rear and removed the last little bit of tongue weight.

As I was going down a long, steep hill the trailer started moving from side to side slowly, and then more violently until the truck tires actually started squealing as it was jerking the back end of the truck about a foot side to side. I nailed the trailer brakes, which managed to straighten it out and then I gradually pulled over to the side of the road where I rearranged the load...but it certainly made for a scary few seconds. The one thing you *never* want to see in your rear-view mirror while you're driving down the road is the side of your trailer coming around towards you...especially not when it's a fairly heavy load.

When I pulled over, I could pick up the tongue of the trailer with only one finger hooked under it - it was almost perfectly balanced, w/maybe 10 pounds of tongue weight. I now put at least 10% of the trailer weight on the tongue, and usually go closer to 15% just to be safe or if the load could possibly shift slightly. My new rule of thumb is that you can't have too much tongue weight, at least as long as the tow vehicle can handle it - the more tongue weight you have, the better trailers normally pull.

Oh, and never haul hay at the same time as furniture - even years later, I'm *still* finding hay stuck everyplace.

LK