Approval or Disapproval of setup

WHEN you get hit by a sudden and strong wind gust will you have time to run out and get, mount and adjust a new sway bar? Cheap insurance and cheap. Just trying to encourage you to add a margin of safety. Not trying to doubt your rig or anything; just personal, first hand experience.

tragusa3 wrote:
Does dropping the nose add weight to the ball? Logic tells me weight would shift to the front axle of the trailer, and the tongue.

Yes but it's negligible. It's usually very, very small.

I'm at 25,000 miles with the stock tires. I do plan to upgrade to an LT when I purchase. I'll probably do that before a 6k miles trip we have planned next summer.

I do have one sway bar, and the truck has the electronic sway control. If it ever felt squirrelly, I'd add another one, but it hasn't.

Does dropping the nose add weight to the ball? Logic tells me weight would shift to the front axle of the trailer, and the tongue.

I think you should be fine. If you want to tweak something in the future, check your tires. Moving up one strength rating could give a more stable rig and add a bit to the trucks payload. Also consider upgrading the shocks. They can make a very noticeable difference. I see you have room for one sway bar. The trailer is pretty long so adding a second sway her would help and they're cheap. Nice rig, hope you get many good trips with it!

Myself, I would lower it one more hole. With the trailer nose down a hair the rig will panic brake a bit better.

Very nice well matched rig. Nice job!

My math was simply based on your earlier post that stated you were over. That's all.

I do agree that being a little over for smaller, local trips likely isn't a big deal at all. I was in the same boat with being right at the limit with my '14 Chev Silverado. I upgraded to the '15 GMC max tow because I plan on taking longer trips and my kids are getting older and that means bigger with more weight.

Southpaw and Ron, I'm not sure I completely follow your math, but I understand the general idea.

The trailer has more payload capacity than I would ever use (intentionally shopped that way). My plan is to very rarely travel with any weight in the truck itself. Local trips, I might put some things in the truck, but for a trip of any length, I would not.

If we're splitting hairs, the kids are currently 100 pounds lighter than I figures, and the wife is 20 pounds lighter. Either way, I'm going to have to be comfortable being a few hundred over. I'm not buying a new TV. I might be fooling myself, but I don't feel at all like the tail is wagging the dog. The tow is very controlled and comfortable, almost as if there is no trailer.

Do the weight police suggest new TV for folks that are 5% over? It seems logical to just have an awareness and an extra sense of caution.

The last quote in the post above ^^^ is what I was referring to about payload. Did something change from then?

tragusa3 wrote:
First pass, the entire rig = 12,180
Pulled truck off the scale completely, and trailer axles were 5,080

Second pass, truck alone, including 36g fuel and me (300) without hitch = 6,320

The weight of the WDH (about 80#) should be included as part of the TV's load.
The "truck alone" weight would be about 6400#

12,180 - 5080 = 7,100 truck and tongue weight (7700gvw). Subtract the 6,320 of truck alone, and we get 780 of tongue.

Was the first pass made with the WD bars tensioned?
If so, the WDH would have transferred some load to the TT's axles -- leaving a load equal to about 80% of TW to be carried by the TV.
With the WDH included as part of the TV load, the amount of load added to the TV, when hitched with WD applied, would be 7100-6400 = 700#.
The indicated tongue weight would be about 700/80% = 875#

Take the tongue of 780 add it to the 5080 of the trailer axles and you get 5,860 for the trailer unhooked with WDH.

The total loaded weight of the TT (which does not include the WDH) would be 12180-6400 = 5780# -- (not much TT cargo given the "dry" weight of 5300#).
The indicated TW% is about 875/5780 = 15%.

I'm left with 600 pounds of payload. Add the following:

150 child
150 child
180 wife
75 dog
-------
555 total

Leaves 45 pounds. Incidentals in the truck cab with us will eat that up.

The trailer is about half loaded for trips, so tongue weight will go up some. I also want to put large but light items in the truck bed (maybe 100 pounds total).

With WDH, occupants,other cargo, and load added by TT, the TV's GVW would be about 6320+80+555+100+700 = 7755#.
Depending on where additional TT cargo is placed, you can assume that a load equal to approximately 10% of the additional TT cargo weight will be added to the TV.

Yes, you're likely to be over the TV's GVWR by a few hundred pounds.

Ron

The numbers from the scale are in the thread. I'm not over payload unless I load the truck bed. In this video I was probably over payload by 100 pounds.

Payload is 1866 pounds.