Approval or Disapproval of setup

Great info here and congrats to the OP for following sound advice.

But I gotta ask, aren't you over your payload?

Looks good! Nice video. Congratulations for taking the time and effort to get it right. :)
Barney

Thanks to all the help here, I thought I would follow up with a short video demonstrating the current (and final?) setup.

It tows very easily. Barney, I did lower the ball one notch from when you commented to do so.

VIDEO Final Weight Distribution Setup

With the numbers you have, your calculations appear to be correct. Since you only have limited information, we can only extract limited data, and you got it! With the individual axle weights, you can see from the spreadsheet how much more you can pull out of the numbers.

Trailer is running about 13% tongue weight... sounds good there! I wouldn't consciously try to add or remove weight there. If you can keep the balance there, that would be a good thing IMHO.

Most of the half-tons run out of payload long before they run out of towing capacity. You're right at that limit (or slightly over). About the only obvious option I see to help with your situation would be to remove the cap. It'll only gain you a couple hundred pounds at best, but it may help.

WENT TO THE SCALE

First, thank you souraider for the feedback.

Thanks to gijoecam for the spreadsheet. It is very nice. However, I went to the quarry scale that couldn't give me all the data needed to use the spreadsheet fully. I will stop at a CAT scale when on a trip and loaded up to get more accurate numbers.

The scale would not do axles, so...Here's what I do have to give me ballparks right now.

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

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

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.

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).

Looks like I'm all on top of my payload limits and will likely travel a few hundred over GVW, but towing roughly half of the tow limit.

Is my math right? Any thoughts are appreciated.

tragusa3 wrote:
souraider, what are the weights on your trailer? Looks similar to mine (5300 dry, payload of 2400). Can you describe your towing experience with that combo?

PM'd you on this.

gijoecam wrote:

tragusa3 wrote:
gijoecam, thanks. PM sent.

There's nothing in my inbox...??

Regarding dropping a notch on the shank, what is the primary purpose? It might help get the front cap down out of the wind a bit? Does it also load more tongue weight? If so, do folks at the limit of tongue weight tend to raise the front a bit to reduce that?

The trailer being slightly nose-down helps with the stability. I'm not positive of the dynamics involved or why it works, but the general consensus is that it does. It will *slightly* change the tongue weight, but we're not talking about hundreds of pounds of difference.... The trailer's center of gravity will shift forward a few inches at most, so it's not going to have a huge impact. Adjusting the attitude of the trailer to compensate for changing tongue weight just isn't practical or effective.

Maybe it's changing the aerodynamics too. More air over the trailer and less under will provide more downforce (tongue weight) at speed.

tragusa3 wrote:
gijoecam, thanks. PM sent.

There's nothing in my inbox...??

Regarding dropping a notch on the shank, what is the primary purpose? It might help get the front cap down out of the wind a bit? Does it also load more tongue weight? If so, do folks at the limit of tongue weight tend to raise the front a bit to reduce that?

The trailer being slightly nose-down helps with the stability. I'm not positive of the dynamics involved or why it works, but the general consensus is that it does. It will *slightly* change the tongue weight, but we're not talking about hundreds of pounds of difference.... The trailer's center of gravity will shift forward a few inches at most, so it's not going to have a huge impact. Adjusting the attitude of the trailer to compensate for changing tongue weight just isn't practical or effective.

gijoecam, thanks. PM sent.

souraider, what are the weights on your trailer? Looks similar to mine (5300 dry, payload of 2400). Can you describe your towing experience with that combo?

Regarding dropping a notch on the shank, what is the primary purpose? It might help get the front cap down out of the wind a bit? Does it also load more tongue weight? If so, do folks at the limit of tongue weight tend to raise the front a bit to reduce that?

The quarry scale can work if they can provide individual axle weights. Odds are while they may only display the gross weight, they may be able to provide you with the three axle weights.

But personally, I would stick to the CAT scales.

To crunch the numbers, I have a spreadsheet I can send you that will do the heavy lifting for you. Plug in the data for your rig and it'll spit out all the important data. PM me your email address and I'll send you the link. :)