Blue Ox Sway Pro Setup question UPDATE

I have the 2K bars (1690 lbs on tongue) on the 10 link never tried to lift the truck to the point I can rotate by hand.
They way the bars flex I don’t see the point of trying to do the latches by hand. When jacked up there’s little effort needed to rotate the latches with the tool. I think this is a hangover from the other spring bars that don’t flex and snap up brackets.

Walaby wrote:
John

In terms of lifting up the tongue via jack. Yes, I have actually lifted the rear tires off the ground with daylight showing (once.. on level ground) and still had tension on my bars. Where I go to now is to a point where I can hear the tires start to slip a little, then I stop.

I'll have to verify my jack and it's capacity.

In the bed, ready for camping, I only have a couple of chairs and an aluminium fire pit (sometimes).

Mike

Walaby wrote:
According to owners manual, hitch has a 17K rating (stock hitch factory installed).

My sleeve is a Curt 45405. According to Curt, the rating is the same as the hitch rating. I actually have it welded in, making it an integral part of the hitch to eliminate the slop.

I chose to go with a 2" shank vice upgrade to 2.5" and glad I did. I broke down middle of now where, and tow truck driver needed to use my hitch to tow my trailer (truck was on flat bed). I would have had to leave trailer on side of road if it was a 2.5" shank.

Mike

Hi Mike,

Been out camping. Thanks for the info back. Wow, you can see daylight under the tires.. That is a new learning. The Dodge 3/4 ton suspension must not expand as much as the Ford's and maybe GM's. The 1500 Dodge I setup for my neighbor was a 1/2 ton and a very soft back end at that. I have not "yet" seen that happen but I have only been towing with GM's and Ford's over the years. Learn something new every day...

The 2 to 2 1/2 adapter, I followed your trail to the Curt site, ah yes, you are right it does not seem to derate the receiver pull ability and they leave it to the hitch. Actually it is not the adapter that has the issued but the 5/8" pin when used with the adapter.

Since you had your adapter welded in, that may ward off the issue as the adapter cannot slide any more and that "may" prevent the bent pin issue from ever occurring. I tried tonight to find the info on my Reese online, no luck so far. It was on a sticker on my adapter when I bought it back in 2007. Cequent and now Horizon Global do not list a whole lot of those details on the web or in their catalog any more.

The BO bars do seem to be able to flex a lot more. In your pics yours do not look that flexed but yet you cannot totally unload them. That could be a real bugger on the 2,000# bars. I have a buddy using the 2,000# bars with the BO on his new Grand Design TT. He has a F350 though. Curious now, I will see if I can get in touch with him if he can totally unload his WD bars just to know for the future. If I hear anything back, I'll post it.

Good luck with yours and happy camping

Thanks again

John

Just a thought: Perhaps everyone is looking at this wrong. It may sound dumb, but try moving the head *up* one hole in the hitch. Sure, you're level now, but you cannot get enough angle to unlatch the bars safely. Its not terribly wrong to have the front of the TT 1-2" higher than the rear, as this would translate to only about 1/4" difference in height at the axles, well within safe operational specs (even for torsion axles).

This will allow for more angle when hooking up the bars, allowing you to get the 9 links by hand.

I would try moving your rotating latches slightly forward toward the ball. From the pictures it looks like they are sitting slightly behind the top of the chain mount on the bars. When they are latched they should be straight up and down. If they aren't it does change the pressure on the rotation. My dealer had mine off by an inch and it was much more difficult to load and unload the pressure from the bars. That could explain why you are having trouble getting them latched and released.

Great discussion here. Keep it going. I'd like to share some of my experiences with the Sway Pro. First of all I have a Ford F250 with the 2.5 to 2 inch adapter which is rated for 1200 pounds. My tongue weight runs right around 1150 pounds so I'm considering springing for the 2.5 inch hitch mount ($166 at Amazon) but not just yet.
Like many of you I have to jack the hitch up pretty high to relieve the tension (I use a stick with a piece of tape at the 25" mark to get to a consistent height setting). I never know how hard it's going to be to release the bars. Sometimes it hardly takes any force at all. Sometimes I need a mighty heave on the breaker bar to get it to let go. I have to figure out the physics of the problem in order to predict the amount of torque it's going to take. I've been using this hitch for about 3 1/2 years and I still haven't figured all the factors yet.
Someone here mentioned that sometimes the chain will get a twist that can make it difficult to release the tension. I've had that happen more than once. I need to pay attention to how the chain is laying in the saddle more.
One last thing, I don't know about the GM or Ram trucks but the stock Ford suspension sure does allow a lot of sag in the rear when hitched to a trailer. I installed a set of Timbren Suspension springs and now my truck stays level and it seems to help reduce some of the torque needed to release tension. I used to use 9 free links of chain but now I get by fine with 8 free links.

According to owners manual, hitch has a 17K rating (stock hitch factory installed).

My sleeve is a Curt 45405. According to Curt, the rating is the same as the hitch rating. I actually have it welded in, making it an integral part of the hitch to eliminate the slop.

I chose to go with a 2" shank vice upgrade to 2.5" and glad I did. I broke down middle of now where, and tow truck driver needed to use my hitch to tow my trailer (truck was on flat bed). I would have had to leave trailer on side of road if it was a 2.5" shank.

Mike

John

Been raining forever, so will have to verify my hitch actual rating when not pouring down rain. Been awhile since I checked that number.

In terms of lifting up the tongue via jack. Yes, I have actually lifted the rear tires off the ground with daylight showing (once.. on level ground) and still had tension on my bars. Where I go to now is to a point where I can hear the tires start to slip a little, then I stop.

I'll have to verify my jack and it's capacity.

In the bed, ready for camping, I only have a couple of chairs and an aluminium fire pit (sometimes).

demiles - I'll have to check my spreadsheet when I get home but Im not returning all the weight removed from the front axles. Majority - yes.. but not all.

All - yes, there is still load on the bars when I go as high as I feel comfortable doing, BUT, I can manage it reasonably enough. It's not a great strain to snap the brackets up, or to release them. I use a good sized breaker bar, and it is a safe operation. The initial whole premise was to see if I something could be done to get it to a point where even my wife could hook it up if necessary. She could probably hook it up, but I would worry about her unhooking as that can give you a little snap when you get to the release point.

Thanks for all the help and pointers thus far.

Mike

Personally I think your trying to use too much WD. In all the 3/4 ton trucks I’ve used for towing in 20 years , none of them were back to original height at the front. Return 50% by weight to the the front axle by scale instead fender height.

Walaby wrote:
Couple comments

1) Class V hitch. Using reducer to go from 2.5" to 2"
2) No lift kit (that I am aware of). Truck purchased used.
3) Loaded camper tongue weight is 1480 lbs. That is with 20 gals of water in fresh water tank, full propane tanks (2x30lb), battery, bike rack hitch (mounted to tongue) but no bikes installed. I drained the FW tank, so now Im at ~1320lbs. Total Trailer weight is 9620 lbs. TW is 13% (1320/9620).
4) Weight in bed is ~150 lbs, although not sure how that relates to tongue weight and ability to hook up. Am still 1060 lbs under rear GAWR for truck.

Here's a couple pics. One thing I do/did have a question about was the fixed head tilt angle. On my hitch the head is straight up and down (no tilt angle), but the sway bar trunions are tilted). See pic. I believe this achieves the same thing, but????

I'll try to post up some pics. I don't have a site to host them on.

Mike

Hi Mike,

Good info and the pics help.

Your BO hitch is the new one, yes the trunnions are at an angle the head is straight. End result is the trunnions at an angle and the angle creates a castering effect for the anti sway control.

The setup does not look bad. And the only 2 adjustments you have, chain links under tension and hitch head height. I will leave the WD settings alone for now and try to address the lack of unloading the spring tension with the tongue jack.

Your 3/4 ton truck (a good one I might add) is not a lot different then other 3/4 ton or even 1 ton SRW trucks in the back. My F350 has a rear axle weight of 3,240# with an empty truck bed, 3/4 fuel and my wife and I in the truck. You seem to not have much bed weight, you stated 150#. That is light. Mine goes up to 3,760# when loaded for camping with all the stuff in there. 520# of stuff and this is without the trailer connected. The rear axle goes to 6,040# when the TT is connected. My GAWR is 7,000#.

What I was looking for on your rig was truck bed weight. While a Ford and Dodge are different, your rear axle weight with 150# of gear in it let's assume it is approx 3,400#. Yours might be more due to a larger fuel tank but lets at least say we are in the ballpark.

Your trailer has a 1,480# tongue weight. Now add the 2 together. This is 4,880# of static weight. Granted these are estimated but it puts us in the ballpark.

This is very normal weights for your setup. Nothing wrong with that other then at the moment your truck bed is light, maybe someday you will add more stuff like we all do and that's OK.

Now to jacking up the truck and camper to unload the WD bars so you can rotate the latches by hand.

Your power tongue jack "looks" like it might be the Lippert Components jack. Is it? and is it a 3,500# jack? What is the capacity rating?

How do you know you are going to lift the truck rear axle/tires off the ground with the tongue jack? Have you actually seen daylight under the tires? Or does it just look like it is sky high and going to come off the ground?

I have an Atwood 3,500# rated jack. It allows me to lift my loaded truck and camper up high enough to unload my 1,600# TW using 1,700# WD bars totally so I can flip up the chains by hand. Again, no way I want to even attempt flipping them up or down under any kind of load.

See here the setup ready to lift. I happen to have 2, 6" blocks this day so I used the 2. I normally only use 1 block. The jack has not yet lifted anything, it is just ready to start lifting. Look at the angle of the WD bars, similar to your trunnion bar socket angle.


Now I lift both truck and camper up high enough to unload the tension. Yes, it looks sky high by the fender clearance and one might think it is going to come off the ground, but it is not it is only the suspension opening up.


Here is a closer pic, same one just zoomed in.


And the chains are loose.


Have you actually tried this going this far?

My Reese 2 1/2" receiver is rated at 1,700# in WD mode. You stated yours is a Class V however what is the actual load rating? Class V only means it is something larger than a standard Class IV. The ratings on a class V can be very different between brands.

Also a heads up, many of the 2" to 2 1/2" adapter sleeves are only rated to 1,200# in WD mode. Something about the 5/8" pin can bend when used over the 1,200#. And we have had RV net members report this pin bending. My Reese adapter sleeve is rated for 1,200 and many other brands are too. Do you know what your sleeve is rated at? I had to go to a 2 1/2" shank to be able to use the full 1,700# WD rating. The shank tapers to 2" going into the hitch head. BO has a similar setup they sell the 2 1/2" to 2" shank. Your BO 2" shank is rated to go to 1,500# just that adapter sleeve may be the weak link. Something to check as a bent 5/8" pin is not easy to get out.

Hope this helps

John

Yes, the angle is built into the trunnions.
Your setup looks fine to me.