Help with hitch / tongue weight

Terryallan wrote:

LarryJM wrote:

Terryallan wrote:

lbrjet wrote:
Weight in the back of your truck counts against payload, but it is not tongue weight.

This is the correct answer. The load in the back of the truck, including the hitch itself is NOT tongue weight. It is part of the payload / GVWR of the truck.
Tongue weight. Is the actual weight of the trailer tongue. Determined mostly by where you load the weight INSIDE the trailer.

Thing is. You have to leave enough payload to carry the tongue weight, because it too counts against the payload / GVWR of the truck. You also have to be sure your receiver is rated to carry the tongue weight of your trailer. Say your receiver can carry 950lb of tongue weight using a WDH. Your tongue weight cannot be more than 950lb.

And do remember. the truck's brakes are only designed to stop the GVWR of the truck. They are NOT designed to stop the GCVWR which is the truck, plus the trailer. In other words, They are not designed stop the GCVWR of the truck.

That view is IMO too simplistic and not really correct. My answer to this is in my post HERE. Ron in his last post agrees at least in concept with parts of my position. I do agree with his view as it applies to what to use as the percentage of TW to total trailer wt. to estimate overall trailer stability.

I do concede that my position regarding cargo aft of the TV rear axle is fairly complex and near impossible to accurately determine since what is important for receiver TW rating and sizing of WDH bars is the "weight" that would be applied at the point of the ball that would equal the same "lever moment" as this "additional" cargo wt. I would think somewhere this would be in the range of 25-75% of the actual cargo wt. added.

Larry

Simplistic or not. It is factual. Tongue weight. It ONLY the weight of the trailer tongue. Weigh the tongue alone to get it. When hooked to the truck. the tongue weight takes up part of the payload / GVWR. Pretty much it.
To say that the cargo in the back of the truck is part of the tongue weight is not realistic. After all, Unhook the trailer and that cargo weight is still there, but the tongue weight is completely gone. what would you call it then? No tongue, no tongue weight.

NO the fact is your view is just YOUR OPINION which is NOT SHARED by many others including those who produce hardware. The purpose of a WDH is to redistribute the weight (called "TONGUE WEIGHT") that is put on the ball of the hitch and once you hook up the WDH system adding cargo aft of the TV rear axle will increase that value and show up as weights applied to the axles of both the trailer and the TV. Hook up your trailer run across the scales and then have someone stand on your rear bumper and do a second run across the scales and all your weights including those on the TT axles will change. That can only happen if the "TONGUE WEIGHT" has changed unless you have adjusted your WDH system.

In the end as I said in that link there are two "camps" on this and your are in one and I'm in the other, you're not probably going to change unless you're willing to learn and listen rationally and I'm not going to change unless my CAT scale example above was proven to not be correct and all that weight from that person on the rear bumper only showed up on the TV axles only.

Larry