I weighed my setup

Agreed, and camping I went, but I also stopped at the same scales on the way out of town just to see where I was.

The trailer pulled fine, no real wiggle or sway. In fact it pulled smoother than my old Suburban. I always suspected I was a bit tongue heavy, and now I guess I have proof. The Suburban was basically empty with just me in it. The trailer had 40 gallons of water a few days food, some firewood and my generator.

Here are the numbers. The first column of weights is where I am currently after adding one washer. The second column is where I was last Monday. At this point I think I'm done making adjustments. I will try to move some weight off the tongue at some point since 1,000 lbs is a bit excessive. I wasn't able to restore all the weight to the front axle. But I'm thinking that is more a weakness of the stock hitch and more washers won't help.



Had to edit this post as I realized that it wasn't clear that the trailer weight was with the trailer still hooked to the hitch.

Id say don't worry about it and go camping.
As I was towing my 32' enclosed trailer this weekend (basically the size of a big TT) that has a deckover chassis about 75mph down the pass on I-90 in the pouring rain and wind, steering with my knee, eating a burrito with one hand and changing the radio with the other, I pondered the effect of these add ons to a trailer that is not oversized for the tow rig and wondered how much more pleasurable a wdh and sway control would make my drive. I came to the conclusion that unless that stuff could allow me to drive from the backseat with a cocktail in my hand, I don't see what good it would be....lol

And I didn't use the big Dodge. Used a 2001 Tahoe on 20s. Figured 19 years later it should at least tow 1 trailer, haha. (Seriously, the inside of the hitch receiver wasn't even scratched up until 2 days ago.)
Point is, 40 lbs here or there, or a couple hundred lbs on or off the front or rear axle is largely insignificant it seems.

Early on in the thread you expressed some concern over the scale numbers being 20-40lbs off and not adding up. Just FYI that's well within the margin of error for a vehicle scale and nothing to be concerned over.

FYI on that GMT800 4x4 front suspension’s bump stop being a second set of springs...just had to scratch my itch to find some of the old threads on the GMT800/GMT900 front bumpstop vs WD’ing weight to the front axle



Air bags for rear coils-recommendations, 4pages

https://www.rv.net/forum/index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/25441154/true.cfm...iPad seems to not be able to link properly, so this is the link above and below



Noticed I didn’t get back to this OP...hope they got it resolved
Bounce Bounce Bounce

https://www.rv.net/forum/index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/23839812/true.cfm

IIRC, GMT800's also changed the front suspension on 4x4's by having the bump stop in constant contact...so as to become another spring

So, when you measure with more head tilt, that 2nd spring comes into play

It also depends on that bump stop's spring rate. Since rubber/plastic...it might have a much more aggressive curve

Also, that POS reciever bends ever more as you load it up...so it will become another spring (reciever cross tubes are torsion bar springs on all receivers)

Meaning...it will unload and re-compress during whop-d-does, which will be somilar to proposing

Tire PSI is part of the suspension. More so with higher profile and less with lower profile tires. Meaning playing with tire PSIA will play

Thanks for the input. I hope to load up and hit the scales tomorrow. But as requested I took some time to take some measurements. I will admit I deviated from the owners manual a bit but I think the readings still tell enough.
The manual says to drive 2 miles with the weight distribution (WD) unhooked. Then do the WD adjustments. Well I did not drive the 2 miles, I just left the key off so the autolevel would not function.

Measuring from a fender to the ground can be fraught with errors as the tape can land in different places on the truck as well as the ground. So I took some masking tape and tried to ensure consistency.
To keep it straight the tape measure goes between the lines.

And here's the street.


I added one spacer washer that seemed the same thickness as the others and it put too much back on the front. So I went back to the garage and found a thinner washer. It looks like I still added a bit too much to the front by 1/8", but I'm not sure if I can get it better than that. I guess I could try replacing an Equal-i-zer washer with another thinner washer. But that will only change the thickness by .39 mm. The washer thicknesses are at the bottom of the spreadsheet below. I now have 5 equal-i-zer washers, the one thinner washer, and one washer that I did not measure.

And the bars are parallel.




Edit: After looking at the numbers again I think replacing an Equal-i-zer washer with a second thin washer will put me right back at original height. Now let's see what the scale shows.

Moderator edit to re-size pictures to forum recommended limit of 640px maximum width.

Boomerweps wrote:

Grit dog wrote:
SOmething seems off, to have 1000-1300lbs tongue weight on a 5klb trailer. Or maybe I read it wrong.

840# based on difference of whole TV weights and not just rear. Tongue weight almost 17% of the listed 5K# TT. Still a bit high.

Yes correct, I was confusing the weight the rear axle sees due to the tongue weight.
That's a little more reasonable.

Tongue weight is:
7560 - 6720 = 840 pounds

Total trailer weight is TW + trailer axles:
840 + 5100 = 5940

TW % is 14.1%.

Your front axle lost 520 pounds when you dropped tongue on ball. Your WD restored 240 pounds of that, just under half. I agree with Bedlam in restoring more to front axle with a goal of 100% or back to the ~3360 pounds unhitched.

You are under all your ratings by a fair margin, so it may drive well even with no WD.

If you have the OEM round tube receiver, then I recommend saving up for the Curt XD which can be found for under $200 shipped.

I should have weighed before this last trip... but literally was running out of time.

Boomerweps wrote:

Grit dog wrote:
SOmething seems off, to have 1000-1300lbs tongue weight on a 5klb trailer. Or maybe I read it wrong.

840# based on difference of whole TV weights and not just rear. Tongue weight almost 17% of the listed 5K# TT. Still a bit high.
I would look to add a bit more weight back to the front axle. What are the changes in wheel well heights, with and without the TT hooked up and then with and without the WDH load bars? Those changes are as important as knowing the weight changes.

17%? No wonder I don't have sway. And this is the trailer as it sits in storage. Missing is the Honda eu2000i and two milk crates full of firewood in the front pass through. I think even my fresh water is in front of the axle. But on the positive side, I also get no sway coming home from the desert when both waste tanks are full behind the axle and the fresh tank is empty. This is basically how I ran it for the past 14 years without a problem. But now I'm curious so I hope to get some loaded weights this weekend.

As far as the changes in the wheel wells, I haven't measured. The measuring method is what I used on my first setup and it has been fine for all these years. But with this new tow vehicle I want to try the weight technique as it seems more accurate. I figure if I can return most if not all of the front axle weight without going too much over I've got it right.

Actually maybe I will measure it and post as well. I've got the time this week so why not.