My spreadsheet for WD hitch for my travel trailer and TV

Impressive. No offense intended, but you may have too much time on your hands. I thought I was being anal weighing everything, but you take it to a new level. I've never seen anything quite like that before.:B

I had fun putting the spreadsheet together, but I need some more eyes and brains to critique the spreadsheet so I can make improvements and find errors I made so I can correct them.

I admire people that do their homework prior to purchase. However, this is a little overkill and I am not sure it is not overly complex as it reflects the tow vehicles rear suspension. For example, a one ton truck needs no weight distribution, only sway and maybe not even that. It has more than enough capacity to handle the tongue weight for any TT. Your vehicle probably needs some weight distribution. Several years go in the Airstream magazine there was an excellent article on how to determine the spring bar tension needed based not only on tongue weight of the trailer but also the stoutness of the tow vehicle. It was a far simpler analysis than your spreadsheet. Basically the loaded for camping trailer was weighed, the tongue weight determined (hopefully around 12-13 percent) and then determination was made based on tow vehicle stoutness. The more stout the tow vehicle the less spring bar tension needed. But, good that you were doing your due diligence on this.

I am confident most dealers that set up WD hitches never even begin to think about a spread sheet like you did. So, good job for thinking through it all. The conclusion I came to from your analysis was not so much how to load the trailer as it relates to weight around the axle placements (moment arm stuff), but much more that you could use more tow vehicle to handle the storage areas in the TT filled with stuff; and folks and supplies in the tow vehicle and not overload the suspension and axle. You are tackling this from the position of distributing the TT load to work with the tow vehicle, I would tackle it from the need to get more truck for this trailer. Two separate conclusions from your analysis.

I got dizzy just trying to read that thing. Just close up your computer and go camping. It ain't rocket science, else I could not do it.

I am glad that your had fun putting together the spreadsheet.

What happens to some people is they try to tighten the WD bars to much, and end up with them overtightened. This will cause them to act like a spring, and actually take away from the stability. Just saying that if you have problems, try loosening the WD bars a small amount and see if everything improves.

Yes I have seen some towing safely without WD bars. However it was a 35' long travel trailer towed by a F-650 that had a large generator on the front end of it's flatbed. It was a movie studio truck towing a change room trailer.

Fred.

Be easier to just buy a dually and not have to weigh everything:)

I'm not seeing where you're calculating the total weight on the TV axles. You have totals for the WD hitch, but no recalc for the passengers and gasoline.

Frankly, this is total overkill, and well into OCD territory. Gas up the truck, load up the trailer, and drive to your nearest CAT scales and get a weigh. Odds are you're fine.

On a half-ton Burb, the weak link is the rear axle. Keep the weight below 4000 lbs, and if you're driving long distances, check the temperature of the axle when you make stops. Yes, I would crawl underneath the truck and feel the rear axle - a digital/laser thermometer works wonders.

Ask me how I became so paranoid about the rear axle of a Suburban. Take a guess. It's also why my current Burb is a 3/4 ton.

Hey Dave, pretty snowed in up there are ya? It is a really cool effort, even if it is a bit of overkill. Me, I am more the Alice's Rest. type, sittin on bench playing with the pencils.

I love it. Great work.

mosseater wrote:
Impressive. No offense intended, but you may have too much time on your hands. I thought I was being anal weighing everything, but you take it to a new level. I've never seen anything quite like that before.:B

Agree.
Very detailed and well thought out. I just wouldn't go to the trouble.

davidgeminden wrote:
After reading the "Sticky" thread in the "Towing" forum and some communications with Ron Gratz, I worked up a spreadsheet using "LibreOffice Calc" in the free Libreoffice Suite that I used to approximate what size weight distribution (WD) hitch I needed. I had Libreoffice save it as a MS xls spreadsheet file. The link to the spreadsheet is at the end of this post.

My spreadsheet is an obvious overkill, because most manufactures of WD hitches only use the travel trailer (TT) tongue weight, the hitch weight, the load weight behind the rear axle of the towing vehicle (TV) and the total loaded weight of the trailer to determine the size of WD for their customers.

I had fun putting the spreadsheet together, but I need some more eyes and brains to critique the spreadsheet so I can make improvements and find errors I made so I can correct them.

Hope I attached the link correctly.

Weight distribution spreadsheet

David Geminden

I like the spreadsheet very much...thank you!

I am modifying it to my needs for an enclosed trailer to move household goods and a car across the country next month.