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LITEPHIL's avatar
LITEPHIL
Explorer
Mar 19, 2021

Need more tongue weight

I have a 2002 Sandpiper T22 Lite and need to somehow add a couple of hundred pounds to the tongue weight somehow. Seems most everything is at the axles and back inside. Its a great little trailer but is a little unbalanced. The GVW is 6,200 and the tongue weight is only around 400 lbs loaded. My brother was a Forest River dealer and I have had many trailers and have found that the best handling trailers are at around 15% tongue weight.The truck and the hitch set up are not the problem,in fact I am using two friction sway controls and I have pulled this weight and size trailer before with no sway control and handled better then this setup. Truck is more than adequate for a 6,200 trailer. Problem is, all the tanks,bathroom,fridge,heavier mattress are at the rear. I have a pass through up front but it's not very big and I do have have my tools and heavier stuff in there but I am still light up front. Any ideas? I have dual tanks and a very heavy single battery up there. Can't fit 2 batteries.Thanks!
  • I added this Storage Tray which gave me many options for extra storage. Currently I have a triangular (ish) shaped storage box mounted on top of it. I could put my generator up there if I wanted.
  • Looked at the layout online...not seeing a lot of options. Mounting stuff on the A-frame is an obvious one.

    Do you have anything hanging off the back (spare tire, bikes, cargo rack)...removing that will help add to the tongue weight.
  • Add a generator rack above your battery on the tongue and put a Honda 3000i on that. That will add 150 pounds of pure useable weight.
  • Can you take some pictures of your tongue. Most trailer tongues are pretty standard on width and length so I'm having a hard time seeing why you can't put 2 batteries on it?

    That being said; your best bang for space is lead and the best place to get lead is from batteries. So can you put 2 or 3 more batteries in the pass through? You will have to build a slide out tray to do this but it would be worth it. The plus side of this is you will have a lot of battery storage if you boondock.

    The next bang for your buck is water. So if you drink beer or bottled water the place to store it is the front pass through.

    The next bang for you buck is take weight off of the rear and put it up front. I don't know what kind of storage you have inside up front but take all of the heavy stuff out of the rear and put it up front if you have storage up front or space up front.

    I agree with your tongue weight problem. That is WAY to light on the tongue. The closer you get to 15% the better.
  • Tanks are always empty except fresh water is full on the way. It has a couch up front and the storage under it is the pass through. I pile as much stuff up front as possible but looking for a better idea. Don't want to just carry extra weight. I hate that they make these so called Lites with such little tongue weight.
  • Yeah, sorry, I edited my post a bit. This is the tongue storage thing I saw... https://www.rvupgradestore.com/Trailer-Tray-p/92-1577.htm?cvsfa=3124&cvsfe=2&cvsfhu=39322d31353737 The example has a generator on it.
  • What is up front, inside the trailer? If you have any interior storage at floor level, put in some cement blocks or sand bags?

    Since the tanks are at the rear, you'll want to travel with nearly-empty tanks. But you probably know that already.
  • I have two 30 lb tanks and no room for second battery. The openings for the pass through front storage are very small. No space for generator.
    Thanks
  • This may apply more to others than you as you appear to know what's going on. You sure you can't get a two batt tray on it? They also have bike racks for the front if you bike or storage I believe. These things attach to the frame somehow... I've seem em but not up close.

    But If you don't have them, adapt the front for two 30 lb propane tanks and add a second battery. That should take care of most of it for most people. If your generator will fit in your front storage put that in. Put any heavy stuff there...like you have. If you presently have one of each with the propane being the smaller one, you could get maybe 120 lbs increase roughly from the changeover to two batts and two 30 lb tanks... I think a batt is around 45 lbs. One 20 lb propane tank FULL will run in the 35 lb range. One 30 lb propane tank will weigh in the range of 55 lbs full...


    So, IF a person has one and one right now, they are adding approximately 80 lbs to the tongue weight. If you have two 30 lbs propane tanks (FULL) and two group 24 batts, you are talking in the 200 lb range with around an added 120 lb's to the dry tongue weight over a basic set up. Unless it's Tuesday in the Himalayas...

    I'm sure someone will correct me and talk about atmospheric air pressure and the impact of heat on the amount of propane you can put in a tank etc. This is ballpark with basic equipment packages and you can buy the trays for these things online and install them yourself relatively inexpensively. I actually would have preferred two 20 lb tanks and one batt on mine as I am at the mark on my truck capacity at present and would be OK with 120 lbs less... So, I was calculating this kind of thing.

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