Reese WD head clarification

Steve6l wrote:

Being a toy hauler I will be back almost all my stuff into the camper. I do however have a 400L slip tank though that depends on when I filled it last could be multitude of different weights right, is there a way to take that into effect?
Steve

Steve, if the aux fuel tank is behind the cab, then the weight is more spread between the front and rear axle, = less squat on the rear.

If you have a large weight aft of the rear axle, (A quad or something) that will make the truck rear squat a lot more which was my concern.

In your case, have the fuel tank approx 1/2 full to full will be close enough for now.

Here is the process for figuring which shank. There are only 2 Reese choices in the 2 1/2" shank.

They look like this.


I was helping a fellow camper bud with a 3500HD and his Aritic Fox TT using this same 2 1/2" shank setup. His camper had a ball height of 29". Having the actual parts to measure... I could come real close to nailing it for him. I estimated when all the WD is set, his truck will squat 1 1/2" from unhitched, and I added the hi rise tow ball. His Chevy started out 21 1/2" ground to top of the 2 1/2" pin box (top of shank). He would flip up the shank in rise mode and it worked on his 29" ball height camper. We also had in our back hip pocket a trick of using a 2" hi rise ball to gain 1" if he needed a little more rise to level out the camper verses going to the next shank which would put him way up in the air.


You can see here on mine when I had a 24" ball height, I flipped that shank down to drop mode. His Chevy was a little higher then my F350 but I had more bed weight too. (Yes there is a difference between Ford and Chevy...)
You can see here I am at the bottom of the drop, but the camper is level.


Then I dealt with LT tires and raised the camper up creating a new ball height. Now about 26 1/2". Now I flipped the shank up to again level out the camper and not be a lot of nose down.


And then there is the other Reese shank which has a large drop and large rise. I use this on on 18" flat deck equipment trailer in drop mode only. I have to drop down that low to level out the trailer.






Or on the smaller camper with and 18" ball height. This shank we really do not want to have to use in rise mode on a TT with a PU truck. It will be up so high you cannot let the tail gate down with the hitch on. This would work well on a 3500 van in rise mode as the truck is a lot lower than the PU and you need to rise up real high to get to the trailer.


As far as towing a flat deck trailer verses a TT or TH, they can be 2 very different towing feels/worlds.

The open flat deck for sure has weight to deal with and the trailer has to be balanced well to tow stable, but the wind resistance is low.

Now take the TT or TH, that brick as we call is has a lot of sq feet of area to the wind and that drag/wind catcher can really affect the truck where the flat deck does now so much.

As a point of reference, I'll give you an example. My TT weighs just under 10,000# and has a 1,600# loaded TW. With camping stuff in the truck bed the entire rig weighs 17,800#. With the TT, WD hitch and the DC we tow a good qty. And a lot longer towing days, 5 to 6 hours some times. Its a camper, we tow it.... The wife has no issues in the truck and the rig is stable.

Now insert the flat deck trailer. The 1st few times times I towed my tractor in the pic above up to our new place, I towed on the ball, no WD. The entire rig weighs about 14,400#. There was no sway issues, but I sure felt that high center of gravity tractor pushing the truck in turns. But it was OK.

Then the Wife came with me... on the next trip to the new place. OMG we did not get out of the driveway in the 1st turn and she says, "I can tell that isn't the camper back there". So after this I put the WD hitch on and the truck stability is a major improvement. It is DW approved!

While I move my camper around here in the yard with no WD, I'm not going to be towing a lot down the road that way. 32 feet of wind sail, 11 feet high, 8 foot wide the wind pull is something to deal with. The WD makes a major impact hear and the anti sway is a piece of mind in stability when some bad thing comes my way. I would expect you to find the same thing with your rig once setup right.

Good for you on doing the install. There are not a lot of parts to a WD hitch, but it is amazing how goofed up the settings can get if one does not understand the underlying principals. And then the DC even further adds to this. You will do well and after you tweak the rig in and then go have fun camping. That Desert Fox is a good unit. Northwood builds good campers.

Due to some things at home, I may not be on the web until early Sunday night, early next week. So it may take a bit to respond. We have a lot of other good folks here who can jump in and help if needed. And they are already logged on your thread.

Good luck this weekend.

John