Towing Harley and trailer

Might help if you listed loaded trailer tongue weight and loaded truck weight and payload capacity for your truck. Then you can get some informed answers.

1200 + 1250 + 100 = 2,550. Plus your weight, passenger weight and other junk you toss in that truck (450+-). 3,000 pounds of stuff. You have a few hundred pounds to play with.

QCMan wrote:
Might help if you listed loaded trailer tongue weight and loaded truck weight and payload capacity for your truck.

Or post in a more suitable forum.

You do remember that air bags don’t increase capacity, they level the truck.

How long is the HD? Tailgate might be a issue bike or trailer.
As for weight, take your snot to scale, get your actual weights. Subtract actual from rear axle rating. 1300 lbs to spare?

I've had it loaded before but after loading the bike the rear of the truck sagged a little. It all works but I want to know if I can use air bags to readjust the rear end or to set distribution for both loads. It's just a hassle to readjust the hitch for bike and no bike.
The truck can handle a tongue weight of 2000LB. I've extended the the hitch 4" for ramp clearance which reduces the tongue 1/3rd for a tongue weight to approx. 1320LB.I don't have a scale for trailer tongue weight. I would estimate from 8% to 13% of weight of trailer, 640LB to 1040LBs. Airbags would have a 5000LB rating. I'm still researching rear axle rating.

An 8000lb (loaded) trailer should be up around 1000lb hitch weight. An extension on the truck hitch isn't explicitly called out for most calculators but it does affect it negatively. (640lb would be too low)

Add in 1250 for the bike and ramps.
Add in say 300lb for passengers

That's around 2550lb if you put nothing else in the truck with the vast majority going on the rear axle. What's the payload available on the truck?

Since you own the truck and the bike, best bet would be to load up and go to a CAT scale and find out ground truth rather than go off best guestimate ratings.

Airbags can level the load but they don't add payload capacity.

If it were me, I would add the bags, inflate to level the truck and leave the WD bars where they are.

Just like a 5th wheel, the bags are used to help raise the truck. The purpose of the WD remains the same - to put the weight lost from the front axle back where it belongs. There should be no change in your weight distribution if you simply raise the rear of the truck back to where it was normally when towing.

I wouldn't crank up too much on the 1400lb bars unless your trailer tongue is at least 6 or 8 inches tall on the frame members. Even 6 inches is a bit of a stretch for possible frame bending when the 1400lb bars are drawn up tight. If you use the bags to level your truck before hitching up, then you shouldn't have to change the bars much if at all.
Barney

"If it were me, I would add the bags, inflate to level the truck and leave the WD bars where they are."

Words of wiscom from our esteemed Moderator!!!

2oldman wrote:

QCMan wrote:
Might help if you listed loaded trailer tongue weight and loaded truck weight and payload capacity for your truck.

Or post in a more suitable forum.

How much more suitable could the "Towing" forum possibly be to ask a question about.........towing?