WDH set up help needed
Yes, I've read the stickies, multiple times. I have a Reese hitch. My vehicle instructions say to return the front bumper to unhitched height. Unhitched measurements: front bumper 17 7/8 Front ...
Forum Discussion
myredracer wrote:Can you tell us the source of this 25/50/25 "ideal" distribution of tongue weight?
You ideally want 25% of the tongue weight transferred to the steer axle, 50% to the drive axle and 25% to the trailer axles. I can tell you that this is not easy. I have fiddled with the bar angle, number of links and ball height. I am currently okay on the steer axle but have too much on drive axle and not enough onto the trailer axles. It's important to get this a close as you can for handling and tire wear.
If I correctly understand what you're saying, you're trying to achieve something which is physically impossible.
Perhaps that's why you're having so much trouble getting the distribution you want.
Depending on TV and TT dimensions, a 1000# tongue weight might cause a load of 400# to be removed from the steer axle and a load of 1400# to be added to the drive axle.
For your 2009 F-250, Ford specifies that the steer axle should be returned approximately to its unhitched load.
This means that a load of approximately 200# would have to be transferred to the TT's axles.
That 200# load, in turn, would cause about 400# to be added to the steer axle and 600# to be removed from the TV's drive axle.
Net resulting axle loads would be:
steer axle = 400# removed by TW plus 400# added by load transfer = 0# net change
drive axle = 1400# added by TW minus 600# removed by load transfer = 800# net increase
TT axles = 200# added by load transfer
The approximate net load changes for the assumed 1000% tongue weight are: steer/drive/TT = 0#/800#/200# = 0%/80%/20%.
Other approximate distributions (again depending on TV/TT dimensions) are: 10/65/25, 20/50/30, and 30/35/35.
The load transfers to the steer and drive axles are uniquely determined by the amount of load transfer to the TT axles.
Ron
