Is that your drawing and figures or did you find that somewhere?
The drawing was produced on my home PC using AutoCAD LT. The figures (numerical examples) are hypothetical values assumed to be representative of a Suburban towing a 30' trailer.
Lets say you have a TT and it weighs 5000#'s. Let say that with the manufacturer's axle placement the tongue weight is 650#'s. OK you put that on the hitch ball of a weak truck, and the trucks rear drops alot. Now you add a weight distribution hitch. Lets say the WD hitch weighs 150#'s.
What happens to that now 800#'s(roughly) of weight on the ball???? Are you saying it remains the same, or does some of that 800#'s of weight get transferred to the front axle of TV and TT axles?? If it gets transferred what are the %'s of the transfer?
First, there is only 650# on the ball. The weight of the WD hitch is carried on the receiver, but not on the ball. Prior to tensioning the WD bars, all of the 800# total is "hitch load" and is transferred via the receiver to the TV's axles.
After the WD bars are tensioned, the 650# tongue weight does not change. Neither does the 150# hitch weight. However, the WD tensioners create an additional 1700# (using my example values) DOWN force on the ball and an additional 2000# UP force on the hitch head. The net result is a decrease of 300# in the hitch load.
But, the real reason for the increased load on the TV's front axle and the decreased load on the TV's rear axle is due to the additional UP force of 300# exerted by the TT's axles.
PS - I know that you are not actually reducing the TT's tongue weight, but are you not distributing the weight off the TV's ball thereby having less weight on the ball??
No, the load on the BALL actually INCREASES by the assumed 1700#. The load on the receiver DECREASES by 300# as explained above.
A very important concept of the WD hitch is that the bars pull DOWN on the TT tongue and simultaneously push UP on the hitch head. The down force is less than the up force due to the load transferred to the TT's axles
BTW, for my explanation of the difference between "tongue weight" and "hitch load", see
Tongue Weight and Hitch Load --- What are they and how are they different?Ron
