neu wrote:
Durb wrote:
It looks as though you are measuring tongue weight at the jack. Keep in mind the shank and hitch ball are resting in your receiver and their weight needs to be calculated in, probably using up your 35 pound margin.
Moving heavy items to the rear of your trailer to offset your tongue weight is problematic, especially with a single axle trailer. This practice will maintain your net tongue weight, but will also reduce your percent of weight on the tongue. This percentage number (12% - 15%) is critical in keeping sway under control. Theoretically, you could reduce your tongue weight to zero by selective loading. Not good, you would be all over the road.
Actually, I just didn't remove the weights after weighing, sorry for the confusing photo.
Yes, I definitely plan to stay within the 12-15% range for tongue weight, the question is whether I can put something in the back to even out the values within this range.
Yah. Moving stuff back away from the tongue is ok. It becomes not okay when you go to the other extreme and place it all the way on the tail. Then it becomes like a pendulum and can cause sway issues. Instead, try and pack things close to or over the axle of the trailer so the trailers axle picks up the weight. In my opinion 10 to 12 percent is fine for axle weight. We run at 10 percent and have no sway issues. We also pull with an SUV. Our trailer is a little lighter than yours though. Our batterie is mounted just behind the axle.
