Today - new tongue jack installed, Tow-Mater taken for a ride.
The original tongue jack on the trailer worked, albeit a little harder at fuller extension. But now with the axle flip, it was wholly inadequate.
The
new jack, was chosen mostly for its (I think) marketed 29" of adjustment, including a significant part of that in the drop down adjustable foot. Pull a pin, up and down it goes, no need for cranking the handle for that portion of the adjustment.
But the length isn't the only thing to consider. Part of what I wanted was also, more weight lifting capability than needed, for two reasons - one, to make it easier in general, and even more so if, and when, the ATV platform weight and extra length is added, and two, to provide the trailer front to back leveling, at times lifting great portions of the trailer overall weight off the support of the tires and axle.
The jack is the same (or similar) to one I had on a 32" high deckover 20' trailer. Deckover is full deck bed over the top of the tires and that trailer was rated at 10,000 pounds with two axles. So the jack is built strong to lift that tongue weight. On Tow-Mater now, easy-peasy!
Here's the rating on the coupler that came original to Tow-Mater.
And this compares the original jack, to the new jack.
Note the square (and larger) tube, and the fastening bracket shape differences.
I knew from reviews that there would be modification required. I think in general, trailer couplers that use the larger square tube, also simply use a larger diameter round hole. I felt cutting out a square might be easier, with the tools I have on hand.
First step, make measurements and get a cut area on the coupler. This shows the scribed markings, and the starter holes drilled in the corners.
Note the three original jack mounting bolt holes too.
Then I used a 1/16" thin metal cut-off wheel for the 4.5" grinder to cut the straight lines, up to the corners.
And trimmed out the corners with a metal blade in the scroll saw.
That picture is after a bit-o-cleanup with a file to knock off flesh tearing edges.
Then from the ground, laying on my back, I marked and cut the bottom metal in similar fashion. I found I didn't need corner holes this time.
Thereafter, I located the centers of the new mounting holes and drilled them out to 25/64ths for a 3/8" bolt.
The instructions called for grade 5 hardware. I had standard hardness, and some grade 8 on hand. But my grade 8 bolts were too long (the non-threaded portion) for three spots, so I ended up using one shorter bolt, and two longer. The longer provide for a different, and stronger, safety chain attachment method and location.
Note here, the two bolt heads holding the safety chains new location.
The previous location was both chains in the visible single hole, just forward and underneath of the jack tube - that hole there.
That shortened the chains ever so slightly, though still an almost perfect length, and routed the chains forward out of the tongue center point. Perfect!
And that allowed me to sandwich the links in between two grade 8 flat washer before torquing down the nuts. Yes, that puts the thread upward, not the best of choices, but not so bad.
With things put back together, I placed the jack in full retraction, both the screw, and the drop foot.
And with the simple pull of a pin, and at full drop foot extension, we get this.
That's maybe 5-6" off the ground. To get it to the ground took 60 revolutions on the crank.
Then another 6 cranks to lift it off the support. So the crank is out at 66 turns now, and that removed the installation support and jack stand.
But how high would it go? Let's just see. I started cranking and counting. After getting pretty high up there, I wondered if it would stop at full extension, or if I would screw the darn thing right off! So I decided to stop at 100 and check further. As it turned out, right at 100 turns, it came to a stop. So that's 166 turns for full travel.
That's quite adequate! And with NO blocks to carry around. The large foot is good on sod, dirt, gravel, pavement. We'll talk tongue weight in a minute.
The fella who sold me the tires asked to see the end result on the trailer. I also wanted a trailer weight. So I hooked up the truck with a basic no drop/rise drawbar, checked lights. All good.
And before weighing, I drained the rest of the fresh water tank.
It was a bit windy, and I could feel the wind while underway, but there was something else too. Once at the parked spot shown above, I looked close and it was easy to see; the tires/wheels on the axle were splayed out, like the whole trailer had been dropped from a height and landed on the wheels, bending them outward.
Bingo! The light went on. Sorry, I forgot to mention. When you flip the axle, you are reversing the previous axle alignment. Caster, camber, toe-in. Whatever had been set before, is now reversed.
Caster - I'm pretty certain there is no caster set on an straight axle alignment, but we'll verify that along with the other adjustments when I get it over to the alignment shop.
Camber - That angling inward at the bottom (where the tires touch the pavement) and outward at the top. It lets the whole thing kind of track in the middle groove provided by the vee shape of the tires on the road. At the moment, they are splayed out in quite visible negative camber! Not only does that wear out tires fast and unevenly, but it gives handling a real negative feel.
Toe-in - That narrower distance at the front of the tires than what there is at the back of them. That acts kind of like an arrow and again, keeps the whole thing moving straight down the road as opposed to taking every little left and right wander it wants to pick at any given moment.
Again, the camber is very visible, the toe-in harder to tell. You can get a friend and put a tape measure to tires for a starting point, or awareness. At the shop they have the tools to bend the axle in the middle, which then affects the angles at the spindles. So I'll get that scheduled today.
You can really see it in these photos.
Upon return I parked the other way. Just to be different.
And what was the weight? 2100 lbs gross with 40 lbs of propane. Well, I fully expect I'll put 40 more lbs on board as part of the basic trailer weight (before cargo). So, I'm using 2100 lbs as the hard number for the dry weight.
Add 27 gallons of water at 8.3 lbs per gallon, for 225 lbs, plus 40 pounds of propane. We're at 2365 lbs wet. And add in what? 635 lbs or so of camping gear and food, and we're at the easy to remember 3000 lbs loaded weight.
At 10-15% of the gross weight (loaded weight), the tongue weight should fall into the range of 300-450 lbs. Or really, no LESS than 10-15%. If your tow vehicle is capable, you can have a much greater tongue weight, you just don't want to lighten tongue weight.
What was the tongue weight yesterday? 400 lbs. Without water, without gear and food, etc. So that will go up with both. But at what rate? That depends on "where in the camper" it's loaded. But I was able to determine, there is a possible "gray-water" storage location, even behind the axle. It all depends on a number of other things.
For one thing, you don't want to balance it out SO well, on a light trailer like this, that once it's all said and done, two people climb on board a non-stabilized, and unhitched trailer, to take a seat in the back, resulting in the trailer popping a wheelie! So, a bit heavier on tongue weight in this regard is a good thing.
And of course, an eventual ATV platform up front would just add greater stability in both trailer weighting, and in wheel base location for towing. Too far and the trailer tracking doesn't follow close enough in the truck tracks. So a two place ATV platform is probably unreasonable, without relocating the axle mounts, where-as one ATV width would probably stabilize the whole load.
Just food for thought.
Countdown to camping - 9 days!
