can I tow on the ball

Gdetrailer wrote:

HuckleberryHunter wrote:
CAN you? Yes. SHOULD you? IMO, no.

WDH is there for a reason.

OP has a 3/4 ton truck with a heavy Diesel engine and has 4K of cargo weight available..

That truck will never need any weight restoration on the front with even 1K lbs of tongue weight.. 1K of TW most likely will barely lift the front and I doubt because of the Diesel engine will every be missed.

WD hitches were designed to allow vehicles to tow much larger loads than they were originally designed for by pushing some of the tongue weight which would have overloaded the rear axles forward to the front axles..

OP has the option to not use WD if they choose to do so. The only caveat is to make sure the trailer TW is above 12%, ideally 15% for best towing stability..

For the record, I have never used WD on any of my 3/4 ton trucks and have towed 20ft and 26ft trailers with 7K GVWR and have a 10K GVWR 18 ft flatbed trailer that I have loaded well over 10K and never had the headlights point to the sky as folks love to banter about..

And did you check to make sure your hitch had enough capacity for weight carrying of the tongue weight. Many hitches have a much lower rating for hitch weight for weight carrying vs. Weight distribution.

My trailer has a 1500lbs hitch weight under the WD rating, but noticeably over the weight carrying rating on the hitch.

HuckleberryHunter wrote:
CAN you? Yes. SHOULD you? IMO, no.

WDH is there for a reason.

OP has a 3/4 ton truck with a heavy Diesel engine and has 4K of cargo weight available..

That truck will never need any weight restoration on the front with even 1K lbs of tongue weight.. 1K of TW most likely will barely lift the front and I doubt because of the Diesel engine will every be missed.

WD hitches were designed to allow vehicles to tow much larger loads than they were originally designed for by pushing some of the tongue weight which would have overloaded the rear axles forward to the front axles..

OP has the option to not use WD if they choose to do so. The only caveat is to make sure the trailer TW is above 12%, ideally 15% for best towing stability..

For the record, I have never used WD on any of my 3/4 ton trucks and have towed 20ft and 26ft trailers with 7K GVWR and have a 10K GVWR 18 ft flatbed trailer that I have loaded well over 10K and never had the headlights point to the sky as folks love to banter about..

one, as mentioned weigh the system and see what your actual tongue weight is
next what is the weight carrying limit on the hitch?? Often it is a LOT less than the weight distributing capacity.
you could easily have a tongue weight near 1000lbs. remember the "empty" tongue weight is w/o any battery(s) with empty propane tanks, and nothing else in the trailer. And the battery(s) and propane basically transfer 100% of their weight to the tongue since they are so close.

Now if you are within the weight carrying rating on the hitch then it's possible to consider no wd hitch. But it is also possible that the truck will handle much better with a WD hitch putting the front axle weight back to it's unloaded weight.

wildtoad wrote:
Why guess about your weights? Go weigh your truck and trailer as setup for camping and base your decision on facts.

Best advise at this time as you/were just guessing. Scaled front and rear axle weights will tell the tale.
However you have the truck and trailer so hook it up and go for a short drive and see how the rig handles. You may or may not need a WD hitch. No cents/sense in buying one if its not needed.
\ You can also use those weights for setting up a WD hitch.

X2 on the ^^^above. Your payload is 4000 lbs. Even if you had a tongue weight of 1000 lbs, I would not use WD as your front axle doesn’t need mor weight on it.

Why guess about your weights? Go weigh your truck and trailer as setup for camping and base your decision on facts.

CAN you? Yes. SHOULD you? IMO, no.

WDH is there for a reason.

I can guarantee you your “guesstimated numbers” are way off. You’ll have approx 750 lbs of tongue weight. You may not need the WD hitch but it will handle much better with one.

A diesel truck will weigh at least 7200 lbs without fuel. The trailer will weigh at least 700-800lbs more than it’s dry weight. You’ll be very surprised how quickly things add up.

My TT is just over 5200 pounds wet/loaded and have a half ton which outweighs the TT slightly. I don’t use a WDH, have about 14% tongue weight and no issues. I do have airbags (manual inflation) to level the truck, and everything is level! I did use a WDH when towing with a 2015 Tahoe which had a factory installed automatic air leveling system which failed after four years.