Equal-izer Hitch Bars

Acdii wrote:

Bigfoot2005 wrote:

Bigfoot2005 wrote:

opnspaces wrote:
Seems like 1200 lb bars to me. I don't think the weight in the bed comes into play.

When you do the calculation on their website they ask for the bed weight i guess because you are transferring weight from the rear axle and anything over the axle adds to the transfer weight

What is the issue with having to stiff of the bars? 1400 versus 1200

I can tell you exactly what the issue will be, Just found this out myself.

I had done some calculations prior to buying my Blue Ox, and had come up with a receiver weight of 1200 pounds. That is the weight of the trailer tongue as well as the hitch itself. So I went and got the 1500 pound BO.

As far as distributing weight, it worked perfectly, transferred everything properly, BUT I could not get the required bar tension for the sway control to function. When I did, it lifted the rear too much, and dropped the front end past the unloaded fender height.

I wound up with having to buy a new set of 1000 pound bars that resolved the issue.

Turns out when I did my calculations I had included adding a rack above the LP tanks to mount an 80 pound Generator, which would have added 130 pounds to the 890 the tongue weighs now, putting me over the 1000 pound mark for tongue weight, but when I finally got around to measuring the A frame to see if the rack would fit, which it wont, I had already bought the BO and set it up.

So no, bigger bars will not work, they cannot be tensioned enough if the weight isn't there, and will not apply the proper sway control.

What is required to get an accurate weight for the spring bars is three things, the weight of the trailer tongue, the weight of the hitch itself, and the weight of anything in the bed behind the rear axle. I never added anything behind the axle, it all fit in front of it, so even though I carry the generator in the bed, it is not carried by the receiver.

Generally, anything carried by the receiver is what you size the bars to, not the hitch. The receiver is that socket under the bumper, not the hitch the trailer connects to, some folks get that part wrong, so just want to make sure it is understood the difference.

If you don't have the trailer and need a rough estimate, take the curb weight, which is the UVW, and add at least 1000-1200 pounds to it for cargo and water, and use that number * 13%. So say the UVW is 5000, like mine, I carry 1500 pounds of cargo, and weigh 6550. 6550 * .13 = 851. Mine is closer to 13.5%, hence 890 pounds.