Jerky while towing

I hope I am never anywhere close to you with my family aboard, while your towing along chawing on jerky, which is inattentive driving. Oh the humanity.

On a serious note.....don't get caught up into the myth of " I dont even know its back there". Well it is back there, and your going to know it. When someone posts " I dont know its back there" is usually when I stop reading. Thats just forum BS. I can tow a 750 lb log splitter or mortar mixer with an F450 and know its back there.

Feeling jerking and other feedback is normal. As long as your not developing sway, especially going downhill while coasting, or not getting some type of excessive jerking or bounce all the time to the point your feeling it hard in the steering, go with it.

be sure you have the right sized ball for you hitch, make sure all bolts and nuts are tight to manufacture specs , make sure hitch pin is the correct size, make sure there is no movement in the receiver shaft

Generally a trailer will feel jerky if there isn't enough weight distributed to the hitch. When a trailer hits a bump it pulls back on the truck giving it a jerk. If you follow someone who doesn't have enough weight on the hitch you'll see the trailer swaying back and forth as well. Try moving more weight to the front of the trailer to get the ratio correct.

Can you better define the jerking? Is it fore/aft jerking as if the engine can't maintain constant power? Is the truck bouncing up and down at the hitch? Is there much bounce in the trailer? Is there left/right jerking? Newer or older F150? What tire pressure are you running on the TT and truck? Have you got the TT level to slightly nose down? Have you got the correct amount of weight transferred onto the steer axle? What spring bar rating and what brand/type is the WDH? Is there excessive hitch play? Is it a new/newer TT? Or maybe it's a combination of above factors? Have you been to a scale to see what actual weights are fully loaded up for camping?

downtheroad wrote:
What roads were you towing on....cement highways with joints are notorious for jerky, bouncy ride with travel trailers...

Sometimes called porpoising.

X2 easy to check too. Just slow down or speed up and see if the jerking/bouncing changes as you go over the joints. If the jerking is as you maintain constant speed, accelerate, slow, and brake then likely the hitch but if only when braking the brake controller.

I would go back to the basics, the beginning.

Make sure the trailer has about 12% to 14% tongue weight.

Ensure the WD hitch is correctly set up and you are at 100% FALR. Verify this at the CAT scale.

Consider changing the shocks on the rear of the truck. I like and use Bilstein 5100's.

Do all this and report back. In other words it's helpful to have all the basics in a known configuration, then if there is still a problem, you can start changing things one parameter at a time until you find the problem and solution.

Hope this helps.

It is an eaz lift elite hitch. With weight distribution and friction sway bar

What roads were you towing on....cement highways with joints are notorious for jerky, bouncy ride with travel trailers...

Sometimes called porpoising.

What Dutchmen said. And you didn’t specify what hitch you are using. That might help “us” help you.

One thing that happened to me once - my hitch Ball came loose. I started noticing something was amiss and started really looking over my setup. I paid no attention to the ball at first, but finally I saw that it must have moved and got a hold of it. Sure enough I could move the dang thing with two fingers! Shame on me and lesson learned. Visited a friendly local RV dealer and they had one of their service guys get it tightened back at no charge. Now I check it and the other parts a LOT more closely at every hitchup.

Also not mentioned: You don’t happen to use a sleeve in your receiver by any chance? I doubt it but that’s another source of slop.

If there is movement of the hitch shaft inside the receiver, you may experience some jerking. If the hitch pin through your receiver is even a. It smaller in diameter than the hole it slides into, this small amount of slop can feel like jerking when first starting or braking. If those holes begin to wear also, you eilm experience jerking too. No much you can do about the slop except find a better fitting pin.