Travel trailer sway

Sounds like you have a lot of potential errors. I pull my 10,000# 36' with a 2012 Ram 2500. I use the EazLift hitch. I also have two friction bars. The truck squats @ 3/4". Your trailer should be level and preferably slightly nose down. My tongue weight is @1200 depending on how long we are going to be gone. It tracks very straight and has very little sway with only moderate tension on the sway bars. I'm not familiar with your hitch, but mine has the adjustable head. Lower or raise the head to compensate for height of TV. Adjust the tilt on the head so as not to drop more than 3 links from the end of the chain. I also had the "porposing" effect on mine. I added StableLoads and Bilstein shocks. Roads I used to slow to 45 on I can now take comfortably at 60. If you have not changed the shocks, your truck has enough age on it that the original crappy shocks are long since worn out. Also check your tires. It should have E rated tires. If it does, air them to 80psi. That truck should tow that trailer very comfortably if outfitted correctly. Good Luck!!!!

$15 at a CAT scale to start. Find out how well that WDH is adjusted. What is the bar rating for them?

There are several things that can cause sway issues. Your problem could be one or a combination of several issues.

Most common: (Some may or may not apply, some you can do nothing about)

1. Insufficient tongue weight
2. Impropper hicth height (trailer tows nose up)
3. Impropper hitch set up (too much or too little weight distribution)
4. Unbalanced tire pressures (truck or trailer)
5. Unbalanced trailer loading
6. Overloading
7. Misaligned trailer axles
8. Trailer brakes not set correctly
9 Wind
10. Bad roads

First things I would check:

Item 1, should be at least 10% of loaded trailer weight. Better would be 12%.

Item 2, On level ground, unhitch and level the trailer. Measure height of trailer coupler and height of hitch ball. Adjust ball height, close as possible to equal the trailer coupler. Slightly lower is better than higher. Then move on to Item 3.

Item 3, Measure front and rear truck wheel wells (top center) height. Write the down. Hitch up, without WD bars, and measure again. Write these down. Install WD bars and measure a third time. Front wheel wells should come back down, close to 1/2 inch of unhitched height. With too much weight off the front wheels, subconscious movement of steering wheel, can cause sway. Rear wheel wells should not be higher than unhitched height.

Item 4, Check all tires for balanced pressure

Visit a CAT scale and get the following weights:

1. Truck and trailer hitched up with WD bars
2. Truck and trailer hitched up without WD bars
3. Truck alone

These numbers will give you actual weights for truck, trailer, tongue weight, and weight distribution.

GilliedogKiwi wrote:
We have a Reese Straightline hitch with the cam lock system and we have experienced VERY minor sway and that was only in horrific crosswinds on the highway with trucks passing and still nothing to concern us at all. We just picked up our new Travel Trailer and drove it home without the Reese hitch (we had to attach that when we got home) and we could really tell the difference.

You really should consider a Reese Straight-Line. It's much cheaper than going with an Arrow or ProPride, and it works.

Bruce

We have a Reese Straightline hitch with the cam lock system and we have experienced VERY minor sway and that was only in horrific crosswinds on the highway with trucks passing and still nothing to concern us at all. We just picked up our new Travel Trailer and drove it home without the Reese hitch (we had to attach that when we got home) and we could really tell the difference.

Is the hitch height the same on both the pickups or have you readjusted it so it is? Trailer need to sit level or slightly nose down. Like others have said, 750lbs TW for a 10000lb trailer doesn't seem right. My 8500lb gross weight trail has an unloaded TW of 795lbs. TW need to be around 10%-12% at least.

But before you start guessing and swapping stuff maybe you ought to find a scale so you really know what your dealing with.

As for the squatting, my 99 Ram 2500 does the same thing. I added load levelers to compensate but would use airbag levelers if I had it to do over again.

make sure you have the weight well distributed in the TT so it's not tongue light. That being said, I moved to a Propride 3P this summer towing a similar sized unit and its one handed relaxed driving the whole way now. Food for though.

Censming wrote:
....snip...... At 750 lb tonge weight I don't think it should sag 5".... I'm going to go through the set up again tomorrow measuring all 4 wheels and adjusting as needed.. I have 2 links I can use right now and I would like to have more adjustability..

You got that right, a 2500 series pickup that sags over a couple of inches with that kind of load has a suspension problem.

I fought the same issue with our new camper. With everything perfectly level it rode like a wooden wagon. I drop one link and went forward on the hitch tilt and it made a HUGE difference. The truck squats a little more than before but it's where it needs to be.

Tongue weight... tongue weight...tongue weight