Best way to Weight My rig at the Cat Scales

Tin Pusher wrote:
JBarca, good if you can do it. Some campers (mine for example) axles are too close together. Tried it, didn't trust it.

H'mm, OK, May not work in all cases. Scales may be part of it.

In my case my 32 " axles centers allowed me to do it and I could verify it worked correct. I had extra weights so the one weight of all 4 wheels did equal the sum of the 4 individual wheel weights, within scale tolerance that is.

Good point to cross verify the individual weights to the total of all 4 weights. If they agree your good, if not, well there is error somewhere and suspect

mkirsch wrote:

JBarca wrote:
What is 50#?

It's the difference between being legal and getting an overweight ticket from a DOT officer who is having a bad day.

Unless you have numbers on the side of your truck, DOT doesn't care if your personal RV is 50lbs over weight.

JBarca, good if you can do it. Some campers (mine for example) axles are too close together. Tried it, didn't trust it.

JBarca wrote:
What is 50#?

It's the difference between being legal and getting an overweight ticket from a DOT officer who is having a bad day.

I'll add one more weight set if you really want to know all camper wheel positions. And no, odds are all 4 camper wheels are not loaded equal. Campers are not built or loaded equal left to right or front to back. Also if you haul fresh water to camp, fill the system before weighing.

After you get the weights described above, if the CAT scale layout can allow this, here is one method I have used for individual wheel weights.

Pull on a segmented truck scale and split the front and rear axle.





Split the camper front and rear axle. Take a weight.


Then pull off and go around again to get 1/2 the camper on and off the scale. Not all scales have a flat surface like this, but some do.


Now do some math. You know the combined front and rear axle, and you know the front and rear wheel weight on one side of the camper.

Subtract the one side you know from the total axle weight and that is the other wheel. Now look at the heaviest wheel location and see how much extra reserve capacity you have on that tire. Ideally you have 20% or better more than the max rating when inflated to max cold side wall pressure.

There is 20# ~ maybe pushing 50# error in this method as the scales are only so accurate. Remember they are made to weight and 80,000# semi. What is 50#?

Good luck and hope this helps.

John

Here you go:
http://learntorv.blogspot.com/2013/05/how-to-weigh-fifth-wheel-camper.html

I haven't found any cat-scales where the re-weighs were free. But, at $1-$2, they're certainly affordable.

Well, Cat scales have three platforms, you get f. axle, r axle and trailer axle(s) at one weigh (plus total). Drop the trailer then get f axle and r axle, truck only.

A little arithmetic and you are there.

Total weight - truck only weight = trailer total
Trailer total - trailer axles = pin weight

You can see from truck axle weights where the pin weight goes, mine is totally on the r axle.

Go to the scale, talk to the guys, I found them to be very helpful.

If you don't live close to a scale, the best method is going to be weigh the entire rig when you arrive at the scale then go unhook the trailer and weigh just the truck. If I remember right, most locations offer free re-weigh. http://catscale.com/how-to-weigh

Click on the RV'ing FAQ link above (just under the RV.NET logo) and scroll down to section 3. All you need to know should be there.

Weigh truck & 5vr combo
Then pull over in parking lot...unhook 5vr and go back for a reweigh of truck only

That will give you all the numbers
Truck & Trailer
Truck FAW
Truck RAW
Truck Total
Trailer Axles (total) weight

Truck only
Front Axle
Rear Axle
Total