Equalizer Sizing

[calewjohnson]

Ok, purchased a new TT today. Also purchased a new Equlaizer hitch to be installed when I pick-up the trailer.

My question, I went with the 1200lb tongue weight vice 1000lb, since the sticker says 910lb tongue weight. Was this a smart move? Any words of wisdom when I go to get this put up? I am super excited, since I am move up from a round bar WD with friction sway...

Cale

[calewjohnson]

Ron3rd wrote:

calewjohnson wrote:
Ok, purchased a new TT today. Also purchased a new Equlaizer hitch to be installed when I pick-up the trailer.

My question, I went with the 1200lb tongue weight vice 1000lb, since the sticker says 910lb tongue weight. Was this a smart move? Any words of wisdom when I go to get this put up? I am super excited, since I am move up from a round bar WD with friction sway...

Cale

You'll be fine with the 12K bars. Correct choice IMO.

Thanks! And the excitement builds....

[Ron3rd]

calewjohnson wrote:
Ok, purchased a new TT today. Also purchased a new Equlaizer hitch to be installed when I pick-up the trailer.

My question, I went with the 1200lb tongue weight vice 1000lb, since the sticker says 910lb tongue weight. Was this a smart move? Any words of wisdom when I go to get this put up? I am super excited, since I am move up from a round bar WD with friction sway...

Cale

You'll be fine with the 12K bars. Correct choice IMO.

[LarryJM]

calewjohnson wrote:

LarryJM wrote:

HJGyswyt wrote:

calewjohnson wrote:
I went with the 1200lb tongue weight vice 1000lb

I'm not sure what you meant by the above sentence.

There is probably some kind of formula but if I had 500lbs of tongue weight I would want 500lb rated weight distribution bars. 1000lbs of tongue weight I would want 1000lb rated weight bars.

My trailer advertised 800 some pounds of tongue weight, but when I unhooked on the truck scale to get my real tongue weight it was almost twice that, a whopping 1500lbs. So I upgraded my weight distribution bars to 1200lb models and am very happy with the ride and set up. (Bought my trailer used and it came with 550lb rated bars)

All the best Cale, enjoy the trailer and all the fun memories you will make with it. Hans

Hmmm your bars are underrated and I would think your receiver is probably not rated for a 1500lb tongue wt. I wonder what other ratings you are over since 1500lb tongue wt. on a Burb is I would think be close to maxing out it's carrying capacity w/o adding cargo or passengers.

IMO you should have no issues going maybe one size up as long as you are close, but not over the smaller bar size. I run a tongue wt. of between 900 and 950lbs and I have the 1200 bars on my Equal-i-zer and for far with about 10K towing they are doing fine. In my case I would not have chosen the 1400lb bar option not so much for fear of going too high, but it simply was not called for.

Larry

He has an older Suburban, I know our 2004 was rated for 1200lb tongue weight with WD, which we were right on (1150 tongue weight)...you (Larry) actually helped me dial it in via this forum.... Once it was done, she towed like a dream.

Once I bought the 2500, I was back here to get it dialed in and the numbers were phenomenal, of course it took about 2 hours at a truck stop late one night (since all the trucks were sleeping) and about $15 in weight tickets.

From reading the Equalizer manual, it looks as though once all the measurements are IAW there directions, the weights should be nearly spot on. If it is really that easy, I wished I would have done this a long time ago.

Cale

Well w/o knowing the exact numbers that was sort of what I was getting at. If your receiver is rated for 1200lbs and your TW is 1500lbs that is exceeding your receiver rating by almost 30% which IMO is too much. One thing to remember that TW becomes a dynamic force as the attitude between TV and what your are towing changes. Also I don't know where the limits are on receiver ratings, but I would think things like the fastening system would be one area that one should be concerned with. Three ratings IMO that one should really not exceed are receiver TW rating, TV axle ratings and TV tire ratings. Failure of any of these three could involve serious injury and loss of life for not only you and your family, but others on the road.

Larry

[lbrjet]

Mine dry was 880 and wet 1050. My 1200 lb bars (and the E4 in general) work great.

[calewjohnson]

LarryJM wrote:

HJGyswyt wrote:

calewjohnson wrote:
I went with the 1200lb tongue weight vice 1000lb

I'm not sure what you meant by the above sentence.

There is probably some kind of formula but if I had 500lbs of tongue weight I would want 500lb rated weight distribution bars. 1000lbs of tongue weight I would want 1000lb rated weight bars.

My trailer advertised 800 some pounds of tongue weight, but when I unhooked on the truck scale to get my real tongue weight it was almost twice that, a whopping 1500lbs. So I upgraded my weight distribution bars to 1200lb models and am very happy with the ride and set up. (Bought my trailer used and it came with 550lb rated bars)

All the best Cale, enjoy the trailer and all the fun memories you will make with it. Hans

Hmmm your bars are underrated and I would think your receiver is probably not rated for a 1500lb tongue wt. I wonder what other ratings you are over since 1500lb tongue wt. on a Burb is I would think be close to maxing out it's carrying capacity w/o adding cargo or passengers.

IMO you should have no issues going maybe one size up as long as you are close, but not over the smaller bar size. I run a tongue wt. of between 900 and 950lbs and I have the 1200 bars on my Equal-i-zer and for far with about 10K towing they are doing fine. In my case I would not have chosen the 1400lb bar option not so much for fear of going too high, but it simply was not called for.

Larry

He has an older Suburban, I know our 2004 was rated for 1200lb tongue weight with WD, which we were right on (1150 tongue weight)...you (Larry) actually helped me dial it in via this forum.... Once it was done, she towed like a dream.

Once I bought the 2500, I was back here to get it dialed in and the numbers were phenomenal, of course it took about 2 hours at a truck stop late one night (since all the trucks were sleeping) and about $15 in weight tickets.

From reading the Equalizer manual, it looks as though once all the measurements are IAW there directions, the weights should be nearly spot on. If it is really that easy, I wished I would have done this a long time ago.

Cale

[calewjohnson]

xaugievike wrote:
My old TT put me in the same conundrum of being close to maybe just over one of equalizer's weight breaks. So I emailed them directly and heard back and their advice was to go with the bigger size.

Great! We have basically the same TV, have you replaced your factory receiver? I went with a nice Curt receiver, which moved it up two inches (my factory receiver was showing cracks along the welds where it sits below the center of the bumper). Played heck with my TH, had to get a longer shank so the trailer would sit level again. This trailer looks to be quite a bit taller, hopefully I won't have to play musical shanks with this setup.



Cale

[xaugievike]

My old TT put me in the same conundrum of being close to maybe just over one of equalizer's weight breaks. So I emailed them directly and heard back and their advice was to go with the bigger size.

[LarryJM]

cps68500 wrote:
I know that going too high or too low will cause the setup to be ineffective.

If you load up in your TV bed, you may be closer to that 1000lb mark quick. The 1200lb IMO should work ok.

I'm not sure I agree with that "ineffective" comment nor what it really means. Depending on the suspension of the TV using too high of a rated bar can give a less than optimum TV performance as far as NVH issues go.

Larry

[LarryJM]

HJGyswyt wrote:

calewjohnson wrote:
I went with the 1200lb tongue weight vice 1000lb

I'm not sure what you meant by the above sentence.

There is probably some kind of formula but if I had 500lbs of tongue weight I would want 500lb rated weight distribution bars. 1000lbs of tongue weight I would want 1000lb rated weight bars.

My trailer advertised 800 some pounds of tongue weight, but when I unhooked on the truck scale to get my real tongue weight it was almost twice that, a whopping 1500lbs. So I upgraded my weight distribution bars to 1200lb models and am very happy with the ride and set up. (Bought my trailer used and it came with 550lb rated bars)

All the best Cale, enjoy the trailer and all the fun memories you will make with it. Hans

Hmmm your bars are underrated and I would think your receiver is probably not rated for a 1500lb tongue wt. I wonder what other ratings you are over since 1500lb tongue wt. on a Burb is I would think be close to maxing out it's carrying capacity w/o adding cargo or passengers.

IMO you should have no issues going maybe one size up as long as you are close, but not over the smaller bar size. I run a tongue wt. of between 900 and 950lbs and I have the 1200 bars on my Equal-i-zer and for far with about 10K towing they are doing fine. In my case I would not have chosen the 1400lb bar option not so much for fear of going too high, but it simply was not called for.

Larry

[calewjohnson]

HJGyswyt wrote:

calewjohnson wrote:
I went with the 1200lb tongue weight vice 1000lb

I'm not sure what you meant by the above sentence.

There is probably some kind of formula but if I had 500lbs of tongue weight I would want 500lb rated weight distribution bars. 1000lbs of tongue weight I would want 1000lb rated weight bars.

My trailer advertised 800 some pounds of tongue weight, but when I unhooked on the truck scale to get my real tongue weight it was almost twice that, a whopping 1500lbs. So I upgraded my weight distribution bars to 1200lb models and am very happy with the ride and set up. (Bought my trailer used and it came with 550lb rated bars)

All the best Cale, enjoy the trailer and all the fun memories you will make with it. Hans

The Equalizer models are 800, 1000, 1200, 1400....etc.

I made the assumption that the 905lb on the brochure and the trailer at the dealer was a little low, considering the trailer I have now was quite a bit off. So I went with the 1200lb hitch/12000lb trailer weight model.

Cale

[HJGyswyt]

calewjohnson wrote:
I went with the 1200lb tongue weight vice 1000lb

I'm not sure what you meant by the above sentence.

There is probably some kind of formula but if I had 500lbs of tongue weight I would want 500lb rated weight distribution bars. 1000lbs of tongue weight I would want 1000lb rated weight bars.

My trailer advertised 800 some pounds of tongue weight, but when I unhooked on the truck scale to get my real tongue weight it was almost twice that, a whopping 1500lbs. So I upgraded my weight distribution bars to 1200lb models and am very happy with the ride and set up. (Bought my trailer used and it came with 550lb rated bars)

All the best Cale, enjoy the trailer and all the fun memories you will make with it. Hans

[calewjohnson]

Thanks. I am assuming that the weight on the brochure is not at all correct. I will find out in a couple of weeks.

Cale

[cps68500]

I know that going too high or too low will cause the setup to be ineffective.

If you load up in your TV bed, you may be closer to that 1000lb mark quick. The 1200lb IMO should work ok.