Matching hitch up to trailer - Not exact - close enough?

[gschindel]

Hi
I was trying to adjust my hitch to work with my new tow vehicle, a ram 1500. I have a Reese double cam hitch that I use for a 30' bullet TT. I used it with a Durango before and it worked well.

I read over the instructions on Reese and Drawtite and measured up to the top of the ball and the top of the tongue. The tongue is at 25 1/2". I could get the top of the ball to 23 1/2" after I adjusted it all the way up.

The rear fender to the tire started at 7" the front at 5"

After hooking everything up the rear fender went down to 5" and the front went down to 4 1/4"

The chains are on the 6th link and are carrying all the weight I want to lift up with the snipe. I could likely get it onto the 7th but I would need to muck with the jack.

I also adjusted the angle of the ball so it was at its max back towards the trailer.

I took it for a drive and it seems fine - trailer is fairly level, bars are fairly level, truck seems to dive/steer well.

I read on the Drawtite site that if possible I should have adjusted the ball up an inch or 2 past the trailer tongue height to allow for squat - but I ran out of adjustment. And that I should accept no more than 1/2" decrease in the rear fender measurement - I lost 2". - but the front went down 3/4" too.


Is it worth getting a different shank for the hitch? Worth getting it onto the 7th link? Have I lost too much force on the front and might have compromised the front traction for steering? Or as it seems to drive fine - at least so far - go with it? - but of course I want to double check that all is safe as it can be - that's why I'm bothering you all kind folk. Am happy to run out to the hitch store if needed - could also fill up the beer cooler a couple of times too if the cost isn't needed.


Thanks much for the time.

[skinnyme]

I tow with a Ram 1500 with round bar WDH. The front is up 1/8" the rear is down 1 3/4". Trailer is level.This set up works best for me.

[gschindel]

Thanks. Lots of good info there.

[BarneyS]

Read this for help on getting your hitch set up correctly.
Barney

[gschindel]

So don't add any weight to the front. Guess my ram isn't my dad's station wagon - was a Buick Roadmaster by the way.

More tilt should give me more links under tension - I only have two now but I'll see what it's like after I readjust the ball height. Does tilt do anything else?

After all is said and done if the back sags too much I guess look at some bags? I was hoping to avoid but I know the 1500 is fairly "weak" back there.

Thanks for all the help - it's starting to make more sense.

[lenr]

All in my opinion, others will differ:

Reese/Drawtite set up guidelines are to get you started—what is most important is where you end up, and my opinion applies to where I think that you should end up (again, others will differ). Final setup is almost always a try and tweak process of many modified settings.

The old adage of setting weight distribution so that both front and rear of the TV drop applies more to your dad’s station wagon than it does to current pickups and large SUVs. These vehicles set high in the rear and are designed to drop under load. Both Ford and Chevy at times recently have cautioned to not run the front of the tow vehicle lower under load than when empty—don’t know if RAM has ever made that statement. To me, the logical reason is that the goal should be to keep about the same weight on the front axle when hitched up with WD as it has when no load is attached for best possible steering. Therefore I would adjust WD so the front stays close to the same or slightly up after WD is applied. However, if the rear of the TV drops way too much, one may wish to adjust WD to transfer weight from the rear to the front being careful to stay within the TV manufacturer’s guidelines. The OP has no need to put more weight on the front, and maybe less would work better.

In Reese/Drawtite land one must end up with at least 5 chain links under tension (more is better) to allow room for the components to move without binding in a turn. While I have no experience setting up the TwinCam (but, will be doing it with my son shortly), I suspect that even many more than 5 links under tension may be necessary for good operation of the TwinCam. The head must be tilted to increase the number of links.

While measuring the tire to fender gap is the theoretical perfect way to measure weight on the axles, I find it WAY easier to measure the front and rear bumper in the center to the nearest 1/16”. If the back drops a few inches and the weight on the front axle is the same then the front bumper will come up slightly—my goal in setting WD is to have the front bumper rise 1/16” to 3/16”. That will cause the front axle to have very close to same weight as the factory designed it running empty. Once that is achieved, I check the rear TV droop to see if I can live with it. The trailer itself should be riding level or slightly down in front. The ONLY way that trailer level should be changed is by adjusting the ball mount up and down on the shank. Once the shank position is adjusted, the WD may need to be adjusted again.

[_tpc_]

I'm in a similar boat, albeit with a different type of wdh. With mine, I can't get the trailer level. Its pretty close, and I didn't set it up so I am unsure if I can angle the ball back even further, but I think if I did that, my bars would be on too much of an angle. So there is the issue. The only thing I think I can do is buy a different shank, and I really don't want to drop the $150 on it.

I recently added a 2nd friction sway control...not sure that I needed it, but the price was right and it was easy enough to do. What I found was in the end was the most significant factor was actually taking a little more weight off the front, which I think in turn allowed everything to "work better" instead of being so stiff.

For instance:

Started with 2 links left. Towed ok, but didn't feel right. The measurement of the front wells were pretty close to back to unhitched...maybe 1/4 inch high.

Went to 3 links left. I didn't even tow with this setup. The bars looked like that had so much tension on them, it didn't seem right. This was the closest I could get to returning it back to unhitched on the front wells, but it was about 1/8 or so lower..which everything I read said if you can't get it perfect that lower was better than higher. Like I said, I couldn't even tell myself to try it.

Instead of going back to 2 links left, I went to 1 link left. This put the front wells at somewhere between 1/4-1/2 in higher. It seems worse than having 2 links left in theory. But in reality, it towed much better..like night and day difference.

Now again I don't have a dual cam...though I've been considering picking one up. But I guess what I'm saying is sometimes close works. You kinda have to pick a spot and try it and adjust from there. I think if I go with the longer shank I can dial it in even better. But for now, this works.

[APT]

I have the trunion bars with my Reese dual cam system. I use max or near max angle on the ball and appropriate number of links under tension to get my front where it should be. With your front measurement a little lower than unhitched, you may be transferring too much weight to the front axle. But I would test tow. With the dual cam system, it seems more picky about having the detents in the bars centered over the cam lobes than a link off on the tension. My TT is rock solid behind a dually at 75mph without WD. Yet I've pulled it a few times with the WDH out of adjustment and been scary at 60mph. But when it's good, I can comfortably tow at 75mph too.

[gschindel]

Never mind about the ball height - I see now that I just have to turn the shank over to get the right height.

Getting the right ball angle is another question. The drawtite site seems to tell me to loosen the ball tilt adjustment, lower the trailer on to it and that where ever it ends up is the right angle. Is that the way to do it? I also read to play with it until the bars are level ??

Thanks