need help choosing the best solution to solve sway issue

[jbluetooth]

Hello everyone. I'm a motorcycle racer who's been towing bikes to the track for a long time, but I consider myself a beginner when it comes to towing a big trailer. I upgraded from a small box trailer to a 22ft toy hauler a year ago and it came with a WD hitch and sway bar. The WD hitch is an old Reese system with 750lb trunnion bars that slide on friction pads, and there's also a small friction sway bar that attaches on the small ball on the side of the hitch. I have a 2014 Tundra with the smaller 4.7 V8. The trailer is long for a bumper tow and has a lot of weight on the hitch, plus occasionally I have another bike in the back of my truck (though most of that weight is in front of the axle). I've been towing this for awhile now learning and doing what I can. At first, the handling was terrible. I played around with weight loading in the trailer a bit, and finally added airbags to the truck, then readjusted the weight distribution hitch to level out the truck and add some weight to the front wheels. This helped a lot, but at this time, I noticed that the spring bars were only 750 lb rated. I weight the truck and trailer loaded and I would guess that on average I have 1200-1500 lbs on the hitch, plus sometimes a bike in the back of the truck, but sometimes the hitch weight is probably higher than 1500 if I can't dump the Grey tank and it's full. My hitch weight could be as high as 2000 lbs.

After adding the airbags and readjusting, the truck pulls much better and straighter, but still sways really bad if I pass a semi, even at 55-65 mph. I want to fix this, hopefully without getting a new truck. I'm assuming the really undersized spring bars are hurting the effectiveness of this system, especially with a Tundra which is pretty light in the front compared to a big diesel. However, I'm not sure how big of spring bars I can get for this setup, I'm working on that. I've found 1200 lb, and maybe 1500 lb. So I guess my question is do you think 1200-1500 lb spring bars with this setup will correct the issue? Or should I look at a different distribution system that goes higher in weight, like the Reese Dual Cam 1700, or even something else? It doesn't seem like there are a lot of systems designed to handle this kind of tongue weight.

Or is there something else entirely that I'm missing?

Any input is appreciated. Thank you for your time!
Jesse

[WNYBob]

You don't mention the age of the trailer. Worn bushings can make sway worse..

[jbluetooth]

Grit dog wrote:
First, yes, move some weight rear-ward and try that. Can you not put the other bike from the truck bed into the TH? That would ease up on the truck rear axle weight significantly. Typically toy haulers are designed nose heavy to offset the "toy" weight in back.
What are you defining as sway? Some wiggling back n forth when changing lanes or correcting steering, OR uncontrollable sway that doesn't go away until you apply trailer brakes or slow back down to below a certain speed?
If you have E tires, airbags and some weight distribution, IMO the truck should handle it ok (aside from possibly being over hitch load ratings).

Thanks for the input. Its funny the things you realize when you write it down hehe. I've reloaded the trailer a bit and will drive back over to the scales to see if I'm better balanced with a lower hitch load. Maybe that's all I needed to do now that the hitch is setup better and I have the airbags. In this situation I have my standard load and the extra bike is something non-standard, which is why it ends up in the truck bed. usually I won't have it.

As for the sway, the truck tows fine in a straight line. But when I pass a semi, I get pulled into it bad enough that it's scary and I see the semi swerve a little out of the way in my rear mirror. Same thing if the wind blows, it just pushes me around more than I would like.

[Grit_dog]

First, yes, move some weight rear-ward and try that. Can you not put the other bike from the truck bed into the TH? That would ease up on the truck rear axle weight significantly. Typically toy haulers are designed nose heavy to offset the "toy" weight in back.
What are you defining as sway? Some wiggling back n forth when changing lanes or correcting steering, OR uncontrollable sway that doesn't go away until you apply trailer brakes or slow back down to below a certain speed?
If you have E tires, airbags and some weight distribution, IMO the truck should handle it ok (aside from possibly being over hitch load ratings).

[aftermath]

I think you have answered your own question. Toy Haulers are heavy trailers and your admitted tongue weight is well above the ability of your current hitch.

NO, you don't need a new truck but yes, you do need a new hitch. Get a hitch that has built in sway control. There are many out there like the Equalizer and Reese Dual Cam. Stay away from an add on friction bar.

You don't have to buy a new one either. I believe there are some out there that are slightly used. Know your weights and what hitch you are looking at.

[jbluetooth]

camp-n-family wrote:
With that much tongue weight you are exceeding the receiver rating of the Tundra by a significant margin. You are also likely over the payload rating before even adding another bike in the bed. I wouldn't be surprised if you were exceeding the axle and tire ratings too. 1500-2k tongue weight is well into HD truck territory. Unfortunately any suggestions will just be Band-Aid fixes to a "not enough truck" situation.

See my reply above. Also I should mention that I have E rated tires on the truck and trailer. But yeah, I'm wondering now if just moving some weight back in the trailer to drop the tongue weight will make a significant difference in the sway.

[jbluetooth]

Now that I write all this down and think about it a little more. There's some of this weight in the trailer that I can move behind the rear axles of the trailer to lower the tongue weight a little which might get me down to the 1200 lb spring bars. I always intentionally put a little extra stuff towards the front to make sure the center of mass was in front of the rear axles, but now that I've weighed it loaded, I guess it doesn't need to be that much in front. So if I move a little weight back and get the tongue weight down to 1200 go upgrade to the 1200 lb bars, do you think that will solve my sway?

[camp-n-family]

With that much tongue weight you are exceeding the receiver rating of the Tundra by a significant margin. You are also likely over the payload rating before even adding another bike in the bed. I wouldn't be surprised if you were exceeding the axle and tire ratings too. 1500-2k tongue weight is well into HD truck territory. Unfortunately any suggestions will just be Band-Aid fixes to a "not enough truck" situation.