Upgrade my Fastway E2?
I’ve had a Fastway E2 hitch for 6 years now. The hitch worked well on our old Jayco 5k lb 26BH but now we are pulling a much heavier 28BHBE. The E2 is a 1k trunion bar version and our dealer said it...
Forum Discussion
Hi,
I looked up your camper, is this it? https://www.jayco.com/tools/archive/2018-jay-flight/28bhbe/
Looking at the spec's of the camper, the way the tongue weight balance is made into the camper, when the camper is empty (dry) it only has 9.76% tongue weight per the empty gross weight (dry weight) of the camper.
Point being, with a dry tongue weight that low you have to be careful how you load the camper. You need to know the "loaded" tongue weight (TW) of the camper and the total loaded camper weight. Get that loaded TW higher up, shoot for 13% to 15%.
There is a lot of cargo capacity in that camper (CCC 2,735#) . By adding enough gear and cargo to the camper, if you add 1,200# of cargo, (not hard to do with kids) that brings the estimated gross weight to 7,715 # and 13% of that is 1,003#. More gear and or carrying water and the TW needs to even get higher.
First thing, weigh the camper loaded like your last bad day on the road trip. And weigh the tongue weight for that loading and sort out where your tongue weight percentage is. If it is low, move gear around to get it up where it needs to be. Look up Sherline Tongue scale. You can get one once you have a scaled gross weight, you can move gear around at home and measure the new TW with the Sherline.
With a camper 33' 5" long the entire camper and truck setup has to be dialed in perfect. You have a good truck, but it needs the camper and the WD hitch setup spot on optimized. And truck tire pressure too.
I do think sooner or later you will need a larger capacity WD hitch as you will exceed the 1,000# bars with a camper GVWR of 9,250#. A camper that big and long loaded close to max will easily go over the 1,000# WD bars.
A few other things,
The Fastway E2 needs good tongue weight to make the anti sway work. It needs the TW to create the high friction to help hold the trailer.
If you were towing with fresh water in the tanks, does that add or subtract loaded TW? You need to know this if you haul water during towing.
Before changing WD hitches, make sure you understand what is not optimized in your setup and fix that first. Here is a list to start with.
1. Weigh the truck and camper loaded the way it created the problem. Get an actual gross camper weight and a loaded tongue weight of the camper.
2. TT needs 13 to 15% loaded TW per loaded GVW to create naturally stable towing of the trailer. Move gear as needed to have this.
3. The WD hitch has to be setup and optimized for the "loaded" camper TW. If the dealer set it up with an empty trailer and empty truck, the settings are not right for a loaded camper. It needs to be readjusted. Make sure the truck and camper is loaded "normal" for camping before you set the WD hitch up.
3A. Part of WD hitch setup is the camper towing stance. Shoot for a level towing camper. Adjust the WD hitch up or down the shank until the camper is level or slight nose down when the WD on the truck is correct. Get a new hitch shank if the one you have will not allow enough adjustment to level out the camper or slight nose down. A high nose on the camper can create unstable towing sometimes on high winds.
4. Make sure the TW aligns with the WD bars and the hitch are at or less then the hitch rating. Do not overload the WD hitch.
5. Tire pressure on the camper and the truck can make or break a the ability high friction hitch anti sway feature to work right on any brand hitch. The TT needs to be at max cold side wall pressure. The truck needs to start at least at door sticker pressure. From there, it is a pressure experiment to go up in pressure until the side walls of the tires are stiff enough to hold the camper stable when towing. Do not exceed max cold side wall pressure of the tire.
6. With your truck that new, I suspect you are not on brand new tires but mentioning this for the future. Some brand new tires can create a friction issue to the road until they get 2 to 3K miles on them and then they settle out. And some brand tires just plain have soft sidewalls regardless of air pressure. Even LT truck tires.
Hope this helps.
John.
I looked up your camper, is this it? https://www.jayco.com/tools/archive/2018-jay-flight/28bhbe/
Looking at the spec's of the camper, the way the tongue weight balance is made into the camper, when the camper is empty (dry) it only has 9.76% tongue weight per the empty gross weight (dry weight) of the camper.
Point being, with a dry tongue weight that low you have to be careful how you load the camper. You need to know the "loaded" tongue weight (TW) of the camper and the total loaded camper weight. Get that loaded TW higher up, shoot for 13% to 15%.
There is a lot of cargo capacity in that camper (CCC 2,735#) . By adding enough gear and cargo to the camper, if you add 1,200# of cargo, (not hard to do with kids) that brings the estimated gross weight to 7,715 # and 13% of that is 1,003#. More gear and or carrying water and the TW needs to even get higher.
First thing, weigh the camper loaded like your last bad day on the road trip. And weigh the tongue weight for that loading and sort out where your tongue weight percentage is. If it is low, move gear around to get it up where it needs to be. Look up Sherline Tongue scale. You can get one once you have a scaled gross weight, you can move gear around at home and measure the new TW with the Sherline.
With a camper 33' 5" long the entire camper and truck setup has to be dialed in perfect. You have a good truck, but it needs the camper and the WD hitch setup spot on optimized. And truck tire pressure too.
I do think sooner or later you will need a larger capacity WD hitch as you will exceed the 1,000# bars with a camper GVWR of 9,250#. A camper that big and long loaded close to max will easily go over the 1,000# WD bars.
A few other things,
The Fastway E2 needs good tongue weight to make the anti sway work. It needs the TW to create the high friction to help hold the trailer.
If you were towing with fresh water in the tanks, does that add or subtract loaded TW? You need to know this if you haul water during towing.
Before changing WD hitches, make sure you understand what is not optimized in your setup and fix that first. Here is a list to start with.
1. Weigh the truck and camper loaded the way it created the problem. Get an actual gross camper weight and a loaded tongue weight of the camper.
2. TT needs 13 to 15% loaded TW per loaded GVW to create naturally stable towing of the trailer. Move gear as needed to have this.
3. The WD hitch has to be setup and optimized for the "loaded" camper TW. If the dealer set it up with an empty trailer and empty truck, the settings are not right for a loaded camper. It needs to be readjusted. Make sure the truck and camper is loaded "normal" for camping before you set the WD hitch up.
3A. Part of WD hitch setup is the camper towing stance. Shoot for a level towing camper. Adjust the WD hitch up or down the shank until the camper is level or slight nose down when the WD on the truck is correct. Get a new hitch shank if the one you have will not allow enough adjustment to level out the camper or slight nose down. A high nose on the camper can create unstable towing sometimes on high winds.
4. Make sure the TW aligns with the WD bars and the hitch are at or less then the hitch rating. Do not overload the WD hitch.
5. Tire pressure on the camper and the truck can make or break a the ability high friction hitch anti sway feature to work right on any brand hitch. The TT needs to be at max cold side wall pressure. The truck needs to start at least at door sticker pressure. From there, it is a pressure experiment to go up in pressure until the side walls of the tires are stiff enough to hold the camper stable when towing. Do not exceed max cold side wall pressure of the tire.
6. With your truck that new, I suspect you are not on brand new tires but mentioning this for the future. Some brand new tires can create a friction issue to the road until they get 2 to 3K miles on them and then they settle out. And some brand tires just plain have soft sidewalls regardless of air pressure. Even LT truck tires.
Hope this helps.
John.
