Too much WD bar?

[HaulinBass02]

It's been a while since I've had anything but a 5er so help me refresh my memory. Obviously having not enough spring to your WD bars is bad but can having too much be bad as well?
If I'm shooting for about a 800lbs tongue weight will 1200lb trunnion bars be too much?
I ask because I had a Reese Dual cam system with our first TT and LOVED it! I never have liked the friction type sway controls and would like to go back with the dual cam again but I don't see that they have them in anything under 1200lb spring bars.

On edit, Etrailer shows 600, 800, 1200 and 1500lb bars but it misses the 1000lb mark. Surely they have those somewhere? That's what I am shooting for as far as extra capacity to my spring bars.

[Huntindog]

Ron Gratz wrote:

Huntindog wrote:
My setup has worked very well for many years and tens of thousnds of miles... I'm not gonna stress over this "new" thinking.

This is not "new" thinking.

IMO, the idea of basing WD bar rating on TV cargo plus TT tongue weight it is a holdover from 50-60 years ago and does not apply to modern tow vehicles.

Ron

The cargo thing isn't new as you say. What has changed is that cargo used to just about always be in the trunk, which was behind the rear axle. As the population moved to nicer pickup trucks for towing, it evolved into stating that the cargo BEHIND the rear axle be included.. Which made perfect sense. The NEW thinking I am talking about is including ALL CARGO period.

In my case I would need some 6K bars and one hell of a reciever to do it.

[Airstreamer67]

QUOTE: "...This approach to WD was commonplace 50-60 years ago when the typical tow vehicle was the family sedan.

"WDH manufacturers recommended that WD bars be rated for combined TV cargo (usually cargo carried in the TV's "trunk") plus the TT's tongue weight. It was assumed the bars would be adjusted so that equal load would be added to the TV's front and rear axles."

Yeah, I can believe that. I remember a promotional picture showing a 1960s front-wheel-drive Olds Toronado hooked to a travel trailer with weight-transfer bars employed, rolling around with the car's rear wheels REMOVED. So the weight-transfer bars, the front end, the hitch and the trailer frame were carrying ALL of the weight of the car's rear which included the hitch weight.

I supposed the hitch maker was making an exaggerated point of how strong its hitch was and the utility of the weight-transfer system.

I don't think I'll try that with my F250.

[Ron_Gratz]

Huntindog wrote:
My setup has worked very well for many years and tens of thousnds of miles... I'm not gonna stress over this "new" thinking.

This is not "new" thinking.

IMO, the idea of basing WD bar rating on TV cargo plus TT tongue weight it is a holdover from 50-60 years ago and does not apply to modern tow vehicles.

Ron

[Ron_Gratz]

myredracer wrote:
Why would Reese be saying you need to add the TV cargo and tongue weights together to determine bar size?---

I have no idea why Reese is saying that.

I suggest you try to get an answer from someone in the Reese Technical Department.

Ron

[Huntindog]

My cargo capacity is well over 5K. I load two Arctic Cat 650s plus the over bed rack for them. That alone is about 2K. Then the bed has full gas and water jugs, two generators, full propane tanks etc. I have never heard of a reciever hitch or bars that can handle this much weight on top of my 1400-1500 TW.

My setup has worked very well for many years and tens of thousnds of miles... I'm not gonna stress over this "new" thinking.

[myredracer]

Ron Gratz wrote:
In theory, a WDH can be used to cause some of the weight of TV cargo plus TT tongue weight to carried equally on the TV's front and rear axles with the remainder of the weight transferred to the TT's axles.
Ron

Why would Reese be saying you need to add the TV cargo and tongue weights together to determine bar size? I seem to recall that Reese's chart used to show that for a given bar rating, the allowable tongue weight was something like 200-300 lbs either side of the rating? Why such a major departure? For higher cargo + TW weights, you'd also need to upgrade your receiver which is another expense most probably don't want to do. Just doesn't seem to make sense.

I'm quite happy with our 1200 lb trunnion bars with a 950 lb TW and DW, dog and camping stuff in the truck. Going by Reese's chart, we should have 1500 lb bars or maybe even 1700 lbs and upgrade the receiver. This can't be right??

[Ron_Gratz]

In theory, a WDH can be used to cause some of the weight of TV cargo plus TT tongue weight to carried equally on the TV's front and rear axles with the remainder of the weight transferred to the TT's axles.
For example, 30% of the combined cargo plus tongue weight could be carried on the TV's front axle, 30% on the rear axle, and 40% on the rear axle.

This approach to WD was commonplace 50-60 years ago when the typical tow vehicle was the family sedan.
WDH manufacturers recommended that WD bars be rated for combined TV cargo (usually cargo carried in the TV's "trunk") plus the TT's tongue weight.
It was assumed the bars would be adjusted so that equal load would be added to the TV's front and rear axles.

Now, most TV and WDH manufacturers do not recommend the "equal squat" approach.
Instead, they usually recommend that between 0% and 100% of the load which was removed from the TV's front axle should be restored via WD.
IOW, there should never be any net addition of load on the front axle, and there could be a front axle load reduction equal to as much as 40-50% of tongue weight.

Obviously, if you load the WD bars so the TV's front axle is subjected to zero net load, the bar load will be much less than if you adjust them to transfer a load equal to 30% of cargo plus tongue weight to the front axle.
If you follow the modern approach of restoring not more than 100% or removed load to the front axle, there is no need to size the bars based on cargo plus tongue weight -- using tongue weight alone is more than adequate.
If you follow the recommendation for a 50-60 year old family sedan, you might want to base the bar size on cargo plus tongue weight.

Ron

[myredracer]

It's a surprise to me too. I think there has been mention of this in the past year on the towing forum. Reese just says "cargo" weight, and no mention of what's past the rear axle. Depending on your truck, you could add anywhere from near zero on a short trip with just you to around 1K lbs if you add DW, kids, dog(s), firewood, generator & fuel, bottled water, etc. So you should have two sets of bars depending on what you've got loaded?

If you have bars that are capable of adequately transferring the correct amount of weight back onto the steer axle, why would you need stiffer bars? And in the past few years, truck manufacturers have reduced the amount of wt. to be transferred. Ford for ex. now says 50 percent of the wt. is to be restored back onto the steer axle. Not only doesn't seem right in itself, I have not heard of any other WDH manufacturer stating this.

Airstreamer67 wrote:
Quote "...I *think* Reese did not include the cargo weight in the past and this is a more recent change.

"As an example, say your truck has 400 lbs of passengers, groceries and camping gear and you had 800 lbs of TW fully loaded, the spring bar should be rated at 1200 lbs. If your cargo was 600 lbs, you'd need their 1500 or 1700 bars depending on if you had round or trunnion style bars. Or another way of looking at it is if you had 1200 lb bars and 800 lbs TW, you'd limit your cargo weight to 400 lbs. I suspect that Reese owners would tend to undersize their bars without referencing the chart."

This is a surprise to me and goes against the conventional wisdom I've read before. What happens if, like me, someone loads 90 gallons of diesel in an auxiliary tank in the bed plus other junk to just about max-out the GVW rating when the trailer hitch weight is included. Is Reese now saying the poor weight transfer bars and the trailer frame are supposed to support all that?

Hard to believe.

[braindead0]

I thought that you were supposed to include cargo weight behind the rear axle, not all cargo weight.

[Airstreamer67]

Quote "...I *think* Reese did not include the cargo weight in the past and this is a more recent change.

"As an example, say your truck has 400 lbs of passengers, groceries and camping gear and you had 800 lbs of TW fully loaded, the spring bar should be rated at 1200 lbs. If your cargo was 600 lbs, you'd need their 1500 or 1700 bars depending on if you had round or trunnion style bars. Or another way of looking at it is if you had 1200 lb bars and 800 lbs TW, you'd limit your cargo weight to 400 lbs. I suspect that Reese owners would tend to undersize their bars without referencing the chart."

This is a surprise to me and goes against the conventional wisdom I've read before. What happens if, like me, someone loads 90 gallons of diesel in an auxiliary tank in the bed plus other junk to just about max-out the GVW rating when the trailer hitch weight is included. Is Reese now saying the poor weight transfer bars and the trailer frame are supposed to support all that?

Hard to believe.

[myredracer]

Reese has a chart that shows the recommended bar ratings versus hitch weights. It can be found at the bottom of this product catalogue. In the case of Reese bar ratings, "hitch weight" also includes the tow vehicle cargo weight. This chart is hard to find and does not show up on a google search - the only place it is AFAIK is in the pdf product catalogue. I *think* Reese did not include the cargo weight in the past and this is a more recent change.

As an example, say your truck has 400 lbs of passengers, groceries and camping gear and you had 800 lbs of TW fully loaded, the spring bar should be rated at 1200 lbs. If your cargo was 600 lbs, you'd need their 1500 or 1700 bars depending on if you had round or trunnion style bars. Or another way of looking at it is if you had 1200 lb bars and 800 lbs TW, you'd limit your cargo weight to 400 lbs. I suspect that Reese owners would tend to undersize their bars without referencing the chart.

AFAIK, upgrading to 1500 1700 lb bars requires a stronger Reese hitch head. As well, you probably need a new receiver. They do not list a 1,000 lb bar in round or trunnion style.

Undersized bars can result in a lot of bounce in the rear of a TT and also not being able to transfer enough weight back onto the steer axle. Oversizing bars can cause damage to to the A-frame. Not sure at what bar ratings this can be an issue. I believe in the case of BAL/Norco Ultraframes, they specify a max. bar rating so as not to damage the frame. If you look at the welds on your TT between the A-frame and I-beams, it makes you wonder why more A-frames don't separate from the main frame. We had a frame shop look at a previous TT and the owner was shocked at how poor the welding of the A-frame to I-beams was. If upgrading to 1500 or 1700 lb bars, perhaps it would be a good idea to have a certified welder upgrade the welding and add some re-enforcement.

Our TW is about 950 lbs, up from the 540 lbs factory dry hitch weight. With the 800 lb bars we initially bought I could not get enough weight back onto the steer axle and there was a LOT bounce in the rear of the TT. Bought 1200 lb bars and that cured the weight transfer and susbstantially reduced the bounce. We are on the borderline of needing 1700 lb bars according to Reese's chart depending on what and who we have in the truck. Don't want to have to spend the money on an upgraded receiver, hitch head and bars and the 1200 seems pretty good as is. I love our dual cam hitch and the way it's pro-active and makes the truck and trailer want to snap back into a straight line. A friction only based WDH requires some driver input to keep it straight. I drove a friend's TT last year and did not like the feel of their setup with friction sway bars.

We have an F250 and 29' 7K lb TT and I drove the season before last without the dual cam installed and it was not a good towing experience at all. Installed the dual cam arms/brackets last year and had them all season. HUGE improvement in sway control and handling. Now I can easily drive down the interstate with a tractor trailer on each side at 65 mph and the curviest of roads are no problem.

[Vintage465]

Awesome thread, lots of good info and no one saying "you likely don't need a W/D hitch". Finally!

[HaulinBass02]

Hannibal wrote:
With a 3500 Cummins Ram towing a TT with only 800~lbs of tongue weight, do you really need any more than enough to satisfy the rating of the receiver? We just traded our 5th wheel for a 32' TT with 800~lb tongue weight. It only sits the F250 down 2" without bars. The last link on the chains picks the draw bar up and takes 1" off the rear squat. The front doesn't change either way. I went with the Reese HP trunion so I could opt for the DC if I ever felt I needed it. If the hitch were rated for the tongue weight, I likely wouldn't have WD.

That's not the tow vehicle anymore. I'm actually meeting the guy at my bank today to sell it. Our 2500 Suburban is the new TV.

[Durb]

I had a customer brag to me that his diesel was so powerful that his rear tires would spin when towing his toy hauler. I told him his weight distribution hitch was set up wrong and that he had severely unloaded his rear tires. He dismissed my comment. He probably ended up in a ditch eventually. Was putting his family at risk.