WDH with sawy control, best bang for buck?

[Acdii]

I am going to replace the Husky I have that works flawlessly with my horse trailer, but not so much with my new TT. Since it is already setup for my HT, it does not like the new trailer, it sits too high(who knew the TT would be lower than the HT), which may or may not have contributed to the sway I experienced today in very strong cross winds.

So I am looking to replace it with one that has built in active sway. Which works better, Friction or cam? I hear Equ-Li-Zer is good, but is it worth the $600+ cost, or are there lower priced ones that are just as effective in reducing crosswind sway? I could just take my Husky apart and reconfigure it for the TT, and get a friction sway control for it, but then I have to worry about disconnecting it when backing up, and forget about it one time and I could damage something.

Are there any I should avoid?

[Need-A-Vacation]

Acdii,

When you hit the scale, if you have a CAT Scale nearby it would be a little easier than where you get your horse feed which I am guessing is a single pad scale (grain elevator?). It is possible with a single pad scale, just need to weigh more times.

For the CAT Scale, follow my signature link how to. You do need to weigh three times at the CAT Scale to be able to figure all the weights.

If a single pad:

W/ the wd bars hooked up:

Tv fa
Tv both axles (subtract fa to get ra)
Tv and tt

W/ the wd bars unhooked:
Tv fa
Tv both axles (again, subtract fa to get ra)
Tv and tt

Tv only:
Fa
Both axles (yep, subtract fa to get ra)

With all these seperate weights we can help you figure out all your spectate weights, including if your transferring enough weight back to the tv fa with the current wdh adjustment, your tw, and total loaded tt weight.

Did you have the tv tires aired up behind the door jamb tire pressure if still the stock p rated tires? I ran my rear at the max cold sidewall pressure, fronts I don't recall exactly. Unknown Ingrid different pressure for the front, from the door jamb suggested pressure up to near max sidewall, just can't recall where I ended up running the front pressure, maybe 5psi over the door jamb pressure???

It is possible you are a little light on the tw. Was there any water in the tanks at all? Don't recall you mentioning that, but may have missed it. Once you get all the needed weights we can go from there. How much stuff do you have stored in the from pass through area?

[Acdii]

I watched the video, guy drove me nuts, go ahead and this, go ahead and that. OY VAY! The video really didn't convince me that it actually reduced sway since all you see if the back of the truck. What they should have done was mounted the camera so that the rear of the trailer can be seen, that's where sway is most pronounced. I watched another video with electronic sway control that ties into the trailers brakes and applies braking force to eliminate sway, and the cost was a reasonable $250.

[camperforlife]

myredracer wrote:

camperforlife wrote:

The negativity posted in your linked thread about the Blue Ox was from all the doubters when they came out with the new design 3 years ago. All written by people who never owned one. You will be hard pressed to find much negativity from people who actually own one. If I recall correctly at least one of the detractors is now a Blue Ox believer and owner.

I was not aware that Blue Ox came out with a new design. That's good to know. What is the change in the new version and has anyone done an analysis on it?

I'm going from memory when I researched them before I bought mine. I'm sure if I get it wrong I'll be corrected. :B They did away with any adjustment with the head tilt, it is fixed.

I think people look at the bars on a static display and think they are just another WD hitch and can't control sway.

When properly installed the bars have a tremendous amount of pressure on them and have a very visible bow to them. That bow in the spring bars is what forces the trailer back in a straight line if it tries to sway. An added benefit of that bow is it absorbs some of the shock between the truck and TT making a smoother ride.

[Acdii]

sweet, thanks. So anyhow, I went out all prepared to unbolt the head and readjust it all. Turns out everything is dead on. Apparently the bars do need to have a slight upward bend in them. The instructions say to have at least 5 links between bar and tip up. There are dimensions to follow based on the type of socket and frame, and everything lined up perfectly. The truck and trailer are dead level now, I just didn't have enough spring tension, and that is probably why the sway was so apparent. I expected sway with how strng the winds were, but not as much as I had, so hoping that next time out in heavy winds the sway wont be so bad.

Now that I look at the picture I can see the front end is up too much, not enough transfer.

Everything that needed repair on the trailer has been taken care of. Just needed some new screws for the dinette seat back, which I understand is a common issue, and there were two fender supports that were loose. The only thing I haven't figured out is where to put a toilet paper holder. I dont want to put any screws into the walls as I dont know what is in them or what they are made of.

So now to get back to the scales and weigh it once more to verify TW and transfer. I also verified GCVW falls under max, which it does.

[BarneyS]

Here is your picture of your rig. 🙂

I used this forum app to post it.
Very easy! Just upload your picture, copy the URL, and paste it into your post.
Barney

[02CumminsGuy]

I bought a husky centreline ts for my 21' towed by my Jeep Grand Cherokee. Easy to assemble and set up, sway control works great with the short wheelbase jeep. Thumbs up from me

[myredracer]

camperforlife wrote:

The negativity posted in your linked thread about the Blue Ox was from all the doubters when they came out with the new design 3 years ago. All written by people who never owned one. You will be hard pressed to find much negativity from people who actually own one. If I recall correctly at least one of the detractors is now a Blue Ox believer and owner.

I was not aware that Blue Ox came out with a new design. That's good to know. What is the change in the new version and has anyone done an analysis on it?

[camperforlife]

myredracer wrote:
What truck and TT are we talking about?

We have a Reese dual WDH for a 29' trailer weighing about 7K lbs and is towed by a 3/4T truck. The Reese DC hitch is different than others in the way it pro-actively wants to keep the truck & trailer in a straight line. With friction sway bars, if the truck and trailer are at an angle, they will tend to stay that way without driver adjustment and it's the castor of the TV's front wheels alone that make it want to track straight. The two types (DC vs friction bars) have a different feel to them and IMO the dual cam provides better handling and sway control. I drove a friend's truck & trailer combo that has a friction sway control to see how it felt and I did not like it after being so used to the DC WDH. I've driven on lots of curvy mountain roads and our truck and trailer together give almost sports car-like handling. But we also have shocks on the trailer and Bilsteins on our F250 and I spent a lot of time tweaking things. I can be passed by, or pass a semi truck on either side at the same time with ease.

The Blue Ox and others are relatively easy to install, but the Reese DC can take some fiddling over time to tweak it and is not for everyone. You can get a 1200 lb #66074 Reese DC package for under $450 like here on ebay. Strait-line & Reese are one in the same.

Besides brand and type of WDH, it is so very, very important to make sure the WDH is properly set up and if you don't, any WDH can be a big problem. That means having the correct number of chain links engaged, correct spring bar rating, correct amount of weight transferred back onto steer axle and the TT level to slightly nose down. Correct tire pressure and tongue weight can make a big difference too. An adequate TV is also a factor.

Ron Gratz and a couple of others did a great review & analysis of the Blue Ox Sway Pro back in 2013 in a thread here. I believe that the conclusion is that it's performance is questionable.

The negativity posted in your linked thread about the Blue Ox was from all the doubters when they came out with the new design 3 years ago. All written by people who never owned one. You will be hard pressed to find much negativity from people who actually own one. If I recall correctly at least one of the detractors is now a Blue Ox believer and owner.

[Acdii]

Well, I just went out, leveled up the trailer dead on, and measured the top of the socket. It came out to be at the exact same height as the ball on the hitch.

When you look at the setup on the lot, it looks to be a bit nose high, but I didn't have a level with me to verify.

https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/t31.0-8/13403255_1123145511060915_6426013248915186543_o.jpg

Dont know if that will post, but its a pic I took after getting it hitched up. The one real difference is the number of links used. I have 1 link free after tipping them. I am going to review the manual again, I may need to tip the ball back a bit to get more tension on the springs the proper way. I believe that when I tried to go 5 links like my HT is set to, that the bar was angled up towards the frame and not parallel to the ground. I don't know if it will make much difference though for sway. When the wind was behind me, the truck handled beautifully. If fact it pulled the TT better than it does my 6x12 single axle enclosed. I will hitch it up later, grab my level and some tools and head over to a parking lot to get more exact measurements, but so far I am not seeing that it is out of whack.

The weights for the truck was 3020 on the front axle, 3620 on the rear and trailer was 4480. I am going to see if I can borrow the scale where I get horse feed and try to get tongue weight. The front axle seems a bit light, which is what leads me to think I need to add some angle to the head so I can get more tension on the bars while keeping them level, and that may be all it needs.

The sway was not white knuckle bad, but it was enough that it required full attention with both hands on deck. The truck maintained full control, but I can feel the trailer flopping around back there and see it wagging in the mirrors. The only time I ever had a bad sway pulling a trailer was with a 2001 F150 pulling a heavy dump trailer that was tail heavy. It set up a sway that had the front of the truck going, but a tap on the trailer brakes settled it down. I was ready for it yesterday to hit the trailer brakes if needed, but even at its worst it never got anywhere near what happened that one time. Probably just a case of fine tuning.

The thing that made me think it was nose high was that I couldn't back under it with the jack fully extended, they had to raise it up for me to hitch to it, thinking my ball was too high, and it turns out it is actually an inch low. I'm not going to raise it unless I find the trailer is actually nose down, which I doubt.

Got to say though, that Ecoboost has some grunt. I don't think I ever went over 2500 RPM towing this trailer. It easily sped up to 70 MPH, and I had to force myself to back it down a few times.

[Community Alumni]

I have a Blue Ox and love it. I would say that it's worth its cost, but I understand everyone has their own budgets. I don't have problems with crosswinds. When I do get hit with one, the truck and the trailer mover together. Not many people seem to know how it works, all they know is that it does work.

It has a couple of ways it controls sway. The hitch takes advantage of some clever geometry to combat sway. If you look at the hitch you'll notice that the trunnions point to the ground at a steep fixed angle. This angle causes a caster effect. This is the same effect that causes your trucks tires to want to return to center after turning a corner. The same thing happens with the hitch. This caster effect works through the bars to constantly return the trailer back to center. The bars themselves help return the trailer back to center. The more the trailer moves to one side, the more that bar flexes and the more resistance it provides to that side. This resistance helps bring the trailer back to center.

While there are hitches that are 3x times the cost of my Blue Ox that supposedly perform better, the Blue Ox has performed flawlessly for me. It's clean, quiet, and I don't have to make adjustments. The hitch comes with a lifetime warranty and their customer service is some of the best. It's a decent amount of scratch for hitches like this and the Reese Straight Line, but it may be well worth it.

[jerem0621]

I ran Dual Cam and dual friction bars and have no idea what you mean about them feeling different. They absolutely did not feel any different to me with the exact same hitch... 2 friction bars vs Dual Cam.

The cams do try to self center the trailer .... Until they don't...and they don't because the cams broke. The cams will resist to a point but when the force overcomes them they will shatter. If the cams com into contact with the spring bar during a maneuver...they cams arms will bend or shatter. Set up is absolutely critical with DC.

OP...if you have two trailers you need to tow why don't you just get another hitch head and WD shank for the TT from the same brand. That way you don't have to spend a lot of $$ and you don't have to reset all the time.

Thanks!

Jeremiah

[myredracer]

What truck and TT are we talking about?

We have a Reese dual WDH for a 29' trailer weighing about 7K lbs and is towed by a 3/4T truck. The Reese DC hitch is different than others in the way it pro-actively wants to keep the truck & trailer in a straight line. With friction sway bars, if the truck and trailer are at an angle, they will tend to stay that way without driver adjustment and it's the castor of the TV's front wheels alone that make it want to track straight. The two types (DC vs friction bars) have a different feel to them and IMO the dual cam provides better handling and sway control. I drove a friend's truck & trailer combo that has a friction sway control to see how it felt and I did not like it after being so used to the DC WDH. I've driven on lots of curvy mountain roads and our truck and trailer together give almost sports car-like handling. But we also have shocks on the trailer and Bilsteins on our F250 and I spent a lot of time tweaking things. I can be passed by, or pass a semi truck on either side at the same time with ease.

The Blue Ox and others are relatively easy to install, but the Reese DC can take some fiddling over time to tweak it and is not for everyone. You can get a 1200 lb #66074 Reese DC package for under $450 like here on ebay. Strait-line & Reese are one in the same.

Besides brand and type of WDH, it is so very, very important to make sure the WDH is properly set up and if you don't, any WDH can be a big problem. That means having the correct number of chain links engaged, correct spring bar rating, correct amount of weight transferred back onto steer axle and the TT level to slightly nose down. Correct tire pressure and tongue weight can make a big difference too. An adequate TV is also a factor.

Ron Gratz and a couple of others did a great review & analysis of the Blue Ox Sway Pro back in 2013 in a thread here. I believe that the conclusion is that it's performance is questionable.

[Acdii]

Well, i just discovered something quite interesting. I was doing online shopping, BIY is the BO expensive! I found a few videos, and I what I can't figure out is how the BO stops sway considering its not much different than the setup I currently have. Uses bars and chains just like the Husky. The other ones use friction, which makes sense, or cams. So anyway, moving on, the very next video was top 10 hitches, and guess which one was #3 in the list. The husky I currently have. I am not crazy about the friction bar, but its only $50 and works with what I have, where the other ones are $600+. It could be that because the trailers nose was higher than it should be that induced more sway than it should yesterday, so I will just go ahead and set the thing up correctly for now, take it for another drive and see if it is less prone to sway, and maybe consider the friction bar add on for it for now. That $600 is quite a bit of cash to put out when I already have a decent setup now. Only real reason I considered it is it is already configured for my horse trailer, which I haven't pulled now for quite a few years. last time it was tagged was 2004. Thanks for the insights though, at least I know what works best by those who use them.

[Rbertalotto]

I went with this one after lots of research and trying to save a few $$....Very pleased! Works great

http://www.amazon.com/Fastway-92-00-0800-Trunnion-Weight-Distribution/dp/B0071L4BAG?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage