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Originally Posted by BlazinHaze . . . I've dropped in on Chevy dealership and showed it to the service manager, as well as a couple of U-Haul places near here, and they weren't entirely sure what was up either, but they all said that it's a class 3 hitch, and should handle 6000 without the WD. |
That's pretty outrageous! No way could a Blazer handle 6000 lbs dead weight. I woud go someplace else, like the guy on Ravenswood.
I think the reason your Blazer has a 200 lb limit on deadweight tongue weight may have to do with the weight distribution between the front and rear axle. If you look at the effect of 200 lbs on the hitch, it really shows up as 300 lbs weight on the rear axle, and 100 lbs
less weight on the steer axle. I think this redistribution of weight may be the limit that the designers felt comfortable with. Perhaps it is lack of traction on the front axle that limits the deadweight?
On the other hand, if you put a 750 lb tongue weight on the hitch and use weight distributing gear, you are
adding weight to the front axle instread of removing it. So with a WD setup, you have added probably 225 lbs to the front axle, maybe 400 lbs to the rear axle, and the remainder back to the trailer axle. The designers were apparently comfortable with the higher total weight, as long as part of the weight was transferred to the steer axle to maintain good steering response.
Just an opinion. Basically what Nick said, but I used his equations to dummy up some numbers for this example.