Quote:
Originally Posted by flyfishfred
Hi bhayden,
I really made an error in the way i wrote that ?. What i ment to say was "don't i need to go slightly over the trailer tounge weight (720lb), for my weight distibution/sway control unit".
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Fred,
I just wanted to make clear the difference between the hitch rating and the distibution/sway control part of the set-up. Consider that with your size of truck there are lots of people that tow trailers as heavy or larger than yours without any sort of weight distribuition hitch. Personally that wouldn't be my choice but that's bias from years of towing with passenger oriented vehicals which is what the weight distribution hitches were designed for. Your truck is designed to carry a load. Heavy trucks handle noticebly better when loaded.
The point being, I think people are looking at this backwards when they try to match the load to the trailer. What you should be looking at, my unprofessional opinion, is what the tow vehicle needs. Look at it this way, the trailer is going along for the ride. As long as the tongue height is correct (that's a biggy) then it should "tag along" just fine.
The trailer however has some major effects on the tow vehicle. Most obvious is you load up the rear of the vehicle. OK, trucks are design to carry a load in the rear. The other effect which is less obvious is you unwieght the front axle. Think of the vehcile as a teeter toter with the rear wheels being the pivot. The more weight you add the more it "picks up" the front. Also, the farther back the hitch is (lever arm) from the rear axle the more pronounce the effect. Again, a truck with it's monster motor in front and almost nothing behind the cab is front heavy when empty. But then they didn't design a workhorse like that to drive around empty most of the time.
With a passenger vehicle the combination of overloading the rear and taking weight off the steering axle is a recipe for disaster. The car wants to wander all over the road and rides like a pogo stick. This is the type of situation that can set up "sway". Some of the sway control devices attempt to dampen this but the best solution is to prevent it in the first place. That's what the weight distribution system does by restoring the "wieght distribution" to the front and rear axles. This is critical with a passenger vehicle. It's much less so, and perhaps counter productive with a large truck.
The Reese system is nice in that it not only moves some of the weight off the rear but adds in the sway dampening. You don't need the weight distribution but you do need a certain amount of tension on the bars for the dampening system to work correctly. The ligher bars will allow more than enough redistribution of the weight. You NEVER want to move all the weight from the back to the front. With the lighter bars the integral sway control will function as designed. The ride of the trailer will be much better and this will actually make the trucks job easier. The stiffer the connection the more shock from the trailer the truck has to control. Last but not least hitching up with the lighter bars is a whole lot easier
-Bernie