Mmaxed
Montana
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dsrace wrote:Mmaxed wrote:It sure sounds like you are light on tongue weight now. As you said a fifth wheel/goose neck should have 25% of the weight on the pin. If you are light now, how will you ever have the weight you need with the conversion? A fiver with too light pin weight is just as bad as a bumper pull.
so the GN conversion would all but remove sway,
That is not true in all cases. Twice I have pulled goose neck flat beds that had too light of tongue weight. Got plumb scary over about 50 mph, until we stopped and shifted some cargo forward. My point is that if too little tongue weight is your problem now, the goose neck conversion may not fix it. Start my knowing your current weights.
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spoon059
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$4000? That is a solution just looking for a problem.
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dsrace
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Grit dog wrote:Well, if the towing situation goes from whatever you said, just fine, to horrible with the buggy loaded in forwards, the only way to even guesstimate what the next move is, is to know the weights.
That's alot coming from me, never weighed a trailer or trailer tongue in my life and towed hundreds of different trailers, maybe 1000.
You need to experiment a bit as well before jumping into a potential solution, IMO.
But if the tongue is so light that it won't pull straight with the buggy in forwards, then I doubt the GN convo will be the answer. It will add some weight, but by stretching the tongue out, you'll lose a smidge of the original weight and won't see all of the 350lb device weight, so mathematically, I'd say maybe it will add 250-300lbs max to the pin.
With your axle placement and heavy tail wagging the dog, you may need to ballast the front or move the axles.
Curiously, the pic like I said looks like the axles are a bit fwd of a typical bp hauler, but I did a quick scale comparison of your pic and my old trailer on blubeam and your axles are about the same spot from Tounge to tail.
However that really doesn't matter. You've already talked about heavy stuff aft of the axles. I really think it's going to take some trailer mods or significant ballast up front.
Yes, I definitely need to weigh it empty and loaded before any changes. Technically I could weigh the truck then truck camper combo empty and I would have the be line for tw from that. I do plan on doing so once the weather gets better. I am going to buy a weigh safe hitch so I can weigh the tongue at home. Will be a lot easier to check different changes by different configurations. I have towed trailers and camper for over 20 years and never struggled with one like this. There is a fair possibility that i do not he 1200 lbs tw as I was told. It might only be 1000 and would explain towing well empty.
Yes, it pulls pretty good empty. Its only when loaded with a diagonal wind to dead side wind that it gets real squirrly behind my f350 drw. The duals add a lot of stability so that unto itself makes it very difficult to say by feel how far off it truly is.
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dsrace
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Mmaxed wrote:dsrace wrote:Mmaxed wrote:It sure sounds like you are light on tongue weight now. As you said a fifth wheel/goose neck should have 25% of the weight on the pin. If you are light now, how will you ever have the weight you need with the conversion? A fiver with too light pin weight is just as bad as a bumper pull.
so the GN conversion would all but remove sway,
That is not true in all cases. Twice I have pulled goose neck flat beds that had too light of tongue weight. Got plumb scary over about 50 mph, until we stopped and shifted some cargo forward. My point is that if too little tongue weight is your problem now, the goose neck conversion may not fix it. Start my knowing your current weights.
Yes, they can get squirrly if tongue light. Yes I will be weighing as soon as the weather get better. As I stated in my previous post, I have an addition 300 lbs i can shift to the nose. I had stated that I did not want to do so if it would create a tongue heavy scenario. None of which I can know until I weigh it. The ice has pretty much melted here so maybe soon.
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dsrace
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spoon059 wrote:$4000? That is a solution just looking for a problem.
Lol good point and If I had known of that product before ordering this toyhauler I would bought a 35' er, triple axle and added the bpconversion.
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dsrace
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So I do plan on weighing it once the weather is better. I definitely need to know real weights. I will not be purchasing the bp kit until I know true weights of my toyhauler. I do have 200 lbs I can drop off the tail and add to the front and have added a 50 lb steel tool box to the battery tray area. My sealed arm batt is inside the storage compartment. There is an easy 50 lbs of equip that will be in the tool box or tractor weights lol none the less an easy 200 lb off the tail and 300 lb addition to the front. I do know I won't actually see the full 300 on tw as some will fall on the axles. The 200 lbs off the far tail end will be see on tw!! If I were to guess I bet I see a 50 lb to 100 lb addition to two just by dropping the spares and there carrier frame.
I decided to call bp directly yesterday afternoon. Very nice guy, spent time answering my questions .....in detail.
He stated that bumper hitch toyhauler as the vast majority of their customers. He listened to my experience and said that basically the same story he's been told by every customer.
I asked if the 350 lbs actually added to two. I told him him that yes, I know unhitched that I know it would. I also stated that the apprx 6' extension by the GN would act like longer handles on a wheel barrel. He said, the 350 lbs is added to two but then with the length added by the GN that one loses just under 30% back onto the axles. He stated the control over the land is massive and I explained i have towed fiver and GN's before and know the difference.
In a nut shell, based on. How i understood his description..... add 350lbs to tw and then deduct up to 30% from total tw.???? I would assume up to 30% is based on land configuration and length of trailer etc etc.
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Grit dog
Black Diamond, WA
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If you’re getting the weight safe you can doo all the checking sitting in your driveway.
You’re not concerned with truck payload or axle weights so no need to hit the scales if you’re going to shell out the dough for a weight safe anyway.
Although did you mention previously a water tank aft of the axles? That imo is a design flaw in general if taking into account how many use toyhaulers (with rear engine buggies and sxs).
Another small consideration is your sand rail is probably much lighter in front than the typical sxs of which sxs are I’d assume more popular and numerous than sand rails.
A test you can do if you have the weight safe and 2 good floor jacks is test in a static condition where the center of axles would need to be to achieve the tongue weight you need with the buggy in nose first.
I’d say having had a TH for a couple years that the happy medium is too much tongue weight when empty. Reason being you can hang 2klbs of tongue weight off the right hitch and stinger and easily compensate for it in the truck suspension if necessary. But the other way around like your camper appears to be results in an undesirable trait that requires physical ballast moves to haul empty vs full.
Or to sum it up every Rv is a compromise of some sort. For example I’d have been better served with a lighter tongue TH like yours because I used the garage for living space with no intentions of hauling a tail heavy toy in it.
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Grit dog
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Reading your other thread about the purchase, I’ll suggest based on what you wrote that you may have had them build a unit that they just couldn’t get the weights as you needed them to be.
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dsrace
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i installed an After market hitch, it is rated for 2200 lbs tw. The Anderson wdh is also.
location of the fresh water tanks..... one is directly above the center of the 2 axles and the 2nd is over the front axle protruding forward. 2 -50 gal fresh water tanks plumbed together. Black and gray tanks are farther forward and 50 gal each. I am not opposed to adding tractor weights to the tongue in the tool box either.
i did order a weigh safe hitch today so i can measure when the weather gets better.
* This post was
edited 01/07/23 06:56am by dsrace *
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dsrace
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ordered the weigh safe aero hitch yesterday. 6" drop as i need a 7" rise for the toyhauler. this was the cheapest one they offered at $159 on amazon and it will work well for my two other flat beds. one needs a straight and the other a 4" drop. it is rated for 12500 lbs gtw and 1500 lbs tw, sooooo tech it would work with the toyhauler https://www.weigh-safe.com/product/weigh-safe-aero-hitch/ i will go to the cat scale as well but if i don't have atleast 1000 lbs tw loaded with the sand rail then time to shift weight or add weight.
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