towing and the effects of tongue weight

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2017 2:49 am

found this cool vid on another site......
https://www.reddit.com/r/Trackdays/comments/55v9mk/friendly_reminder_when_packing_the_trailer_from/?st=ixgcuhva&sh=4dda88db

Hawk Joined: Jul 14, 2012 Posts: 413 Location: New Zealand

Was following car and trailer and it started the wobble, the trailer was loaded with firewood I hit the brakes and watched in horror but with large pieces of wood flying of the trailer that might have saved it.
When he stopped I did two, man was he white probably filled his trousers .

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2017 5:32 pm

That is really interesting. Not having towed many trailers, I never realized the relationship of weight behind the tongue and the "squirrelability" of handling.

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2017 6:24 pm

BlueThunder wrote:

That is really interesting. Not having towed many trailers, I never realized the relationship of weight behind the tongue and the "squirrelability" of handling.

I nearly wrecked my Vista Cruiser wagon towing a junk car on a small car trailer because of weight bias...I met a guy that had a yard full of old rusty Pontiacs with big Pontiac motors...As I was trying to tow a 1974 Pontiac Grand Ville (Big Car!) to the scrapper after removing the 455 and turbo 400, (no weight in front on trailer tongue) as soon as I accelerated to get on the highway(L.I.E) and got to around 55 mph, the trailer immediately started swerving exactly like that display model, I mean across all four lanes of the expressway in wild gyrations. I immediately used the hand brake for the trailer on the controller as hard as I could squeeze while making wild one handed corrections on the steering wheel..I came with in a few feet of hitting the center jersey wall and almost hit the guard rail on the side of the road as well. When I got down to about 20 mph I got it under control, and all the traffic was stopped behind me in all lanes and I immediately got off at the next exit and took the service road instead. That was one of the incidents that drove me to buy a diesel truck to tow with.

That display model tells the whole story .....

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2017 6:55 pm

should always have some tongue weight. even empty, my trailer has probably 50 lbs. or more.
10 to 15 percent of the total loaded trailer weight is the rule of thumb.
too much tongue weight will affect vehicle steering and cause erratic handling as well. (found this out too.) but not near as bad or dramatic as not enough tongue weight.
I had too much top soil on my trailer once and it got really weird and I had to drive really slow.

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2017 7:44 pm

That is a great illustration.

I always knew to keep about 10%-20% of the load as tongue weight, and usually tried to......however, a few weeks ago, I was carrying about 25 sheets of 4x10 drywall in my 5x8 trailer (3500 lb capacity). I had put some 2x4's on the deck so I could overhang the back of the trailer by 2 feet with the long sheets. I didn't think anything of it.

All the way home, it was trailering horribly. It just felt spooky, like it wanted to snap around. It was really bad, especially under braking. So I slowed way down, and got it home safely.

I proceed to back it in to the garage and unhook it and the tongue goes up. As soon as I saw that, I knew what was up. It took about 100 lbs of sand bags to keep the tongue down in the garage.

I will never repeat that mistake.
Brett

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2017 7:54 pm

great vid isn't it ...my rule of thumb is if I can pick up the tongue (trailer loaded) with one hand its too light... if I cant' pick it up with 2 hands is to much...a good grunt with 2 hands to lift the front works for me. Cool

BTW.. proper axle placement on the unit is so important especially when towing empty trailers.... but hopefully the manufacturer looks after that during the design phase.

Posted: Sat Jan 07, 2017 4:30 pm

Thanks for the great video link. I've known for some time that tongue weight is important but not to what degree. I've spread this link around my routine web visit sites.

One of the hot rod guys I know had his street racer at the time end up on it's roof while being trailered from the race track. It was on the trailer backward (engine/transmission behind the trailer axles). The trailer steered the Chevy Suburban tow vehicle and the trailer/car combo into the ditch. The car was repaired and went on to be even faster then when I last saw it.

Check it out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWqrN-JxIeA

.....and another:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jAPjY12mNo

T.