Glenstr

I semi retired my F250 7.3 diesel last fall, and replaced it with an 2015 F150 Super Crew with the 3.5 EB engine.

My TT is only 24' and weighs in about 1880 KG's, so when pulling it with the F250 I just hooked it up straight to the hitch and never bothered with a load balancing hitch.

Now I'm planning to pull the TT down to the coast thru the mountains, and thought that for this lighter truck I'd get a load balancing hitch. I picked up the Reese Pro Series 1200 lb round bar weight distribution hitch. I opted for the heavier 1200 lb unit because eventually I'll probably want to pull a bigger trailer than the 24' unit I have now.

Following instructions and watching a couple of youtube videos, I've got it set up to what I think is pretty close. I weighed the truck and trailer with the trailer hooked up to a straight hitch on a commercial scale, and got the following:

Front truck axle - 1300 Kg's
Rear truck axle - 1560 kg's
Truck weight - 2880 kg's
trailer axles - 1880 kg's

I set up the Reese hitch so that once the jack was raised, my front ground to fender well measurement stayed the same, and the rear fender well measurement was within an inch of unloaded measurements. With the trailer sitting level and the ball assembly at it's lowest point the ball on the truck was still over 2" higher than the top of the coupler (instructions said should be within 1"), even with all of the spacer washers used to tilt the ball back, but that's what I had to work with so I hooked the chains up on the 2nd last link and got the correct (according to instructions) measurements on the wheel well to ground differences. I then took it to the scale and got these readings:

Front truck axle - 1410 Kg's
Rear truck axle - 1420 kg's
Truck weight - 2860 kg's
trailer axles - 1860 kg's

It feels ok on the highway, but I'm concerned about the angle of the tension bars. The instructions said that with each washer added the end of the bar would drop 1" or so, so I guess it's ok, but they look a little close to the ground to me. The trailer is also just a tad high in the front, but bubble on a level just edging over the line but still mostly in the middle of the two marks.

I've attached some photos, since I've never used one of these hitches before I want to make sure I have it hooked up correctly and optimally. Any feedback is greatly appreciated.


thanks in advance..

ps. in the picture showing truck and trailer the trailer nose appears to be down, that's actually my driveway sloping back. On the level concrete pad at the scale the level bubble was actually very slightly over the front line, meaning slightly nose up.

kmlacroix

Did you weight the truck without the trailer?

Those 1200lbs bars are way over kill. You can use 600 or 800 lb bars. Your trailer weights in a 4200 lbs and even at 15% that is ~620lb tongue weight.

For a good ride, the bars need to match the tongue weight.

smokeywren

You don't include tongue weight (TW), so my estimates put it at 280 Kgs. 280 Kgs TW plus 1880 Kgs trailer axle weight = 2160 gross trailer weight. 280 divided by 2160 GTW = 13% TW, which is average for a TT.



You should be. IIRC, round bars should b parallel to the frame of the trailer when properly adjusted. But before you tackle that problem, you need to adjust the angle of the hitch head/ball mount to the coupler.


Your front axle weight increased by 110 Kgs, which is 39% of the 280 TW. Too much. Goal is 20 to 25%, which is 56 to 70 Kgs.


Your rear axle weight decreased by 140 KGs, which is 50% of TW. Goal is 40 to 50% reduction (50% to 60% of TW remaining on the rear axle), so your spring bars are at the very max of the goal. Maybe reduce the tension on the spring bars just a hair to get below 50% reduction of TW removed from the rear axle, but not less than 40% of TW.


Your trailer axle weight decreased by 10 KGs. Oops! Wrong direction. Your goal is 20 to 25% of TW added to the weight on the trailer axles.


So if you don't change the tension on the spring bars, you need to adjust the angle of the ball to the coupler enough so that you have about 70 pounds of TW added to both the front axle and the trailer axles when the spring bars are tightened enough to remove 50% of the TW from the rear axle.


Your Reese Pro Series hitch is the "economy" model from Reese. Those are harder to adjust to get the desired weight distribution. But by messing with the angle of the head to the tongue, you should be able to reach the desired 20% to 25% of TW distributed to the front axle and another 20% to 25% distributed to the trailer axles, leaving 50% to 60% of TW on the rear axle.

Glenstr

Thanks for the replies.

When I read the instructions, I'm pretty sure they said that for every washer added to the spacer to angle the ball back, the chain end of the bars would drop 1.5", so I attributed the angle of the bars to me using all 7 washers supplied with the hitch.

If I decrease the tension on the spring bars ( I have one link left) then I should either take washers out of the spacer or raise the L bar a hole (or two) so the bars aren't even closer to the ground. Trouble is, with the L bar in the lowest setting and ball leaned back as far as it can go, the top of the ball was still over 2" higher than the top of the coupler with the trailer level, and the instructions said it should only be an inch or so.

I first hooked it up with only a couple of angle adjustment washers instead of all 8, I was able to get one more link of tension in the bars, the front axle fender measurement from ground was within 1/4" of distance of unladen measurement, but the back fender measurement was almost 2" lower than unladen measurement. That's when I decided to add the other washers to get it within the 1" as per the instructions.

Keep in mind my first weight measurements were with the trailer connected on a standalone hitch, so I don't know how accurate that first front axle weight is. I'll try and go weigh the truck axles by itself today.

I was thinking of raising the L bar up one hole, but would I not then be exacerbating the problem since the trailer would not then be level and would be nose up a bit?

Should I get lighter duty bars as kmlacroix suggested? When I did test drive it I noticed at low speeds (60-80 KMH) it was riding rougher than the trailer hooked up to the straight hitch, but at 100 it smoothed out.

Glenstr

Okay - I bumped up the ball one hole on the L bracket, took 3 washers out, shortened the chain by one link on the tension bars and went and weighed it again. I've entered in all the weights with their associated differences and percentages in a spreadsheet and took a screen shot of it. I wasn't sure if you meant difference from truck alone axle weights or % of difference from truck axle weights with trailer hooked up on straight hitch, so I did both. I hope it's (spreadsheet layout) not too hard to understand.

This also made the bars a little more parallel with the trailer frame and not so close to the ground.

Even though I raised the ball, the trailer was still pretty level when hooked up, about the same as it was when ball was on lowest setting.

I did notice with the latest settings, there was some slight noticeable sway at highway speed, but it was quite breezy. This hitch has a friction anti sway bar that I have not installed yet, as a side note. However, when I towed the trailer with my F250 diesel with no WD hitch, IIRC I never felt it sway much, even in brisk winds.

I'm not sure what to make of these numbers, may try moving the ball up one more hole and adding the 3 washers back and see what happens.. but I'm open to suggestions..

(edit) with the most recent settings the back fender well clearance decrease by 1" and front increase by 1/4")