cpurick

Since the WDH puts some tongue weight back on the trailer axle, do you get to subtract that weight from the payload?

Is the 10-15% tongue weight before or after the WDH makes its adjustment? Is it possible that a WDH moves too much weight off the truck, forcing you to shift loads to increase tongue weight? If you set up with 11% tongue weight before the WDH puts 2% back onto the trailer axle, are you still good to go, or is this a problem?

Am I just imagining something that never happens? Because I see that the limiting factor on these trucks is often the payload, and I can see how a WDH makes it possible to tow closer to capacity by reducing the tongue weight.

I guess what I'm really asking is whether the goal is to get 10-15% of the load forward of the trailer axle or to actually put it onto the truck.

Thanks in advance for any help as I try to wrap my head around all of this.

smokeywren

Well, sorta. When wet and loaded for the road with the trailer tied on and the WD hitch adjusted, then the weight on the two truck ales cannot exceed the GVWR of the truck .

Before

Not a problem. Your goal is to have the WD hitch adjusted so the front end of he tow vehicle comes back down to near unloaded height, and the trailer is level front to rear, and you are not overloaded over any GAWR or GVWR.

If you are attempting to squeeze out every pound of towing capacity without exceeding any weight limits, then in theory you have a point. But if you get so close to the weight limit that a few pounds of hitch weight maters, then you are not leaving enough fudge factor for safe towing.

The goal is to have as close to 12% to 14% tongue weight as you can achieve before you hook up the trailer that is level front to rear, then with a properly adjusted hitch not exceed any weight limits of your rig after the trailer is tied on ready for the road. 10% to 15% tongue weight is the basic, but you want to tighten that up to 12% to 14%, aiming for 13% TW before the WD hitch distributes any tongue weight.

icantdrive55

There are many on this forum that are veteran haulers and know way more about towing than I, and I'm sure they'll be along shortly. You've got the physics of a WD hitch correct...sort of. It does "lever" a small of weight back onto the trailer axles, but it predominantly loads the front axle of the truck while lowering some of the weight on the rear axle. The primary purpose of a WD hitch is to remove some the tongue weight from the hitch and distribute it to the tow vehicle frame, so while it increases your hitch tongue weight capacity, it doesn't significantly change your payload. At least that's how I understand it....

KingDeleted

cpurick

Maybe, maybe not. It costs payload for any kind of hitch. So the question is whether the extra payload weight you add for a WDH is earned back by what it transfers back to the trailer axle. Again, this comes back to the original question of whether we count payload before or after tensioning the hitch.

In this video, the hitch transfers 150lbs out of 1000lbs of tongue weight back to the trailer, which is surely more than the hitch itself weighs:

Of course, the weight of the hitch is never given, and the total GCW is not exactly the same from scenario to scenario.

KingDeleted

JCH841

I remember a as stunt around 1970 where they installed a WDH on front wheel drive full frame Olds Toronado and pulled a trailer with the car's rear wheels removed.

Flamingtaco

The amount of weight transfer is a function of the torque point of the bars in relation to the pivot point (ball), and the lengths to the furthest axle on the TV and trailer.

It is a hell of a lot easier to hit the scales after setting up the WDH and see how much weight added to the truck. That will without a doubt tell you how much capacity you have remaining, and will also tell you how much of that weight you can put in the bed if you weigh front and rear axles separate.

acdii

400 pounds was removed from my trucks rear axle after properly setting up the Blue Ox. Some went forward, the rest to the trailer. Since I don't have the scale papers with me, I am guestimating that half was removed from the truck, so say 200 pounds of payload was returned after setting the hitch.

This doesn't mean I could add 200 more pounds of junk to the truck, it just means I have leeway to stay under GVWR.

kehyler

I think that it does mean you have 200 more lbs of junk you could have added to the truck. Your curb weight went down by 200.