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Your hitch does angle toward your truck more than mine, but it could be from pulling it up more. We both have the newer designed Blue Ox Sway Pro Hitch. Make sure you don't have the underslung head instead of the standard head.
Here's your truck/trailer:
Here's my truck/trailer (I have since pulled the hich up one more link for a total of 3 1/2 links showing below the tongue bracket):
One thing I noticed is you said what your tongue weight was, but never what your trailer weighed. Others have said to weigh the tongue, I agree.
Also, 9,300 is never going to happen. Payload on your sticker, minus family's weight, minus 75-125 pounds for the WDH, minus every mod you added to the truck, minus everything you carry in the truck, divided by .13 = max loaded trailer. Will NOT be 9,300 pounds unless you bought a heavy duty payload model which you did not note.
I have to agree with some of the statements and try the 1500 lb. bars since they do not make 1200lb. ones. I use a newer Blue Ox and do not get that much movement on the ball. It looks like too much flex.
I didn't mention it previously but I did also try the 1500 lb bars. With the 1000 lb bars, the best I could do was for the front axle to be 100 pounds lighter than before I hitched up. With the 1500 lb bars the best I was able to do was to get the front axle back to the same weight as before hitching up. Both times the chains were on the 11th link, but with the 1500 lb bars the truck's trailer hitch flexes a little more.
I totally understand "why" I'm not getting enough weight transferred - the hitch flex impacts the angle of the SwayPro head so it doesn't put enough lift on the rear axle of the truck. I'm just trying to figure out if the flex I'm experiencing is similar to what others are seeing. If it is similar, I'll get a different weight distributing hitch that has an adjustable head. If my flex is unusual, then I will focus on strengthening the truck's hitch to limit the flex. Thanks for all the input and suggestions!
Your hitch does angle toward your truck more than mine, but it could be from pulling it up more. We both have the newer designed Blue Ox Sway Pro Hitch. Make sure you don't have the underslung head instead of the standard head.
That's a good picture of your truck. And you might be right, your angle is less because you are not on the 11th chain link. I can verify that I have the right swaypro hitch. It is the BWX 1000 for the standard coupler. Just out of curiosity, do you know your tongue weight?
Also, were you able to confirm that your front fender was lower after hitching up than it was without your trailer attached? Or maybe you weighed it and know the weight difference? We have the same hitch and basically the same truck - this helps. BTW if I am not mistaken, your hitch is probably rated for more tongue weight that mine so maybe it's got additional bracing. Thanks!
One thing I noticed is you said what your tongue weight was, but never what your trailer weighed. Others have said to weigh the tongue, I agree.
Also, 9,300 is never going to happen. Payload on your sticker, minus family's weight, minus 75-125 pounds for the WDH, minus every mod you added to the truck, minus everything you carry in the truck, divided by .13 = max loaded trailer. Will NOT be 9,300 pounds unless you bought a heavy duty payload model which you did not note.
I totally agree. My trailer is just under 7000 pound loaded. Payload will always be a limitation for 1/2 ton trucks. I bought the trailer based on what I thought was reasonable for this truck. I did weigh everything, and the tongue weight is 920 pounds-13% of the trailer weight
I am no expert either but I do have the blue ox too. The older models had adjustable heads and the newer ones do not. You said you have the 1000lbs 3 dot bars for 920 lbs tongue weight. In my opinion I think you need the 4 dot bars for 1500lbs. Your current bars are not enough. Contact blue ox and send them the pictures for their correct answer. Or go down to the local blue ox dealer and ask them to try the heavier bars and see if a improvement is made. .
I didn't mention it initially but I did contact Blue Ox and tried the 1500 pound bars. The net effect was that the trucks hitch flexed a little more and I got the front axle to weigh 100 pounds heavier (than with the 1000 lb bars) or back to where it was before I hitched up the trailer. I am looking to put some weight up front which I haven't been able to do, based on the reasons in the earlier posts. I think I totally understand why. It's just a matter of finding out if my trucks hitch flexes more than what is normal for 920 pounds
That's a good picture of your truck. And you might be right, your angle is less because you are not on the 11th chain link. I can verify that I have the right swaypro hitch. It is the BWX 1000 for the standard coupler. Just out of curiosity, do you know your tongue weight?
Also, were you able to confirm that your front fender was lower after hitching up than it was without your trailer attached? Or maybe you weighed it and know the weight difference? We have the same hitch and basically the same truck - this helps. BTW if I am not mistaken, your hitch is probably rated for more tongue weight that mine so maybe it's got additional bracing. Thanks!
I have a 2016 F150, you have a truck similar to my previous 2012 F150. They are completely different.The newer 2016 sits up higher by about an 1" and has a stronger rear suspension.
Also, you never want to get your front fender to the position it was unhitched. Read the manual here on page 276 (279 pdf page). You want the rig level or the trailer slightly nose down toward the truck.
My rig was slightly nose down previously, and with the adjustment of another link tighter, the rig is now level and handles better.
The hitch was bought and installed by a very large reputable Chicagoland RV dealer (not Camping World ) that's an authorized blue ox dealer. They did a great job of installing it as this is their premier and most popular hitch over the Reese Strait-Line and Equalizer brands they also sell and install.
The rig is level and that is the proper setup, I did not weigh the rig at a cat scale.
Also, how are you weighing your trailers tongue weight?? You should weigh your truck by itself, on the first 2 pads, steer axle (front axle) and drive axle (rear axle). Then weigh you're truck and trailer together "WITHOUT" the spring bars attached. You should then use the 3 pads, Steer axle for your front axle, drive axle for your rear axle, and trailer axle pad. Here's how to use the pads.
Then add the drive and steer axles from each separate weigh, the truck solo and the truck hitched, and subtract the solo truck weight from the hitched truck weight to get your true tongue weight.
If you were weighing the truck hitched with the spring bars attached, you should add about 20% of the tongue weight, to that weight to get a rough estimate of it's true tongue weight. If so, it would make the true tongue weight somewhere around 1100 lbs. WDH typically remove 20% of the trailer tongue weight off of the trucks suspension and puts it back onto the trailer axles.
I forgot to mention, looks like your tongue rotating latches are mounted wrong. They look like they need to come closer to your trailer's coupler. The chain should come straight down and centered, from that rotating latch and yours is being pulled to the left as it's not centered. Probably just another issue making setup harder.
you definitely want to check the owners manual of your truck for what it says about using a WDH. I'm fairly sure that Ford says to move 1/2 the weight back onto the front axle with the WDH, not all of the weight lost.
you definitely want to check the owners manual of your truck for what it says about using a WDH. I'm fairly sure that Ford says to move 1/2 the weight back onto the front axle with the WDH, not all of the weight lost.
With hitch and spring bars properly adjusted, manual wants you to drop the front end measurement to 1/4 the way down from the hitched measurement with spring bars "OFF", to the measurement with trailer unhitched. They definitely don't want all the weight put back on the front axle, but to leave some on the rear axle for stability.
So apparently I made a bad assumption? Ford expects to unload the front axle some (compared to unhitched front axle weight) when towing with a weight distributing hitch. Seems counterintuitive. Seems like you would not want to lighten the front axle when it plays such an important role in steering & stopping. Does anyone know the logic behind this?
02-26-2017, 11:11 AM
) that's an authorized blue ox dealer. They did a great job of installing it as this is their premier and most popular hitch over the Reese Strait-Line and Equalizer brands they also sell and install.
