Mike Up

Yes, if you put all the weight back on there's a chance you'd get the rear of the truck to high, and cause an unstable tow situation resulting in sway. You need weight on the back axle to control the trailer.

Glad you figured it out.

acdii

What does the instruction manual say for the hitch setup? The Husky that I have states where the wheel wells should be when properly setup. They should settle evenly when hooked up. Once I got mine setup correctly it towed perfectly. Don't think of it as how much weight you are transferring, but how the truck settles when hitched. In a nutshell everything should be as close to level as possible.

Nighthawk87

So your saying obey the hitch manual over the truck manual?

acdii

That's what I did on my 14 and solved all the problems it had towing my 6300# TT. When I brought it home the sway was horrible and porpoised like crazy. I tore down the hitch, went through the entire manual and set it all up by the book. No more sway, no more porpoising. Going to do the same on my 16 too. Any other issues towing should by resolve with decent shocks.

sunofabeach

for me, WDH adjustment is all about weight and not about how level the truck is. a level truck may be a by-product of a good set-up, but a level truck does not guarantee a good set-up.

go to the truck scales and do your 3 weighs.

truck alone
truck with trailer (WDH bars not hooked up)
truck with trailer (WDH bars hooked up)

set the WDH to return 1/2 - 3/4 of the weight lost from the front axle. done. to me, it doesn't matter whether the truck is level or a little nose high.

this is assuming that the tongue weight of your trailer is correct.

acdii

good luck with that. Show me a setup manual that shows that. The WDH is setup per trailer, not per load. You level the truck, measure the wells, you level the trailer, measure the frame. You measure the top of the coupler, and set the ball height to that measurement, or as close as you can to it. Then the angle of the head sets the bar angles, on most hitches, some are fixed.

When correctly set up, the weight will be properly transferred to the front axle and the trailer axle, and in most cases the well height will be right within the specs written in the manual that you took when you measured the truck. The ideal setup places the rear well 1-2" lower than unhitched, and the trailer should be level at that point.

If you follow the manual to the letter, then 95% of the time you will get proper weight distribution on the first go round. The last 5% is how the truck itself is loaded. If you set it up empty, then pile in the entire family and toss a bunch of other stuff in the bed after getting everything set up, then chances are you will not be properly setup.

Been doing this for a VERY long time, and only once did I have a screwed up white knuckle trip and that was after letting a "professional" set it up. It is not a slap it on and it works kind of process, its a take your time, measure twice, three times if you have to, and keep at it until its right kind of deal.

The manual for my hitch tells you exactly where the tips of the spring bars should be in relation to the trailer prior to hooking up the chains, and if you are not matching those specs, it will not distribute properly.

RTFM on any WDH. Follow it, and you will find the setup works perfectly provided you are within the ratings of everything.

sunofabeach

sure. you do it your way, i'll do it mine.

i'm not gonna list every freaking step required to set up a trailer, ie: level trailer, set ball height, etc.

that is in the manual.

all i said was that i don't care if my front fender is the same height as my rear fender. all i care about is that the WDH has put back the appropriate amount of weight onto the front axle.

sure, it may require a few passes at the weigh scales to get it correct but once its correct, you're done. the truck being level has nothing to do with that.

acdii

Then you are putting too much work into it. One setup, one pass, perfect from the start. All from following the manual. Did it all in under 2 hours, haven't had to touch it since.

smokeywren

You misread it. Ford says to tighten the spring bars tight enough that half of the rise in the front end is removed.


H1 is the distance from the front fender well to the ground of the tow vehicle without a trailer.


H2 is the distance from the front fender well to the ground of the tow vehicle with the trailer but without the spring bars tightened.


The goal after the spring bars are tightened is halfway between H1 and H2.


But Ford is behind the times. Cequent Group owns several hitch companies, including Reese and Drawtite. Their weight-distribution install and adjustment instructions now state:




http://www.reeseprod.com/support/installation/N66084.pdf


So in a nutshell, measure the distance from a point on the front wheel well to the ground, without a trailer and with the trailer with the spring bars tightened. The distance should be the same or very close to the same.

acdii

RTFM. Follow the hitch instruction manual to the letter and it works every time. When I setup my 14, that is exactly how it came out, front well in its original position. I don't have the scale numbers handy, but I think the distribution was about 2:1 split between front axle and trailer when the bars were hooked up. Of 300# moved off the rear, 200 up front and 100 to the rear, or somewhere in that range.

Truck towed great, no sway, one sway bar on the WDH, no bouncing, or porpoising.