I'm puzzled as I'm looking at setting up a wdh for the F150 I just bought. I have always understood objective was to shift weight from the rear to the front. I went to a CAT scale and weighed my truck without anything in it (except full 36 gal of fuel) to get real numbers including whatever options were on the truck. So weights were:
Front axle 3,075
Rear axle 2,280

When I look at sticker on door jam it shows:
Front GAWR of 3,450
Rear GAWR of 3,800

I have about 450 lbs tongue weight loaded to put onto the truck. So it seems I really don't want to shift weight to the front since once passengers are added, it has very little margin, but the margin is in the back. So I'm wondering if I really need a weight distribution for this setup? I do need sway control for sure, and it is built into my Equalizer hitch. I'm planning to weigh the whole rig without wdh tomorrow and I suppose it is possible that putting additional weight on the rear will take some off of the front and the real weights will tell me that.

So I could set it up with almost not weight distribution, just to get the sway control although that is a very heavy piece of gear for just that purpose. Or I suppose I could simply do sway control only.

Am I missing something obvious? My old TV the problem was clearly redistributing weight, but I'm not so sure about this one.

 

Tell us more about the length and weights of the trailer

 

The goal is not to add weight to the front axle but to restore weight removed by connecting a heavy trailer. A heavy trailer could easily take several hundred pounds off the front axle and cause steering issues, you would want to restore 1/2-3/4 of the weight removed.

I am not sure about the equalizer but I think it is similar to the blue ox sway pro and requires weight distribution to provide sway control.

If that 450lbs TW is actual that is a fairly small trailer and I would try it without WDH and sway control. Maybe add friction sway control if needed.

What are the details on the trailer? I had a 24' 6000 pound trailer that I just used a basic WDH with and no sway control and had no stability issues. I never weighed the tongue but it should have been in the 700-900 lbs range.

 

Trailer is 21 ft. weighs 4,000 lbs fully loaded with propane, battery, full fresh water tanks, and normal cargo. Tongue weight is really more like 550, bad estimate in first post.

 

Probably need to go through process of setting up Equalizer hitch and you are confirming what I suspected that adding weight to the rear will lift some off of the front. Yes this version of wdh has sway control built into the hitch mechanism.

 

500lbs is the limit for no wdh, so you need one.

 

So you will need a wdh, not clear you need a more expensive wdh with integrated sway control.

My trailer is 23’ and I use simple spring bar wdh, and have no sway issues. My TW is 13%

Sadly unless you can do some sort of test tow it is hard to know what system to buy.

 

It sounds like you barely need a WDH, if you already have an Equalizer that is fine but any WDH will do ok for that TW. What bars do you have with the Equalizer? You probably want whatever the lightest bars are.

As mentioned you probably don't even need sway control although I have heard of some smaller trailers that towed bad. This was probably an easy fix bur hard to say without in person knowledge

 

I agree, I have Reese trunion type, I like it because the bars do not hang low. No need for an Equalizer 4pt, that said, I would prefer it only because I do use a friction sway pad, (that I probably don't need to), and I have to disconnect prior to backing (or sharp turn backing for sure). About sway, if you have your wdh set-up correctly, and proper tongue weight sway control is not necessary. I pulled my trailer home without sway once, no issues and probably don't need it, I guess I feel better knowing a nasty truck / crosswind combination gets me, it might help a bit.

 

I wanted to report on what actually happened when setting up wdh in case it helps someone else latter. I also want to thank all the members of this forum who replied to my various ignorant questions as my learning curve has felt like it's straight up.

So I had the equalizer hitch adjusted by an RV repair facility I trusted. When they finished the trailer was level, and the front fender wheel well was back to about where it was with no load. I was able to measure weight for each step on CAT scales (curb weight of truck with no trailer, curb weight with trailer but no wdh, and curb weight after wdh added and adjusted). I ended up with 520 lbs tongue weight so clearly over limit for truck (which I admit surprised me, but was about12% so that actually makes sense). As suspected when the load was added without wdh it caused the front end to come up (took about 340 lbs off of front axle) . After adjustment the front axle load was within 100 lbs of where it started, and additional weight went to the rear axle. But it shifted about 400 lbs from the rear axle unadjusted (trailer attached without wdh), which is what it needs to do.