Magnetic157

I saw it originally on Reddit this morning

Manuellabour247

Good video. What it doesn't show is the other half of the equation. Overloaded tongue. I've always balanced my trailers with 2-500 lbs of tongue weight depending on what I was hauling. I have miscalculated a time or two and had to get the come-a-long out to redistribute the load better. It also makes a difference as to single, dual/tandem, triple, spring, or bushing axles. It always pays to do your research on what weight you plan to haul and how it's distributed on the trailer.

Dirttracker18

Yes sir, I have have been in that crazy situation twice.

Once when I was young and my parents were towing their new TT with moms Oldsmobile. We towed it from southern Ontario back to northwestern Ontario, some 800 miles or about 1350 km. This was not so much weight issues as the weight of the tow vehicle and going down a long hill, tail wagging hte dog kind of situation. It was crazy and I remember as a kid seeing the TT out the side window at one point. Dad masterfully got it back under control with no damage. Weight police take it easy. Towing with a car was common practice back then and the TT was only 20'.

I then had it happen to me the first time I carried my racecar on a newly purchased used racecar trailer. Pretty hairy situation just as I was getting up to speed on the highway. I got it back under control and cruised slowly to the track. We put a bunch of weight out front to keep it tracking right after that. I guess it was designed with the intention of a bigger toolbox, spare parts and rack full of tires up front.

Nonetheless It is seriously dangerous and can get out of control very easily.

Both times it probably looked a lot like that video.

massspike

It would have been interesting to see the results if he also moved the axles back (they appear to be midway).

acdii

Think of the pendulum effect. The further back the mass is on that trailer, the more it will move when acted on by another force. So on a windy day, you have wind pushing on the side of the trailer, if the mass is in the rear like that example, it will continue to move with that force, then when the force is removed, it will swing back, but since it is heavier than the front, it wants to continue to move in the opposite direction until it reaches its peak, and back it goes, and as you saw in that demonstration its effect on the tow vehicle is to move the furthest mass from it in the opposite direction, and that amplifies the movements.

By putting the mass at the center of the rig, you pretty much eliminate the pendulum effect. You want at minimum 10% of the trailer weight on the tongue, preferably 12-13%. You can go up to 15% but that won't buy much more than 13% in stability.

acdii

You do get better stability with the wheels further back, but you then have more weight on the TV too. The pivot point changes with the wheels further back, and if you get a sway with the wheels further back, you have a bigger issue as the front of the trailer has longer leverage and will really swing the TV around, but, with the wheels further back, you automatically have more weight on the front, so sway is less likely to happen. You don't ever want to make a trailer with rear wheels tail heavy, it becomes very unstable as another poster pointed out with his car hauler.

A good example of a balanced trailer is a horse trailer. The axles are not very far from the rear, but the mass of the load is centered over those axles, and those trailers balance very well, so if you were to load a trailer based on a horse trailer, you will always have a good pulling trailer. My HT pulls so smooth you don't even know it is back there. Very stable in winds and passing semi traffic. My TT though, get some gusts going and you know it is back there as the back end pivots on the mid point wheels.