We are heading to South Dakota for a week long camping trip. I have an 2008 1/2 ton silverado Z71 crew cab and will be pulling an 2008 31 foot flagstaff TT that weighs about 6300 pounds. I know my truck can pull the weight acorrding to GM specs. Im just looking for some advice on how to load everything (weight wise)? do i load the TT heavy or the truck heavy or do i split the weight? WE will be taking normal camping stuff for a week and the holding tanks will be emty.Any advice would be greatly helpful. We are typically just weekenders that camp about an 1/2 hour from home....Thanks in advance
Shouldn't make any difference as long as you don't exceed the GVWR of either vehicle. Hard to make any recommendations without knowing your weights and weight ratings. With MOST half ton trucks the payload is the most important number to watch out for as you reach the maximum payload long before reaching the maximum trailer weight.
Good luck and have a great trip / Skip
2011 F-150 HD Ecoboost 3.5 V6. 2550 payload, 17,100 GCVWR - 2004 F-150 HD (Traded after 80,000 towing miles) 2007 Rockwood 8314SS 34' travel trailer
US Govt survey shows three out of four people make up 75% of the total population
For best towing stability, you should have as much weight as practical in the TV (without exceeding its GVWR or GAWRs), and as little weight as possible in the trailer.
IOW, you want a big "dog" with a little "tail".
Try to keep the TT's tongue weight at about 13% of the TT's total weight.
Ron Gratz wrote: For best towing stability, you should have as much weight as practical in the TV (without exceeding its GVWR or GAWRs), and as little weight as possible in the trailer.
IOW, you want a big "dog" with a little "tail".Ron
Really? I always thought that if you wanted to make sure you weren't going to have any sway/stability issues you'd want your trailer to be heavier. When I've had to tow in wind (only once, thankfully, to get home) I made sure my sway control was cinched tight and I had some water in my tank, just to make sure we didn't have any "tail-wagging" going on.
On the road and happy with Jed, my four-legged camping buddy.
'06 Eddie Bauer Expedition
'13 Starcraft 265RLB Autumn Ridge
ForestRiverTeach wrote: ---I always thought that if you wanted to make sure you weren't going to have any sway/stability issues you'd want your trailer to be heavier.---
Since the mid-1960s when some of the earliest studies of towing dynamics were conducted, it has been generally agreed by researchers that trailer weight is one of the primary contributors to yaw-instability (a.k.a. "sway"). The following excerpt from "Stability and Control Considerations of Vehicle-Trailer Combination" gives a good summary of the effects of stability-related factors:
QUOTE
The influences of physical parameters of the vehicle and trailer on both types of instability have been investigated in detail using both validated analytical models and vehicle testing [1-6]. It has been shown [2, 5] that the divergent type of instability depends only on the parameters of the towing vehicle and on the vertical hitch load. The latter is affected by the trailer mass and the location of the trailer center of gravity in the longitudinal direction. Reducing the hitch load, or equivalently moving the trailer center of gravity rearward, improves the stability margin with respect to divergent motion. In contrast, stability with respect to the snaking motion depends on the parameters of both the towing vehicle and the trailer. More specifically, the system becomes unstable beyond a certain speed. This speed decreases, thus rendering the system less stable, as:
1) the mass of the trailer (relative to the vehicle’s mass) increases,
2) the center of gravity of the trailer moves rearward,
3) the moment of inertia of the trailer increases,
4) cornering stiffness of trailer tires decreases,
5) cornering stiffness of the vehicle’s rear tires decreases
6) the distance from the vehicle rear axle to the hitch point increases,
7) vehicle wheelbase decreases.
Even for a specific vehicle-trailer combination, most of these parameters can be greatly altered by changing parameters that are in control of the user, such as weight distribution or tire type and tire pressure.---
UNQUOTE
(Bold added for emphasis)
Thanks for posting the link to the article, Ron. Great reading if you're an engineer. For bakes5's benefit, it's also worth pointing out:
- any weight added to the trailer should generally be in one place, not forward and aft, to minimize the moment of inertia influence.
- that one place should be near the trailers center of gravity, which would be maybe 2' forward of the axle(s) center line.
Mike, Barb, and Lilly the Lab
2012 North Trail 26LRSS
Silverado 2500HD, 6.0L gas, 4.10
One of the things I highly recommend is the use of a Sherline tongue weight scale. After I installed the dual cam sway control on my trailer and installed two group 31 AGM batteries in the underbelly, I measured the tongue weight of the empty trailer (with full propane tanks). It was 780 pounds (GVWR of 7750 and the empy weight of the trailer was 5640 IIRC). After loading it for the first trip, the tongue weight was 1300 pounds, including the full water tank that sits just aft of the rear axle. Having weighed everything I put in the trailer, I had the total weight up to about 6400. My WD bars are rated at 1200 pounds. The next limiting thing was my shank, rated at 1500 pounds. So I had to make some adjustments. I pulled my loop alarm (homemade steel box) out of the front storage compartment and put it in the truck. I took a container out from under the bed that weighed about 10 pounds with stuff I wouldn't need and left it at the house. I have these 11" cubic wood blocks I use under the jacks that normally would all ride in the truck. I put two of them in the back of the trailer wrapped in a tarp (about 50 pounds) and threw my Dewalt cordless tool kit (about 40 pounds) in the back corner on the other side (you have to move the chair out of that corner to close the slide so it makes for a spot just large enough for the tool kit and my laptop case). Checked the weight again and it was 1100 pounds. On the return trip I had used about 15 pounds of propane, the fridge was nearly empty, the water tank was nearly empty, I had about 10 gallons of water in the grey tank (between the axles), and about 7 or 8 gallons in the black tank (about 3 feet forward of the front axle). I also threw the two bags of dirty laundry on the couch (the stuff started out in the front bedroom). I could have drained the hot water tank, but when I checked the weight, it was 1000 pounds.
I had no stability problems either direction, but it towed slightly smoother on the return trip (it would have been about 6150 pounds on the return trip).
As for percentages that was 17% tongue weight going, and 16% coming back.
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