johnr218 wrote: I have a 1/2 ton f150 and just bought a 31 ft trailer. On the way home with it i had some bad swaying. My question is would adding another sway control bar help out that much or just a waste of money. Anyone have any experience on this matter. Thanks for your time.
Hi JohnR
Welcome to the forum. Hopefully we can help guide you here where to go looking for your issues. I had a few moments so I typed this out for you.
The terms F150 and 31 feet do equal caution. But we know very little about your setup to tell you what part is not right. In fact we do not even know what F150 or what TT or what load is in the truck.
I can say this with what little we know. I would not recommend adding a 2nd sway bar. The effectiveness of it is not enough to maintain good control in all situations on 31 feet and a 1/2 ton truck.
What I would recommend is you will need a total towing setup review. This is going to be an education process and we can help.
I would do it in this order.
1. Known scaled weights of the truck loaded the way you go camping. Take a trip to the truck scales with all on board and stuff inside. Weigh each axle. Compare that to Front and rear TV axle ratings and the truck GVWR. Use this to compare it to the TT loaded weight estimate and tongue weight. Now "you" know how close to the edge or not the truck is for pulling and the ability to support the TT.
2. The TT, this too needs to be weighed. Right now you are fighting an empty TT. Loaded it can get better or worse. Proper TT balance is key to towing. The tongue weight must be in the correct relation to the total TT weight or else it will not tow well regardless of TV.
Short of pulling it to the scales, call your TT manufacture, give them your TT VIN and ask what is the tongue weight and TT GVW the day it left the factory and if they add battery and full propane to the weightes thay gave you. Ask them for an estamted laoded camper weigth of the average camper family. This is a starting point. Then you need to have it loaded. The exact floor plan will then load different. Some load tongue forward, some load even over the axles and some load rear end heavy. The average camper takes on 1,000# of stuff, a family can take on more. This stuff needs to keep good TT balance. This can be estimated on paper but in the end it too will need to go to the scales.
3. WD hitch setup, TV reciever and effective sway controls. A TT should tow well with no sway control when just driving down the highway. The WD has to be setup correct as part of this to make the TV stable and the TT needs to pull level. Anti sway controls are added to take care of when bad things come our way during towing, cross winds, pot holes, jerks slamming on brakes in front of us, etc. The truck receiver needs to be checked that you are not overloading it.
Pending the entire TV and TT review in some cases a high end hitch such as the Hensley or a Pullrite are needed to correct certain attributes of setup issues. The Reese DC or Equal-I-zer brand name hitch will work in many situations but they too cannot fix the entire problem all on there own pending the TT and TV setup.
4. TV suspension and the effects of a loaded TT in relation to it. Here tires, wheel base, truck weight capacity and suspension all play into this. Just going to LT tires, while it will help take the sogginess out of the tire, will not fix suspension issues or fix a short wheelbase problem pending what hitch you are using.
When you sort out the 4 above, a stable towing rig will come and you will find the 1 or 6 things that are not correct and YOU will know why. You may find all can be fixed, or you may come to the fact that the TT is too much for your present day TV. But you will know why and can they figure out what to change or not.
I truly respect LT tires, the Henlsey hitch, The Equal-I-zer, The Reese DC, proper tongue weight, towing within the limits of a TV, etc. but there is no one fix it to cover all the issues that can come unless you educate yourself on this and check all of them. Even the great Hensley, while it will fix the sway, will not fix an overloaded rear truck axle and the Hensley adds to rear axle weight by adding increased tongue weight.
I did not mean to send you swimming in numbers and stuff, but if you want a stable towing rig, these things need to be in line. Some get lucky and a lot fall in place and they do not know why, but it works so no investigation is needed. Others had to learn it the hard way and fix the many issues. Before I would spend good money on fixing something, I would want to know it was I was trying to fix. Right now, you nor we, know what is wrong.
See this web site by a fellow forum member it will help you sort out the truck weights and has other good info on towing. http://www.rvtowingtips.com/
Good luck, fix your problems and enjoy that new camper. New campers are allways cool times. We can help with poinitng you where to go looking and may suggest fixes for some of them.
Hope this helps
John
John & Cindy
2005 Ford F350 Super Duty, 4x4; 6.8L V10 with 4.10
CC, SB, Lariat & FX4 package
21,000 GCWR, 11,000 GVWR
Ford Tow Command
1,700# Reese HP hitch & HP Dual Cam
2 1/2" Towbeast Receiver
2004 Sunline Solaris T310SR
(I wish we where camping!)
advntrs wrote: I tried every imaginable setup while attempting to tow my 29' VR-1 TT with my F-150. There is just no way I could safely tow that trailer with that truck. It was just going to be a matter of time before I got into a situation that I could not control.
Is that the keystone VR1 with a dry weight around 6500 lbs? when loaded it would probably be up at close to 8000 lbs, definitely pushing the limits.
I pull a 33' Rockwood ultralite, dry weight about 4800 lbs, fully loaded around 6000 with a F150; using an e-qual-izer hitch it does a great job. Also, paying attention to load distribution helps alot.I guess it depends what trailer the original poster is planning on pulling - i'd suggest staying with the lite-weights. As most, our F150 is used for trailer towing a small percentage of the time, the rest of the time it's used as a daily vehicle. If I was retired and RV'ing more often, than certainly a diesel would be the preferred choice.
You need to get a dodge 5500 cab and chassis flat bed with a 700 hp diesel, and the biggest brakes money can buy. JUST KIDDING!!!
Put some air bags under your truck, and get an equalizer hitch. Total amount of money spent $500 to $700. Look on ebay for best deals. After that, all will be fine.
Peg Leg wrote: If your fresh water tank is located in the front, fill it and try a quick juant down the road. This will answer the light tongue question.
After one trip doing this, I noticed how much better my towing experience was. It'll be what I do before each trip from now on.
advntrs wrote: I tried every imaginable setup while attempting to tow my 29' VR-1 TT with my F-150. There is just no way I could safely tow that trailer with that truck. It was just going to be a matter of time before I got into a situation that I could not control.
Is that the keystone VR1 with a dry weight around 6500 lbs? when loaded it would probably be up at close to 8000 lbs, definitely pushing the limits.
I pull a 33' Rockwood ultralite, dry weight about 4800 lbs, fully loaded around 6000 with a F150; using an e-qual-izer hitch it does a great job. Also, paying attention to load distribution helps alot.I guess it depends what trailer the original poster is planning on pulling - i'd suggest staying with the lite-weights. As most, our F150 is used for trailer towing a small percentage of the time, the rest of the time it's used as a daily vehicle. If I was retired and RV'ing more often, than certainly a diesel would be the preferred choice.
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