Trailer tongue weight calculations

[jabberwoki]

Ok so the parameters.
The trailer weighs 2480 empty
The car weighs  4600.
 Total weight 7080.
10% of that is 708 lbs

The info on the  ford factory hitch towing hitch .
                     Max gross trailer weight          max tongue weight                     

Weight distribution            10,500                          1050                               

Weight carrying     50000                                      500                                                                           

The hitch itself is a forged Curt unit with a max tongue weight of 2550 lb so that's ok.
I've bought a tongue scale so i`ll be able to get the weight right.
What should i load the tongue at?

[RustFarmer]

I think the weight carrying numbers of 5000 / 500 are ridiculously conservative.  Any domestic 1/2 ton truck from the last 50 years will be just fine with your car and trailer without a weight distributing hitch.  Tongue weight should be 10 to 15 percent.  Too much is a lesser evil than too little.  1000 pounds would be good.  You may not be able to get exactly that tongue weight depending on the deck length of the trailer and location of tie downs.  I.E. how far fore and aft can you move the car and still chain or strap it.

Chain or strap to the wheels, axle, or lower control arms.  You want the body and suspension of the car to be able to move.  If you were to chain to the frame on the car, you would never get it tight enough, and every bump and dip would loosen/tighten your load securement.

If the rear suspension on the truck does not look overly squatted, then you are good.

Air up all 10 tires (truck, trailer, and spares) to the max on the sidewall.

[fatfillup]

^^^^^^that is nicely written, concise, understandable and I believe accurate

[jabberwoki]

That's about 200 over the max weight for the hitch. that's a lot.
I`m going to be towing this for 11 hrs and it's expensive cargo i cannot afford to make any mistakes.
Does a wdh make sense?

[jabberwoki]

The trailer is a  10,000 PJ duel wheeled 18 footer so there will be room to move the car back to get some of the weight off the hitch.

[Heiny57]

I agree with Harlan also. But WDHs do wonders for heavy loads on winding hilly roads. They are relatively cheap at HF if you want some insurance. I am glad to see you are concerned, most hillbillies down here wouldn’t give a second thought of endangering everyone on the road with sketchy set ups.
 

I had a 6200 pound camper I pulled that really squatted myF150 with out it.

[jabberwoki]

To me trying to figure all this out is equivalent to handing a baby monkey a Rubix cube.

[jabberwoki]

Ok so the car weighs 3750 not 4600 . that was gvw weight.
So tongue weight is now 623.
Can i just move the car back on the trailer to get it around say 480?

[RustFarmer]

If you have space on the trailer deck for fore and aft movement, you could try a test run with the lower tongue weight.  I personally prefer to go higher on tongue weight because of a bad experience of towing with too little tongue weight.  I would be fine with 623 on your hitch if it was not rusted out.

I would not discourage you from using a WDH.  A friend of mine was pulling a 10k trailer (probably loaded to 14k) with a 3/4 ton Suburban.  He complained about the handling, and I suggested he get a WDH.  He said it made a big difference.

For $15 you can get your truck and trailer weighed at a truck stop.  They will give you 3 weights, front axle, rear axle, and trailer tandem.

Two new LT tires on the rear axle of the truck would be a good upgrade.

I have a set of lasso style straps that go around the tire for low to the ground cars.  Its hard to squeeze under some cars to chain to the lower control arms and axle.
https://www.cargoequipmentcorp.com/car-and-truck-hauling-tie-down-straps/lasso-style-straps

One of my Suburbans had a rusty factory hitch that I didn't trust, so i bought a new hitch from Curt.  It's very nice, much beefier than the factory hitch.  For 2017 F-150s they have two class 4 hitches.  Both rated for 1000 tongue weight in weight carrying.  One of them lets you keep the factory hitch, which would be useful for a winch or bike rack.

https://www.curtmfg.com/part/14016
https://www.curtmfg.com/part/14017

[slip knot]

I'm one of those hillbillys Heiny refrenced. I've hauled a lot of sketchy crap over the years. Tongue weight is your friend, not enough and the trailer will be pushing you all over the place. I usually load my trailer till I see the rear bumper of my truck settle down an inch or so.

IMHO of more importance than tongue weight is braking. All my trailers have brakes. They have to because these newer vehicles with antiloc brakes do all kinds of crazy crap when you hook up a trailer. My Ford SD has a pretty decent brake controller. If your truck doesn't have a decent brake controller I would be looking at that long before I would worry about the WDH.

[RustFarmer]

agree on the brakes.

even if you have fore and aft on the deck, your chain / strap attachment points may limit that.

you might even have the rear of the car extending beyond the rear of the trailer to get tongue weight under 500.

[jabberwoki]

The trailer is virtually new  it`s  PJ 10,000 lb car trailer with brakes on all 4 wheels and the truck is a 2014 ford f150 with the 6.2 Raptor spec motor.
So the equipment is all good. i`ve towed a 68 mustang with it and hardly knew it was there.
This long trip has me concerned though.
If i did get a WDH what weight rating should i look for?
Another thing those WDH `s are heavy themselves so they`d be adding to the weight on the hitch.

[Heiny57]

To me trying to figure all this out is equivalent to handing a baby monkey a Rubix cube.

 

[Heiny57]

Ok so the car weighs 3750 not 4600 . that was gvw weight.
So tongue weight is now 623.
Can i just move the car back on the trailer to get it around say 480?

I would say you are good to go at that weight . 

[Heiny57]

I'm one of those hillbillys Heiny refrenced. I've hauled a lot of sketchy crap over the years. Tongue weight is your friend, not enough and the trailer will be pushing you all over the place. I usually load my trailer till I see the rear bumper of my truck settle down an inch or so.

IMHO of more importance than tongue weight is braking. All my trailers have brakes. They have to because these newer vehicles with antiloc brakes do all kinds of crazy crap when you hook up a trailer. My Ford SD has a pretty decent brake controller. If your truck doesn't have a decent brake controller I would be looking at that long before I would worry about the WDH.

I’m one of those sketchy load rednecks also. I rode my truck and trailer with a tractor loaded down a hill backwards once. Unfortunately I was alone on the tractor and not in my truck at the time.