Weight Distribution whoops...

[JohnCh]

Hooking up after a camping trip, my front raised a little over 1/4” and the back drooped dropped just over an inch so I decided to shorten the weight distribution chains by one link. This fixed the front to the same height as unhooked, so I figured I was good to go. Driving home I pulled into a cat scale and found I was 160 lbs over weight. Any big deal? Considered leaving the wife at Loves Truck stop, but we were only about 40 miles from home. Next time I’ll add a link and re-weigh, but anyway... any issues with the front axle being heavier than the rear? Would changing the ball angle help here? 2017 1500, 4wd, 3.92 rear end. 5.7 Hemi.

 

[csuder99]

any issues with the front axle being heavier than the rear?

View attachment 136458

Yes, that is generally not desirable when towing with a WDH as it increases the tow vehicle's tendency to oversteer. In your case the driven axle is the one with the least load on it. The previous 1/4" up in the front and 1" down in the rear sounds pretty good.

Do you carry a lot of load in the truck ? With 4300 lbs on the axle the trailer is not that heavy so it's puzzling that the truck is over GVWR.

 

[NCRaineman]

Too much weight on the steers. Quarter up in the front and rear down by 1 sounds about right.

 

[JohnCh]

Do you carry a lot of load in the truck ? With 4300 lbs on the axle the trailer is not that heavy so it's puzzling that the truck is over GVWR.

Spare tire for the camper, luggage, a few tools, ice chest... didn’t seem like much. I think the WDH was putting the weight on the truck and yeah, going back to the way it was rigged before would probably work fine. I’ll weigh again in a few weeks. It pulled fine with no issue. It was only about 75 miles or so. The weights surprised the heck out of me. It just show the gurus here are spot on with recommending weighing.

 

[billyw]

You're way under your GAWR. 160 lbs over GVWR is not enough to worry about in my opinion. As long as your tire pressures are up, and you stay under GAWR, you could push it even higher. Of course, JMHO.

 

[GsRAM]

Agree with the others you don't want the front axle with more weight on it than the rear. You want to set your wdh so you are as close as possible to restoring the unloaded steer axle weight so you have good stability, steering and braking from that front axle. You have a light trailer so that's probably why you didn't feel any ill effects from that set up. With a heavy, long trailer where your up against the limits it becomes a lot, more critical to have this stuff on the money.

Just as not enough weight on the steer axle can cause light steering and less effective braking, too little weight on the drive axle will cause it's brakes to be less effective and also could cause traction issues with those rear tires. (You especially don't want that in rainy conditions obvisouly)

Thank You for sharing this John , it's a good teaching example or the types of things we often discuss and the importance of weighing your set up, as Vern so often (rightfully) advocates.

 

[VernDiesel]

John thanks for sharing. It wouldn't matter until conditions / scenario was right and then it would. When its your wife n kids it doesn't matter what the RV salesman said its your responsibility and I applaud your vigilance. Measurements are helpful to get you in the ballpark. Scales have shown you what the eye could not see. Now its just understanding where is a more ideal place to set it and adjusting it to get at least closer. Take a minute and read the current 2016 Ram trailer swaying thread.