Windy day towing

[drvred]

Took a trip to West VA this weekend. Breezy on Friday, and windy coming home yesterday.
Yesterday was white knuckle the whole way, felt like the trailer was trying to rip the hitch off when we hit open areas.
I have my E2 adjusted by the instructions, but is there anything I can do to help with this?
I don't know the exact trailer weight for this trip, but do know my tongue weight was 460, on what should be less than a 3800 lb camper.

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[Blmpkn]

Wind man, wild.

 

[Trigganometry]

You using a trailer anti sway bars on your rig?

https://togorv.com/rv-living/rv-sway-bar-and-stabilizer-basics/

 

[drvred]

The E2 uses friction where the bars ride on the L brackets.
Probably normal for the conditions, but unnerving none the less.
It felt similar when the dealership had it set too tight, almost picking the rear wheels off the ground.
I took the bars off temporarily and while it was better, steering was iffy at best.

 

[Grumpaw]

Been out camping the last 4 days, and just got home from Pa down thru Md, WV into Va with very windy conditions the entire 200 miles. Towing a 7000 lb trailer, 700 lb tongue weight....and yes we did get blown around a bit. But it dosen't bother us...been thru much worse out west.
I don't know how your Ranger is set up, but if no modifications, I would at least recommend a good set of rear shocks. Your hitch bars also sounds like you have them set up distributing too much weight to the front of the truck. Again, not knowing how and what type/brand hitch you have, I can only recommend you play with the adjustments as far as raising or lowering the hitch head itself on the shank, and adjusting the bars so when your set up, the front of the trailer is riding a little bit low on the front, thus putting a bit more weight on the rear of the Ranger.

 

[drvred]

I have Bilstein 5100s. Talked the tech support with the makers of the E2, he recommended having the front a little high, to reduce weight on the truck, which I am skeptical of. My truck, trailer seems to be very sensitive to tongue weight.
I may try taking a washer out of the head, which will reduce the amount of downward pressure on the bars. Increasing the pressure made things worse.
I can take the getting blown around, it's how violent it was is what concerns me.

 

[Big Blue]

I have Bilstein 5100s. Talked the tech support with the makers of the E2, he recommended having the front a little high, to reduce weight on the truck, which I am skeptical of. My truck, trailer seems to be very sensitive to tongue weight.
I may try taking a washer out of the head, which will reduce the amount of downward pressure on the bars. Increasing the pressure made things worse.
I can take the getting blown around, it's how violent it was is what concerns me.

That tech from E2 is an idiot! The last thing you want is to have your trailer nose high. Level to slightly nose low is where you want to be. And taking weight off the truck is also bad. The point of a weight distribution hitch is not to take weight off the truck but to distribute it more evenly between the front and rear axles of the tow vehicle. You need the weight on the rear axle to keep the trailer from throwing the truck around and the weight on the front axle for steering control. In windy conditions the truck and the trailer will get buffeted, but it should feel like one unit. Almost like there is no joint between them.

 

[raytwntrvlr]

Rick,
What camper are you pulling? Also, what E2 hitch do you have? I have a Blue Ox hitch now and badly miss my Fastway E2 hitches of which I owned two. You should have the smallest E2 for your camper. There are at least three sizes. It's all about the spring bars. If you have a heavier model than you need, the spring bars will not give you any sway control.
BTW... towed our <4000 lb camper out to Phoenix last year and encountered hurricane, sand storm winds. That's motel time for us.

Hope you get it figured out. Ranger is the perfect tow vehicle for smaller TTs.

Good luck, Mike

 

[Grumpaw]

Towing a travel trailer with the front higher than the rear is a recipe for disaster....it's an accident waiting to happen.
In effect your doing the opposite of what a WD hitch is designed to do, and you will find your rig squiggling and swaying all over the road.
Set up properly, the front of the trailer, should be slightly below level or level, but NEVER higher than the back.

 

[Big Blue]

You can adjust the weight on the hitch/truck by how you load the trailer. The tongue weight should be between 10 to 15 percent of the loaded trailer weight. Less than 10% and you are asking for trouble same as running nose high. More than 15% your loading your truck more than you need to. Learn where your water tanks are as there levels can affect the balance greatly.

 

[drvred]

I have a WOLF Pup 16HE, a single axle unit. Camping World originally set it up to where it was taking all the weight of the drive axle of my Ranger. The front measurement was actually lower than unhitched. Probably lucky I didn't wreck the truck.
I had to lower the L brackets down, and take a washer out of the trunnion tilt, along with getting the lightest bar (600 lb) that E2 makes for the round bar.
My front measurement hitched is very close to the unhitched number, and I am wondering if I still am overdistributed by a bit.

 

[brroberts]

I have the Equalizer. Big brother to the E2. My truck and trailer move as one when’s it’s super windy. Take a measure of the unlhitched front fender height; then the hitched front fender height without the weight distribution - just the trailer on the ball with no bars. Work to setup so you tow level, and with the bars loaded, get the front fender height at least halfway back to the unhitched height, but never past the unhitched height.

 

[JimG_AZ]

I agree with the others that it sounds like your weight distributing hitch is not properly setup. The Equal-i-zer would be a step up from the Fastway E2 and IMO worth the upgrade. Check CraigsList and OfferUp and you may get lucky to find one used locally. If you want the best option, check out the Hensley Hitch. It is probably over-kill for your situation and it will be expensive.

 

[drvred]

I guess my Saturday project will be to make a trip to the Cat scales, then disassemble everything and start over.

 

[brroberts]

Good plan. You really need to measure your real world tongue weight and know what your loaded trailer weighs - not the manufacturers guesstimate.


how to use the CAT scale:

2 passes - 3 weighs
If you will do 2 passes and 3 weighs on the scales you can also determine the amount of weight transfer back to the front end of the TV from the WD hitch and can fine tune chains / bars from such.

Pass #1

Weigh#1 - TV and trailer WITH WD engaged - each TV axle on it's own weigh pad and all trailer axles on the 3rd

Weigh#2 - don't move from above, but disconnect your WD chains / bars - leave bars on trailer weigh pad (call it a reweigh)


Pass #2 - Weigh#3 - move to the parking lot and drop the trailer, circle back to the scales - TV only - each axle individually (call it another reweigh)


You can fine tune your WD chains / bars based on the difference of the TV front axle weights on Weigh#1 and #2 above.

Also, you can derive the "tongue weight":
Subtract the truck (weighed alone) from the combined total of the truck & trailer axle to determine trailer weight. Subtract the axle weight from the calculated trailer weight to determine tongue weight.

Sample example:
With Trailer Attached
Steer Axle 3080
Drive Axle 3240
Trailer Axle 4160
TOTAL 10480

Truck Alone
Steer Axle 3280
Drive Axle 2540
TOTAL 5820

So:
Trailer 4660
Tongue 500

Again, this is only accurate if you do not use the WDH while weighing. (Pass 1 weight 2)

Here is a link to a CAT scale PDF you can fill in to get everything you need and make your calculations:

https://www.escapeforum.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=55407&d=1620944317

This stuff is not original with me, but has been shared freely, used by many, and I hope you find it helpful. Only you can set your specific load up because you load the truck and trailer. You need to measure and set up your individual travel load. So weigh just as if you were packed to head out on a trip.

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