Trailer Towing / Weight

L

longhorn1

Ouch, that stings!
Joined
Nov 25, 2013
Messages
2,826
Location
Carmel, Indiana
I'm planning on purchasing a light weight off road trailer (350#) to tow behind my F-250/FWC Grandby. The heavy and full 65L Engle Cooler would be moved from the back seat of the truck to the trailer front shelf along with the 20# propane for the propane fire pit. Much of the gear, including bicycles that was stored inside the camper and in the cargo carrier would move to the storage area of the trailer. The heavy RakAttack swing arm and cargo carrier will become a thing of the past.

Since a lot of heavy stuff will be removed from the truck and cargo carrier, how does that affect GRVW?

When I have stopped in the past at the scale, fully loaded, I have just been under the 10,000 GRVW.

Just trying to understand how towing a small trailer plays into the weight thing.

Thanks,

jd
 
I believe it all comes down to tongue weight. Just have a scale beneath the hitch tongue and find that weight and add to the truck/camper weight. Pulling a load is more the concern of the engine/transmission and if you have the power you'll be fine. Moving the weight to the trailers axil removes it from the truck's (except the tongue's weight).
 
JD, optimum tongue weight is around 10% of trailer and contents weight. Any less and you can have handling issues (fish tailing...), and more is just weight on the truck. Out of curiosity, which trailer are you looking at?
 
The gross combined weight will be what everything weighs. Theoretically that is what you weighed before, plus the trailer weight, assuming you add or delete nothing.

The gross weight on the truck will be reduced by the weight of everything you remove from the truck, and will be added to by the tongue weight of the trailer.

so if the trailer weighs 350, and you remove 500 from the truck and put into the trailer, the loaded trailer weighs 850. 10-15% of that will be on the tongue, so you will have reduced the weight on the truck by about 375 lbs.

Unless you have brakes on the trailer, you will have increased the load on your brakes by the weight of the trailer. Laws vary by state as to what GVW trailer needs brakes, but 1000 is probably good to go without anywhere.
 
Steve, Trekmate
They are in Amarillo, TX. Another fellow WTW member, XJINTX has one and he is really happy with it. www.buytrekmate.com
His trailer is the one in the Cragger video and has a photo in the photos section
jd
 
Here is my F-250 VIN tag below...

1988 XLT F-250 VIN Tag.jpg

While the COMBINATION of the Front GAWR and Rear GAWR (3920 and 6084) does add up to 10,004 lbs....this does not mean I can hit the scales at 10,003 and be either legal or safe! The maximum is still 8800 lbs.

I just weighed my F-250 and it came in at 6400#. The front axle was 3520# and the rear was 2860#. Technically I can haul 2400# in it as long as it is distributed between front and rear axle...

Hey, everyone seems to run over their GAWR by as much as 200-300#, just remember you need to probably spend some bucks on the rear suspension to handle that. You still need braking power to stop if you have maxed out the rig weight.

Bottom line is always..."do I have enough truck for my rig?"
 
You need to figure out what your gcwr is which will help you determine the total trailer weight you can tow. The gvwr will dictate total vehicle weight, i.e. everything in and on the truck, including the trailer tongue weight put on the hitch.
 
Okay... I am a slow learner on this. My trucks towing capacity is 7,000 lbs. My truck bed cargo capacity is 1,450.
My camper is just about that weight or a tad over. If I were to tow a trailer.... are you saving I need to subtract the 1450 from The 7000?
(I am confused as I thought it was just including the tongue weight to the Truck cargo total)
 
1) gas up and go weigh the truck without the camper...front, rear and both
2) compare those readings to what you find on the VIN tag
3) now you know how much weight the front and rear axle can each handle SAFELY
4) load up everything including your camper, passenger and weigh front, rear and both again.
5) now you know if you are over or under on the rear axle

OK, you hare half way there!
6) as noted above, even if you just towed that trailer and repeated #4 above you now have the gross combined weight.
This is important because you can't just hitch up a 20' trailer with a 15,000# vehicle on it and go down the highway as you violate the GROSS combined weight rating...and will have fun trying to stop/slow down in the mountains.
7) if you haven't surpassed the GCWR, go ahead and repack your trailer as you intend on doing.
8) since you now know if the rear axle is overloaded or not (see #4), you can adjust the load in the trailer and get a safe tongue weight on the truck. (PS..check to see what the hitch on your trailer is rated for!)
9) if you wanted to...you could load up for your next adventure with all your gear, water, gas, food, passenger and toys and hit the scales one last time....then you can safely drive and if stopped by an officer, show them your weight certificates.

Be sure the scales you choose are authorized by the DMV in your state to provide those weights and you will be good to go.
 
Thanks pack rat you learned me up good![emoji601] I have already done the weight w/o camper and with with and without gear. Just a bit more to go.
 
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