DragStuff

...back the car in my trailer? I know your supposed to put the weight over the axles, putting the car in backwards would have the majority of the weight at both ends (engine and living quarters).

I'm trying to get the pin weight down. The back of the truck is scaling at 8,400 lbs w/ the trailer in tow. Rear axle rating is 7,500. Not too worried about the axle (dodge used the same axle in the 1 and 2 ton trucks) just worried if a DOT car pulls me over and scales me. If room permits (back of cab to trailer corner) I'm going to move the hitch up a couple inches, it is directly over the axle now. But according to my calculations that will only help 100 - 200 lbs.

Can't see that would hurt anything as long as you got the weight where you want it at.

That's kinda what I was thinking...but I thought I would throw it out here and see if I can catch a horror story :)

I backed my car on my open trailer once after breaking the rearend at the track. I didn't think I was going to make it home without wrecking. I was coming over a moderate hill and letting it coast and it started to sway terribly. I had to try to accelerate my way out of it. By the time I got to the bottom of the hill and had the trailer under control, I was running 90. Luckily I was on a nice 4-lane highway with no traffic.

Proper tongue weight is very important for keeping the trailer from swaying. I'll never back a car on the trailer again I don't think.

Craig W. wrote:I backed my car on my open trailer once after breaking the rearend at the track. I didn't think I was going to make it home without wrecking. I was coming over a moderate hill and letting it coast and it started to sway terribly. I had to try to accelerate my way out of it. By the time I got to the bottom of the hill and had the trailer under control, I was running 90. Luckily I was on a nice 4-lane highway with no traffic.

Proper tongue weight is very important for keeping the trailer from swaying. I'll never back a car on the trailer again I don't think.

WHAT HE SAID! Your better off with the tongue weight being to heavy than to light..........

If the car is close to 50/50 it's not going to make much difference.

This trailer has a lot of weight up front already. I believe I have read GN should be at 15 - 25% tongue weight. My trailer scales 15,700 lbs not including the 5300 lbs on the tongue. So if you figure in the weight on the tongue I'm right at the max...if I could drop that 1000 lbs. I would be right in the middle. But to John's point...might not make much difference.

What's in the back of my head is the physics of having a good amount of weight at each end...I think it would put more stress on the center than if I had the engine over the axles?

My car isn't that close to 50/50 (I wish :) ) I would think more like 48/52 with my iron headed bb. So I might be moving 150 Lbs. 10ft further back? My physics are a little fuzzy...not sure what that would do to the tounge - thinking about it, probably not much :/

That's a very nice rig to be playing with. Depending on where the car sits in the trailer will determine how it handles. If the car sits at the very back it will make a difereance. I don't ever see anyone around here putting they'er cars in the trailer backwards. What ever you do be careful. I hate to see you put that thing in the ditch or worse.........

You can get a load lever kit or a set of over load helper springs if yor worried about the axle weight. I wouldn't play around with tongue weight. All it takes is one time to loose control and you'll lose everything.

Dang - Nice trailer!

I have a two car open trailer tripple axel
I put my blazer all the way up on the front
and my wifes 67c10 on the back were her motor on 67 is between forward axel and second back axel
I got a ton of tongue weight on mine and we also have a 9ft camper
I like tongue weight I have pulled all this crap down the road at 80mph straight as a arrow always goes straight

John_Heard wrote:If the car is close to 50/50 it's not going to make much difference.

Very true. Back then my car was nose heavy.

Does this mean if mine comes out 49/51 I have to back it in??

John_Heard wrote:Does this mean if mine comes out 49/51 I have to back it in??

It means you cheated...LOL...

John_Heard wrote:Dang - Nice trailer!

Thanks John & Supernova. I got a good deal on it. Took me a month to get things...cleaned up. Looked like a repo when we brought it home. We cleaned a 50 gal trash bag worth of stuff out of the front.


Here's a link to my redo photo album. I'm pretty pleased with the way things turned out. I have a handful of things to do. All six of the "really good brakes" need replaced. It also looks like I will be paying for a few other things that were "in great shape". Hard to not drop the name of who I bought it from here - since I know John's site gets indexed by google in about 6 hours - and his kid is supposedly some up and comer. Don't know why the folks that go around in circles don't take better care of things. In his defense he said he loaned it to a friend the last few years, so maybe what he told me was his best recollection...I digress
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set ... 2521267cb3


Back on my topic, it may not be worth all the hassle to back it in. I'd HAVE to winch it in everytime...and that just takes forever.

supernova wrote:You can get a load lever kit or a set of over load helper springs if yor worried about the axle weight. I wouldn't play around with tongue weight. All it takes is one time to loose control and you'll lose everything.

The dodge's, or at least my dually, have factory helpers on them. I was lucky when I found this truck as it had firestone bags and an onboard air compressor already on it. With 80 lbs. in the bags it just starts to touch the overload springs. The truck sits nice and level now.

Really I'm just worried if I go out of state the DOT will want to scale me. Maybe I need not be as worried as I am about that

Just went through you facebook photo gallery - very nice redo on that trailer! You made it look great, plenty of work I'm sure but it sure turned out nice. I'm curious how the rear tiles are holding up?

I've got to get me a trailer before long and have been looking around. I'd love to get a living quarters trailer, but not sure if I can get something that big maneuvered into my driveway. We've got really narrow streets here.