Over Weight

[Bluhaven]

Well I just weighed my rig today, 96 dodge dually with a Arctic Fox 990 and a 25' Sea Ray boat, I have a 28" superhitch. The hitch is good for 650 lbs. tongue weight and when I weighed it, it was 900 lbs. tongue weight!!!! I got the tonuge weight by weighing the rear axle of the truck with the boat hooked up then weighing the rear axle of the truck without the boat, the difference is 900lbs. Is that the correct way? Steering axle of the truck is 3760, drive axle is 7910, and the boat axle is 6510 for a total of 18180. The only thing that really bothers me is the tonuge weight. Tell me what you think. Is there anybody out there towing this much of a trailer or boat? :--)

 

[Partyat33]

I did not check the tongue weight specifically when I weighed mine but I believe the tongue weight is about 900 lbs. Doesn't seem to be a problem. Towed at least 15,000 miles. So far so good.



Dennis

 

[Steve M]

Can you scoot the boat back on the trailer a couple of inches and maybe get the tongue weight down to about 750#? I don't even like to say that because the lighter the tongue weight the more sway you'll have. It can turn ugly real fast even with a dually. But if the boat is too far up on the trailer to begin with and putting it right would fix your tongue weight troubles, that would be great. You'd still be over your GCWR and maybe alittle over you're tongue weight rating but not too horribly scarey. I've been there with my '01. 5. I was 900# over my GCWR. Didn't hurt anything. I just knew I was overweight and it bugged me.

 

[y-knot]

Can you either run a weight distributing hitch or step up to a class V hitch. I think I would do something to address the problem, your hitch is at least 8 years old and I wouldn't want to push it.

 

[ThrottleJockey]

You can get your tongue weight by dropping your loaded trailer with the wheels on one scale and the tongue on the other scale platform.



Do it at a low traffic time of day at the scale.



Brian

 

[Bluhaven]

Y-Knot, I have a SuperHitch with a 28" extention. ThrottleJockey, the scale I use is only able to handle one axle at a time. Maybee if I dropped the nose of the trailer on the jack stand by itself would give the correct weight? Thanks for the help.

 

[MGordon]

For safety, you should really get a weight distribution hitch. The SuperHitch is rated for 1000 lbs with weight distribution.

 

[FJfonda]

Bluhaven,

Your tongue wt for a boat trailer should be 5-7% of the total weight. With the boat you have, my guess is that you could easily get down to 500lb tongue wt without any sway problems, 900lb tongue wt seems a bit heavy.

A word of caution using weight distribution hitch's on boat trailers... two problems arise,

#1- the weight distribution setup may interfere with your surge brake coupler causing binding that would affect surge brake operation.

#2 - Weight distribution on boat trailers require a pole-tounge-adapter which is a compromise at best for weight distribution.

Should you need to use a weight distribution set up on a boat trailer, consider changing the surge brakes over to an electric over hydraulic setup. I have run a weight distribution setup on surge brakes before and didn't like the way the brakes worked and the overall mechanical motion of the bar chains and the surge brake adapter.

 

[Eric_77]

Hold on you are probably okay you can have 650 pounds of tongue weight but you see 900 pounds of axle weight. Remember that you are working on a lever if you were talking 5th wheel hitch weights the axle weight would be close. Only way to measure would be to check at the actual hitch for a bumper pull trailer.

 

[Bug Out]

Cuddy cabin???

I have owned cuddies before. Do you have a whole bunch of stuff in the cuddy up front?



That could add extra weight to the tounge.



Just a thought.

 

[jimnance]

That's not bad. Went ever the scales with my fiver and a full load of H2O and recorded the following weights:



Front Axle 4,800

Rear Axle 6,400



Trailer Axles 11,200



Total GCVW 22,200



I'm not a dually, so I need to work on getting some weight off the rear axle and onto the trailer axles.

 

[bulabula]

Bluhaven, if your tongue weight exceeds the rating of the hitch, then the TW is to high. As said above, 5-7% is good for boats. You could also talk to the manufacturer of the trailer and ask them what they recommend for a tongue weight.



My boat/trailer is around 8700, and my tongue is around 600+ depending on how much gas is onboard. I used to run it slightly heavier with my previous F350 dooley, but lightened it up a bit with the Dodge. I slid the boat back a couple of inches. My combo pulls great, but 3 axles does help with stability.



Some options to change the distribution include moving the boat forward/aft on the trailer, moving axles forward/aft, more or less fuel onboard (@ 8lbs/gal), moving stuff inside the boat or putting it in the truck til you get there.



I've never seen any WD hitches work with surges; and beware of the uninformed RV'er who will try and convince you to install elec brakes with a WD hitch. They'll work for one or two trips if used in fresh water, I doubt they'd last one trip dunked in salt/brackish.



For fun in the sun, make sure the lights work and keep an eye on the bearings and brakes.

 

[FJfonda]

An interesting point..... our boat/trailer combo weighs in at 12,000lbs with a tongue weight of 860lbs. When I contacted the trailer manufacturer about some other problems I was having they said that the tongue weight was above the design of the trailer, so contacting the trailer manufacturer may be the best place to start for identifying the proper setup.