When tongue is loaded ... packing to compensate?

ChanW

Ok, I try hard to keep our Tab's tongue weight at the conventional norm, using the "10% rule", and it works well that way for towing stability.

All you folks that load up your tongue with the spare tire, the diamond plate tongue box, and the platform with lotsa stuff, what do you put in the back of the Tab to balance it out?

Before we moved the tire to the tongue, it was pretty easy packing the Tab, and moving the load around inside to achieve @ 220# tongue weight.

Now that the tire is forward of the axle, I'll have around an 70# difference to adjust for, and I'm having a hard time imagining what we can put behind the axle that will compensate.

A whole lotta canned goods? (I hate canned food) 

Verna

Chan, I left my spare tire under the rear, especially since I added approximately 60 lbs with the 2nd battery. I had my "pantry" of canned goods and staples under the sofa for part of my trip. When I put my fall/winter clothes away, I decided to put the clothes under the sofa and the "pantry" in the back seat of the truck.  I think two duffle of packed full of clothes was a better solution for me than the "pantry". The T@B just handles better. 

This didn't answer your question except to say that you don't need as much weight to compensate as you might think, or that your calculations show. My opinion and others may vary. 

ChanW

Thanks Verna. I s'pose we ought to try packing it, in its new configuration, before I go working myself up about it. 

The problem we've had all along is that the majority of the stowage space in the Tab is under the bed, and we usually keep the bed made up when we're traveling. Undoing the tucked in sheets et-al to access the storage is a PITA. Maybe I'll try to solve that access challenge for starters.

ScottG

ChanW said:

...
A whole lotta canned goods? (I hate canned food) 

How 'bout some canned beverages? Probably want to let them settle a bit once you get to camp, though...

We use the under-seat space for large items that come out when we get to camp, and go back when we leave (e.g., awnings, folding chairs and tables, water jug, portable stove. Still might be a PITA for you though, if you're not making up the bed with each arrival. We mostly leave the bed up as well, but use light sleeping bags--less comfortable, but easy to toss aside for access to storage or conversion to benches.

I haven't weighed the tongue since relocating the spare, but plan to do so in the near future and will report back.

Verna

Chan, I think one of those cargo doors would be a great solution. Since I no longer keep my bed made up, it is much easier to get to the under sofa storage, so I understand. Sunny Day doesn't care as long as she has her/my afghan to lay on! 

And, try some practice tows at your normal towing speed to see what works. You might like staple foods under the sofa (flour, pancake mix, syrup, etc.) or just spare stuff. As long as it fits through cargo door, it may find a home

Mouseketab

Love my Cargo doors! I do it a bit differently.... I put my water hoses in the passenger cargo door and my electric cord(s) in the driver cargo door. I have a food box that goes in the truck for dry food/cans, and a cooler for soft drinks. Then the food box and cooler goes on the ground under the clamshell kitchen while camping. (They are just at the right height to slide under and the trailer prevents the lids from opening).

It makes simple overnighters really easy, don't have to dig in the truck, just open the cargo door, pull out the electric cord and plug in.

ChanW

My thought exactly. 
I was just looking the Tab over again for that cargo door idea. 

Verna said:

As long as it fits through cargo door, it may find a home

Yeah we definitely need a simpler bedding system. It just might be the key. The cozy mattress pad/tucked-in-sheet routine should go. It's too much hassle, especially after a long day of driving, and a couple of glasses of wine... 

ScottG said:

We mostly leave the bed up as well, but use light sleeping bags--less comfortable, but easy to toss aside for access to storage or conversion to benches.

ChanW

Carol, you were able to fit a cargo door on the driver's side? Cool, jealous.

On the LG Tab, the Alde takes up a lot of space on the driver's side. I don't know if it would be worth putting one in over there.

Mouseketab said:

Love my Cargo doors! I do it a bit differently.... I put my water hoses in the passenger cargo door and my electric cord(s) in the driver cargo door. 

Verna

Chan, it's hard to believe that a 2"-3" Thermorest is more comfortable than the 3" memory foam. I do put the twin bottom and top sheets on the Thermorest, and then the blanket. In the morning, I fold the sheets and blanket and put them in a pillow case. I let the air out of the Thermorest, force more out, then fold it up, tie it up and put it and the stuffed pillowcase behind the sofa. I'm done in about 5 minutes....depending on whether Sunny Day decides it's playtime.

Ratkity

I have to 2nd Verna on the 2-3" thermarest vs 3" memory foam for comfort. I still keep my bed in the same place, but only because I'm lazy (it's made up for zombie visits though!). 

Mouseketab

ChanW said:

Carol, you were able to fit a cargo door on the driver's side? Cool, jealous.

On the LG Tab, the Alde takes up a lot of space on the driver's side. I don't know if it would be worth putting one in over there.

Mouseketab said:

Love my Cargo doors! I do it a bit differently.... I put my water hoses in the passenger cargo door and my electric cord(s) in the driver cargo door. 

I don't have an alde or a furnace in mine, so plenty of storage room in that back driver section. The door on the driver side is smaller, but still plenty big to stuff the power cord in there. The door on the passenger side is about the size of an outdoor shower.

ScottG

Following up on my previous post, I just weighed out at 209 lbs. That's with the spare mounted on the tongue, a full propane tank, a group 27 battery, water in the Alde tank, and the aforementioned gear stashed under the rear seat. I did not have food in the fridge, or water in fresh water tank (which appears pretty well balanced over the axle). Seems like I'm close, but not too close, to the limit prescribed by the 10-15% rule.

Unfortunately, I did not weigh the tongue before relocating the spare, so I can't comment specifically on the impact of shifting that load to the front--at least not without some heady physics calculations, or wrestling the wheel back under the rear end. Neither of those are likely to happen...  :-)

ChanW

Thanks for the research ScottG. I'll let you know how mine works out. I did weigh it before moving the spare, and my fresh water tank (5 gal) is under the sink, so we'll see...

Verna

The spare tire shipping weight is 38 lbs.

ChanW

Verna, I wish it were that simple...

I'd need to calculate the weight based on how far from the axle the spare was/is, further complicated by the fact that it's vertical now, instead of horizontal. I know, I know, just measure from the center of the tire... Maybe. B-)

And then there's the additional mounting hardware.

Am I going overboard with this?!? Heh. You betcha!

Verna

Chan.....my Silver Shadow was easy compared to your T@B. 

ChanW

  

ScottG

ChanW said:

Verna, I wish it were that simple...

I'd need to calculate the weight based on how far from the axle the spare was/is, further complicated by the fact that it's vertical now, instead of horizontal. I know, I know, just measure from the center of the tire... Maybe. B-)

And then there's the additional mounting hardware.

Am I going overboard with this?!? Heh. You betcha!

And don't forget the distance from the load to the bearing (i.e., spare tire to coupling). The good news is I'm pretty sure the orientation of the tire makes no difference--just consider it a point load determined at its center of mass.

Arghhhh! There's those heady physics equations.

I think it would be quicker to return the spare to its original mount. But, then...wouldn't it be cool to see how close your calculations come to your empirical measurements?! Let us know what you find out.  :-)

ChanW

ScottG Actually I always did like physics. I'm sure I'd have to account for the pitch that the rig is descending or acsending, and then there's the crown of the road, relative to my tire alignment... But I think I'll just get out the bathroom scale.   

TerryV6

Well, we weighed our camper at a local scale and got the results.  Then I weighed the tongue with our Sherline scale.  What you see in our photo is what we would like to travel with.  First, we did add the platform, but the boxes contain little of serious weight.  We upgraded to a 60 pound group 27 battery.  





My tongue weight comes to about 310...  I was told that this was okay.  

The only thing that I had to jettison was our tiremount and spare, which were about 50 pounds.  I was hoping to keep this.  Oh well,,  

The only reason I am posting in this discussion was the idea of adding two of my wife's 20 pound weights to go under the backbench..  Maybe this is okay or would make a difference?  Thoughts?

DougH

Instead of adding dead weight, a couple AGM batteries?

MuttonChops

TerryV6 said:

. . . tongue weight comes to about 310...  I was told that this was okay.  

The only thing that I had to jettison was our tire mount and spare, which were about 50 pounds.  I was hoping to keep this.  Oh well,,  

The only reason I am posting in this discussion was the idea of adding two of my wife's 20 pound weights to go under the backbench..  Maybe this is okay or would make a difference?  Thoughts?

Two questions or thoughts.
First.  Why did you remove the front mount spare - - - space, weight, other?
If removed for weight - - - how did you make that decision?

Second.  Assuming you are adding the two 20# weights because you wish to have them along not due to need to change tongue weight (trailer load distribution).  Without the added 40# your 310# tongue weight is 13.4% of the loaded T@B GW.  Well within the 10-15% range.  Believe adding the 40# will have minor impact on tongue weight, new tongue weight will be around 303# or 12.8% of new T@B GW.

Calculations (estimated distances)
Disclaimer - - has been years since doing moments of force calculations - - use at own risk

Marceline

Ratkity said:

I have to 2nd Verna on the 2-3" thermarest vs 3" memory foam for comfort. I still keep my bed in the same place, but only because I'm lazy (it's made up for zombie visits though!). 

And the Exped Megamat is even more comfortable but it’s not cheap. 

TerryV6

@MuttonChops,
I removed the mount and spare because of the tongue weight concern.  As you can see, without them, I'm at over 300 pounds.   If I added them back, I'm probably going up to 375.  We like the bike rack so it is going to stay.  I thought I had to make a choice and keep the tongue weight lower.  10% of 2320 ( the weight of the trailer with bikes and rack) is of course 232 pounds.  Now, if it is safe to add another 60 pounds of trailer weight, I'm all for it.  Better than putting the spare in the front of the truckbed...

On the otherhand, I can always put the spare back when I'm not using the bikes..  It is an easy two bolt clamp setup...

I only mentioned the hand weights because at the beginning of this discussion, ChanW mentioned counter balancing the load and we had these weights..  Not that I want to lift them.  I kinda figured that those weights would not do much..  I will of course study your chart....

TerryV6

Just one final question on this...  I know the tongue weight limitation of 10-15 percent of the weight of the trailer.  Does the addition of a good TV like my truck add into this for me at all...?  ( just trying to find out if the addition of the the tire and mount could still be added because of it.)  I am thinking it doesn't it....

Luckyj

This is an interesting post, like many others on the subjects

just a reminder.  Tongue weight at 10% is a minimum target so that it is not under weight.  Fishtailing will mostly happen when the weight is to light.  The real limitation for the tongue being over weight, is TV hitch load capacity.  But as a rule of thumb, it should not exceed 15%.  So you have fudge factor here, if your TV can deal with it. More than that, could also provoque stability issues if your TV is not able to support it.

 The other thing about having to much weight, is the capacity of the trailer frame to support it.  So again, the frame design should be made with the up tp 15% in wieght, but they would inclued a safety factor to this (and this is not official at all nore base on experience) of let say up to 25%  before failure.

Hope this help with the reflexion on this topic.

have fun outhere!  

MuttonChops

TerryV6 said:

. . .  the tongue weight limitation of 10-15 percent of the weight of the trailer.  Does the addition of a good TV like my truck add into this for me at all...?  ( just trying to find out if the addition of the the tire and mount could still be added because of it.)  I am thinking it doesn't it....

Your RAM 1500 most likely has a 1,000# max tongue weight so Equipment Strength Wise a higher tongue weight is not an issue.  I expect your tongue weight (based on your earlier comments) with the bikes & spare will fall in the 15-18% range which does not sound concerning.

Suggest you redo your measurements as well as getting a feel for how the rig drives.

Can your local scale give you each axle weight instead of the combined TV weight?  CAT Scale locations have three pads so you can get; steering, drive, trailer axle data.

Load the rig the way you really want it {assuming hand calculations suggest you are not over any axle rating} drive over to the scale and see what you weight.  If you do boondocking and carry water don't forget to fill your water tank.
You can measure the tongue weight at home; before or after your scale trip.
You can also measure your truck fender well height with / without T@B to see how much rear drop & front lift the tongue weight is causing.

Now compare all axle data to axle GWR - - - everything have a nice margin?  Steering axle not too light?

WilliamA

When I use the CAT scale, I go through twice: first time with TV and trailer, then drop the trailer and TV only. That sorts it all out exactly including tongue weight.  They charge an extra $2 for the second drive-through.  
WilliamA 

TerryV6

The scale I went to was sectioned ( first time for me you understand), and I made sure I had the tv on one, and the disconnected trailer on another.  
So, if I understand this correctly, I should load up the truck as if we were going, and straddle two sections with the truck.  Right?  That gives more info, I suppose.  Measuring fender well height is an interesting idea.  We do notice during certain trips that the camper wheel can be more difficult to remove or replace.  

klenger

Because the tongue weight of the T@B is so low (about 230# in my case), I am able to measure it quite easily at home with a bathroom scale.  With the trailer not connected to the TV and level, I simply put the bathroom scale under the tongue with blocks to bring it within a inch or so of the tongue, then drop the tongue on the scale and get the weight.  I prefer this to multiple weighings at the CAT scale because of simplicity and I can do it at home at any time in just a few minutes. With the scale I use, if I attach the blocks before I turn it on, it zeros out the weight of the blocks when I turn it on, providing an accurate tongue weight to within a pound or two.  Keep in mind that the CAT scales resolution is about 10 pounds or so I believe, so the bathroom scale provides a more accurate weight.

ChanW

We use the bathroom scale too, but now, after all these years of 'refining' our camping gear, I'm thinking I would also like to know the gross weight of the Tab after it's packed to go.

All those little 'comfort additions' might just be adding up!