# 28rss + Excursion - Went To Weigh Station Today



## chetlenox (Feb 3, 2004)

Hey all,

I did some tweaking to my hitch setup yesterday (changed the pitch of the hitch on the truck) and decided to go to the weigh station to play with the WD hitch settings and see where the weight ended up on the truck and trailer axles. I figure others with a similiar rig might be interested in the results. Here are the raw numbers:










Truck empty is unloaded, full tank of fuel, with driver. Trailer is relatively loaded, with just food and clothes requiring to go in before it's camp ready. Nothing in the tanks. "WD Setting" is which link, counting from the loose end, I hooked to the A-frame of the trailer. So higher numbers means more "umph" on the bar and more torque applied to the bars. "Delta" is the change in each axle weight on the truck as compared to empty (positive means more weight). I graphed up the results:










My summary: The whole purpose was to see what setting I should have my WD bars at, and it looks like #7 is my ticket. It's a little aggresive for the empty truck and partially loaded trailer, but once I add a few hundred pounds of stuff in the back of the truck and front of the trailer, that would give me a pretty good hitch weight distribution onto the truck, front to back. It looks like I've got about 450 pounds of clothes and food that I can pack before I hit trailer max weight, which seems about right. Truck also has another 400 pounds available. I was a little surprised the hitch weight was only 650 pounds (9.9% of the total weight), but I figure the rest of the stuff we load goes forward of the axles. So if we added 300 pounds halfway between the hitch and axles, it would actually result in ~12% hitch weight, which is just about right. One thing is for sure, you fill up the water tank with 40 gallons (320 pounds) slung way in the rear of the trailer, you are going to be light on the hitch weight! Well, at least I am.

Anyway, hope somebody gets some enjoyment out of my playing. If you happen to have an Excursion and 28RSS, you might actually find some value in the numbers.

Chet.


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## CamperAndy (Aug 26, 2004)

Wish you had done it with the fresh full as I always pull full fresh. Lots of other good info there.


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## Highlander96 (Mar 1, 2005)

I love charts and graphs......(Honest, I swear)

Thanks for the good information.

Happy Outbacking!

Tim


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## hatcityhosehauler (Feb 13, 2004)

I only have a 26RS, but I read this with anticipation, as we share a tow vehicle, and I am finding that it is difficult to find the sweet spot on the WD hitch.

I will be taking all this in consideration when I adjust again next weekend.

Tim


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## chetlenox (Feb 3, 2004)

Tim,

I was a little surprised at how big of a difference one link could make. You can see that going from link 6 to 7 moved from not having nearly enough weight on the front axle (11% raise in rear, 2% in front) to really having too much (5% rear, 6% front).

Since you can't really use the actual numbers (who knows what "link #7" means on your setup), I'd just say that #7 was a pretty healthy setting. I couldn't really manually set the bar. I had to jack up the trailer, set, and drop. It was honestly a little more "umph" than I figured I would need.

I'll probably re-measure when I'm fully loaded, just to see.

Chet.


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## hatcityhosehauler (Feb 13, 2004)

I've always counted from the cam arm up, not from the free end. When I originally set it up for the Ex, I used the suspension drop method. I just got some 1200# spring bars, and I want to set things up again, so I will do it all again....

Tim


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## DANJOGAVINMO (Apr 17, 2004)

Now this is a a guy days from sabbatical








Putting his excel skills to work for personal gain instead of slaving for the company.

Chet, do you have the arrows on the graph backwards? Front start at 4200 (in your table) or 4050 (as shown in your graph)?

If front starts at 4200 then I'd agree that link 7 is the place to be. If front starts at 4050 then I'd have to say link 6 is the best distribution of the weight between both front and rear axles.

This sort of experiment is probably really worth my time to do. Maybe I'll have to fit it in next time I hook up.

I have always had to jack the tongue in order to throw the bar up, so I am probably in an OK spot also. I think the general rule of thumb that I would give anyone is that if you can throw the bar on your WD hitch without jacking the tongue, then you don't have enough tension on it.

Danny


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## chetlenox (Feb 3, 2004)

Ha!

Sabbatical doesn't start until 7:30am tomorrow (and we leave the day after that). You are right on me swapping the colors on my chart though, I sure did. The numbers in the spreadsheet are right, the chart is right, the "Truck empty" colors are swapped.

I think your rule of thumb is correct. I have always historically been below that point. I could throw the lever arm on the WD chain by hand, but it wasn't easy. Now (at 7) I'm using my winch.

Yeah, I don't know if any of this weighing is really all that required. The suspension deflection method probably works just as well. But, like you said, I've got some time on my hands now...









Chet.

PS - I just fixed my chart colors in the original post...


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## PDX_Doug (Nov 16, 2004)

Chet,

What a great analysis!








And a real eye opener. Well done!









Happy Trails,
Doug


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## CamperAndy (Aug 26, 2004)

Chet - Now that I have looked at it some more the info is great but I need MORE. Always more right, What size bars are you using? How much angle do you have on the head? With it pulled up to 7 are the tips of the bars still below the Tongue frame? Can you buy a 2006 Ram 3500 Mega Cab with CTD and redo those weights (just kidding).

Enjoy your trip and tell us how it tows with the various settings if you get a chance.


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## RLW7302 (Feb 27, 2005)

this is great! I love this stuff.







Doesn't really apply to me, since I have a 5er, but a terrific analysis nonetheless.

One question I have ... any idea why the *total weight* changes with each weighing? It changes by as much as 100 lbs. (low of 14,800, high of 14,900) Not a big change, but seems to me that this should be constant.

Happy camping,
- Roger.


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## GoVols (Oct 7, 2005)

I'm just amazed







that your Excursion weighs over 8,000 lbs.


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## ChopperCop (Oct 2, 2005)

Chet,

Looks like we have the same TT/TV. All of your data should apply to mine too. Thanks for doing all the work.

Bob


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## PDX_Doug (Nov 16, 2004)

RLW7302 said:


> One question I have ... any idea why the *total weight* changes with each weighing? It changes by as much as 100 lbs. (low of 14,800, high of 14,900) Not a big change, but seems to me that this should be constant.


RLW,

Of course, the weight does not change, but a lot can depend on the scales and who is reading them. First of all, most of them read on 20 pound increments, which means each weight can be off by as much as 10 pounds in either direction. If you make a series of seperate axle measurements and add them up to get a total, this error can compound.

Secondly, the scales take a little time to 'settle down' after you come to a stop on the scale. If the operator is impatient, they may punch a weight before the scale has stabilized.

Happy Trails,
Doug


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## chetlenox (Feb 3, 2004)

CamperAndy: Dang it, you know, I can't remember what weight the bars are. I'll have to check. The angle, when pulled up tight, is about even with the frame on the trailer, maybe a couple of inches between them. That is what I changed on the hitch in the first place. Before my adjustment, when I pulled up tight, the WD bar would end up higher than the frame (up along side it), so I was getting some rubbing and noise. So I angled the hitch down a bit and now it's just about right. I'll give you a heads up on how it tows once I get some miles down. Oh, and I'd love to have one of those Dodge trucks to replace my little Toyota (the Excursion is my wife's)...

Roger: The total weight changes is just the margin of error. You are right, it shouldn't be changing, but it's just the sum of the three axle measurements we did on the weigh station. So obviously the weigh station has some run-to-run variability and is accurate to 50-100 pounds total (maybe 15-30 pounds per axle). Maybe we didn't get the tires in exactly the same place on the pad everytime or something...

GoVols: Yep, it's heavy. Explains why I only get 16.5 mpg in town, even with the diesel motor. I did fill up full of fuel right before we weighed, which makes a pretty big difference (44 gallon tank).

Bob: No sweat!

Now I'm off to change the oil in the truck and pack up the trailer. We leave tomorrow at 7am and won't be back until end of August. I'm estimating about 8k miles. That ought to fully test my hitch setup...









Chet.


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## OutbackPM (Sep 14, 2005)

CETLENOX

Great study to show the impact the set up can have. I noticed that when I got my 2500 the stiffer suspension made the assessment of deflection at the rear vs the front more difficult so weighing this way gets you the real numbers. 
Those diesels are not light are they!


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