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Bouncy Trailer
Having a trailer that is not level will cause it to fish all over the road and may cause the driver to lose control.
Loading a trialer is also critical because of this factor, if the weight is too far to the front which causes a sag or tilt in the front you have danger, same if there is too much weight to the rear. ALWAYS maintain a level trailer and NEVER no more than 10 to 15% of the Total Trailer weight on the Class IV ball.
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Bouncy Trailer
"Having a trailer that is not level will cause it to fish all over the road and may cause the driver to lose control."
Care to explain the logic behind that statement.
Sway is caused primarily by a lack of tongue weight, raising the tongue by even one foot would cause (on an standard 18' trailer) about the same weight reduction on the tongue as a seagull having a good dump on the back of it would cause.
Best of luck.
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Bouncy Trailer
Murf
Class IV trailer tongue weight here in the states should never exceed 15% of the GTW. If your trailer is at the max of 10,000 pounds for a Class IV, your tongue weight should not exceed, under any circumstances 1500 pounds and then you better have stabilzer bars, built up springs and weight-distributing hitch, actually when the tongue weight exceeds 500 pounds a weight-distributing hitch is recomneded. Any trailer over 5000 pounds should be dual axle. Vehicle pitch will take control away from the operator. Page 5 of the Dodge Towing Guide. Pitch causes the weight to be put unequally on different axles. too much weight to the front of the trailer will put too much weight on the back of the truck and thus, raise the front of the truck and put unecessary weight on bearings, springs etc of the trucks rear axle, this can cause uncontrollable sway of the trailer and loss of steering traction for the truck. Too much weight to the rear of the trailer takes the weight off of the ball and cause the rear of the truck to lift. Ball weight should never be less than 10% or more than 15% on a Class IV, if the ball weiegh is decreased it causes the truck to lift in the rear and lose traction, bumps will mulitply this loss and may cause loss of control of vehicle. If you are going to give advice to raise the ball, that is up to you. I give adivce I know is SAFE and correct. a proper loaded trailer is 60% in front of the trailer axle, 40% to the rear. should be level. load should be balanced from side to side. Tongue weight should not be less than 10% of the gross trailer weight nor should it exceed more than 15%. to determine tongue weight try this. king pins can go to 25%. Place a board over a piece of pipe on a household scale and a piece of pipe on a brick. Place the trailer tongue on the board two feet from the center of the scale and one foot from the center of the brick. Take the scale reading and multiply by three, that will equal the tongue weight.
I suggest anyone who plans on towing to either go to the dealer where their truck came from and ask to view the towing guides or you can stop at your local DMV and obtain the same. What they do in Canada, I have no idea.
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Bouncy Trailer
I forgot to add,
You will have far greater success with backing up accuracy if the trailer is level than if it has a pitch, either up or down. Try it at home with a trailer and your tractor.
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Bouncy Trailer
Here with the farm machinery as long as the rear bumper caster wheels aren't touching when the jack comes down we go! I do stress 5 mile an hour increases to see what speed is the max available but sometimes thats more then the difference between clean and brown underwear.
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Art
I hear ya.... I hate the vehicles that bend in the middle. I had a trailer come right up along beside me once, I still had about 5 miles of Snowy mountain left to go down and the ole rule of the truckers thumb was step on the gas to get the trailer back behind you.  , when the pucker factor is whistling and everything says BRAKE, whew! I just got an adreline high thinking about it again.
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Art
I use to load trailers with Ordnance in the Marines. We use to haul bombs (500 pound MK 82s, 6 to a pallet) from the dump to the flight line some 8 miles away. We hauled missles, small arm ammo, artillery rounds etc and we would sometimes have five trailers hooked up to one an another behind the ole MJ-deuce. I will tell you one thing, when they weren't loaded right you would know it real quick.
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Bouncy Trailer
Ah see, there's the problem, the question was "How do I stop my EMPTY trailer from bouncing around so much?".
The devil lives in the details, the right answer to the wrong question is still wrong.....
Best of luck.
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Murf
Have you got a problem with me? Have I offended you or soemthing?
Your reply was a very dangerous reply and raising the ball a foot, depending on so many factors may increase the ball weight tremendously or if a single axle trialer with the weight of the trailer too much to the rear could decrease. either way a foot is ridiculous.
My answer was for loaded or empty. keep it level or better yet, talk to the trailer rep who sold you the trailer for their BEST recommnedations. How is that? want to argue that too? What you all do in Canada, as I said, I have no idea, but your suggestion could land somebody in jail here for liable charges. My answer was right from a Towing Guide Book, got a problem, take it up with Dodge.
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Points given: That can influence ride when empty.
- Tongue height. I like to select a reciever that is level when empty. If like you say it gets better when loaded, it may be a little low and as the springs flatten out it improves.
- Tongue weight. If you do not have enough tongue weight when empty it can get better with load. If the trailer is light it does not have enough mass to sway the truck only bounce.
- If this is a new trailer I would check the alignment of the axels on the dual axel trailer. Like the alignment on the car tire scuff can cause the tires to bounce and through the trailer in odd directions when hitting a bump. We used to see this problem a lot in the Easy Loader type boat trailers as the axels are bolted on with U bolts and can slide if they loosen up.
- Wheel balance, you can check but in general I have not had much feed back to the truck. Sometimes to the determent of the tires.
- Do you have the towing package on the 150? My F150 towed the equipment trailer fine.
- Tire pressure. I carry a tank with me and the pump. With an inverter you can run a AC pump also.
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