WDH too strong?

[Rzrbrn]

I have a Big Foot 25RQ. I am loading it now for the first trip in it. I have not yet weighed it because it is not fully loaded. I have a Sherline Scale which I will use to weigh the tongue, after the TT is loaded.

I bought a Blue Ox sway pro 1500. I probably should have bought the 1000 lb arms instead.

Assuming the final tongue weight is, for the sake of this question, 800 lbs.

Can I still use the 1500 lb arms? Will it be unsafe to do so?

I have never used the Blue OX WDH.

My previous trailer was a Casita and I used the Andersen WDH for sway control.

[Perryb67]

Originally Posted by Rzrbrn

I have a Big Foot 25RQ. I am loading it now for the first trip in it. I have not yet weighed it because it is not fully loaded. I have a Sherline Scale which I will use to weigh the tongue, after the TT is loaded.

I bought a Blue Ox sway pro 1500. I probably should have bought the 1000 lb arms instead.

Assuming the final tongue weight is, for the sake of this question, 800 lbs.

Can I still use the 1500 lb arms? Will it be unsafe to do so?

I have never used the Blue OX WDH.

My previous trailer was a Casita and I used the Andersen WDH for sway control.

Our 25RQ had 950#'s of tongue weight and we used 1,000# bars. If you have the storage box on front you'll probably go over 1,000'#s. If you do only have 800#'s I would not use the 1,500# bars. The bars are intended to bend to work properly.

We've had a number of WDH's and the Blue Ox is by far the easiest and cleanest hitch we've ever owned. Sold the 25RQ when we got a smoking deal on a Lance (mistake for us) and now have an Escape 5th wheel, but if we ever go back to a pull the Blue Ox will be our WDH.

Enjoy,

Perry

[Rzrbrn]

Thanks you Perry, very much appreciated. I will wait and measure the tongue weight after it is fully loaded.

[Civilguy]

Originally Posted by Rzrbrn

Assuming the final tongue weight is, for the sake of this question, 800 lbs.

Can I still use the 1500 lb arms? Will it be unsafe to do so?

Henry,

I'm not sure what you mean by unsafe. I don't think that using heavier springs would impose any driving or handling hazards per se.

Springs which are too strong will definitely impose greater stresses on the trailer, the hitch assemblies, and the tow vehicle's frame or unibody structure. This would be especially true when you crossed a low point such as when crossing a low gutter as you enter a driveway approach.

Someone had been running 1,000 lb bars on our Casita with an Eaz-Lift WDH. That was far too strong as we ran a maximum of about 400 lbs tongue weight on the Casita. I looked into lighter bars; 600 lb bars were available. Ultimately, I just never used the WDH as the Audi handled the trailer so well without one.

I've pondered using a WDH with the Escape 21 on our JGC. As we have been running between 500 to 550 lbs on the tongue weight I've looked into hitches with bars rated on the order of 400 lbs to reduce the stresses, realizing that this would in turn reduce the amount of weight transfer achieved.

Jeep calls for using a WDH when the tongue weight exceeds 500 lbs. The maximum tow ratings are 720 / 7,200. We don't have substantial "squat". We are currently well within our towing, payload, axle and gross weight ratings. So, I figure that using 400 lb bars might be satisfactory in our case.

While the idea of using springs with a lower rating is just a bit of theorizing on my part, I do think that using overly-heavy springs would impose some excess stresses.

[Rzrbrn]

Thanks Mike. I may just use the 1500's this season and see how harsh a ride it is.