Do I need a Weight Distribution Hitch?

[n36078]

I am picking up up a Zinger 19RD at the end of the month. Empty weight is about 3700 pounds. My tow vehicle is a 2002 F150 with a V6. It is rated for 4700 pounds towing weight. I picked up a weight distribution hitch at a garage sale but I am thinking that it is a little much for this trailer. The bars are Reese V-4 and appear to be for a 1200 pound tongue weight. I recently used a tow dolly to pull a 2000 pound car with a regular ball and had no problems.



Do I need to get a weight distribution hitch or can I pull it with a regular ball? Should I try simple first and upgrade the hitch later? The trip home from the RV store is about30 miles with nothing over 55 mph. I can run it all at 45 if I want to.



DaveEdited by: n36078

[salda01]

I would venture to guess that ball weight on the 19RD is higher than the tow dolly, as the set up is completely different with the car residing on the rear wheels. Hook it up and see if you have more than a 2-3" drop on the rear, if so you'll need something to re-distribute the weight to the front tires of your TV

[Stan]

Something else a weight dist hitch will do for you is to lessen the up and down articulation of the hitch connection when you go over bumps and rough highways. Without the hitch you will really bounce which is NOT good for the tow vehicle OR the RV. I would spend the money and get the proper hitch and proper spring bars. You will notice a big difference even if the rear doesn't sag when connected to just the ball receiver.

[happycampers]

Keep in mind the weight of the cargo. I see on the CR site that the hitch weight is 535lbs. All of your cargo/propane and holding tanks and anything in the bed of the truck need to be considered. It adds up faster than you think. A WDH will not only help to spread the weight but can improve the handling of the TV. It will also save some wear and tear on TV. Try it without the WDH and try it with. The WDH you have may be a little overkill but nonetheless it will still work fine. My suggestion: If you didn't have a WDH, try getting by without it, but since you have it you may as well use it. It can't make it any worse.

[drcook]

One thing that I have read about weight distribution hitches is that you make sure you are not overrated for the trailer being towed. There are posts on the web about bending trailer frames on the smaller units by using too much of a WD hitch.



You probably should do some calling and checking prior to hooking up your trailer. Maybe look into either selling that hitch, or seeing if you can get some bars that are not quite so hefty.

[Shawn]

Just to let you know I have a 2008 F150 4.2L V6 and a 2009 Zinger 19Rd. The truck pulls it fine. I did buy a sway bar to help with the sway. Just remember that you wont be going 70 mph on the interstate. I cruise about 60 and do okay. Gas mileage sucks I get 10MPG. You need to buy a trany cooler that will help a lot.
have fun and enjoy.
Shawn

[n36078]

Thanks for all of the input. I had seen a warning about using too much of a weight dist hitch and that prompted me to look at what I had. I think I will contact Reese and get their opinion. I want to find out what I have as it is not one of the current models. I was wrong on the arms part number, they are V-5, not V-4.



I hadn't considered that the hitch would help control bouncing. I am not too worried about the tongue weight pushing the truck down but the bounce contol is a good reason to the the hitch. I will definitely be going with some kind of WD hitch system. Mine will probably go out in the garage sale this summer. For what I paid I won't lose any money on it.



I'll also look into a tranny cooler. I think the truck has one but I have never looked. It looks like the tow limit is from the engine/tranny combo and not a frame or suspension issue. That 10mpg is not going to be fun. I was expecting about 12 as the truck does 17mpg emptyon a good day.



Dave

[ed n star]

[drcook]

summit racing has really good prices on coolers and such. I will be buying a bigger one for my diesel truck in a couple weeks. I would check into if they have one you can use. it is at least a good price point check



www.summitracing.com



additionally air bags could help the suspension out if need be.



also look into an MSD (multiple spark discharge) ignition for your truck (I am unfamiliar with the new gas engines so I don't know for sure if there is one that is compatible with it). I put one on my 454 and picked up a couple miles per gallon plus it e-checks (smog checking here in Ohio) cleaner than a lot of V-6's. I also had one of the 5.0 mustangs that would get 30 mpg running one of them as long as I wasn't really accelerating it hard.



If you look inside a Nascar race car you will see MSD boxes. I started playing around with them when I was into hot-rods. What they do is make the engine thinks it has multiple spark plugs like the exotic race car engines. They will fire the plugs up to 22 times per each ignition cycle ramping up to one big fat spark in higher rpms. This burns up all the available fuel. When a gas engine fires, the flame front goes racing across the top of the piston away from the spark plug and some unburnt fuel gets sucked back behind the flame front. By hitting the mixture over and over, you get a more complete/efficient combustion cycle. If you do a lot of driving it doesn't take long to recover the costs of the box.

[fixit5561]

Another note on the tranny cooler. Im a member of a Ford forum and alot of them that tow over on that board swear by the Tru-Cool transmission coolers. You may want to do a search on it and find the cooler that will best fit the towing capacity of your truck. They all most ly go with the largest cooler that Tru-Cool makes, I think it is a 22,000 GVW cooler.



Also alot of them go with the 6.o ford tranny cooler but they are hard to find and when you do find them they are expensive.



Just make sure you get a large enough cooler for your application.



On my Navigator I didnt go with a cooler as mine had one already but it was buried pretty far down behind the bumper, it got air but not much. So I cut the lines and moved it in front of the grill and also added a pusher fan to it with a temperature switch and a switch inside the truck so I can turn it on anytime I feel it is getting hot and needs the extra cooling.Edited by: fixit5561

[rv-rick]

Just remember that the tongue weight listed in the brochure is dry weight. i.e. empty. That is no water, no propane, etc. The only way to know for sure is to have it weighed. On mine the tongue weight varies between 582 and 615 #, depending on whether I carry water in the tank. The fresh water tank is all the way up front under the bed. That is probably at or over the max tongue weight allowed on your truck. Better safe than sorry.

BTW: with a full tank the tongue weight is over 700# on mine loaded for travel.

No, I don't travel with it full. I just checked because I was curious.

[n36078]

I contacted Reese and did a little more searching so now I know what I have. The bits that I didn't recognize area model 26000 sway control kit. Reese suggested that the 1200# bars should be replaced for a 535# TW. Looking at the web sites these bars are listed for 600-1200# TW so I am not going to get rid of them right away. I will hold off until I knowwhat the real tongue weight is. I would buy new 800#bars but newReese trunnions are not compatible with older models. Time to watch craigslist.



The sway control is missing the U-bolts so it will cost about $70 (ouch) to put that in place. It looks like a good idea.



We pick up the trailer on Saturday so I am just going to toss all of the parts in the truck and talk to the dealer about what to use.



Pictures of the parts are at http://www.nieuport11.com/hitch/.



Dave

[we-canoe]

With the chains you can adjust the amount of distribuation to the front. Measure the bumper heights (front & back),hitch up trailer,measure again,now play with the WDH until the front & rear go down about the same (more rear ok). On my last trailer,it was a lite weight 28 foot with a 2" ball (yes 2"), I used or WDH on our 3/4 ton TV for the sake of the bounce AND some sway control (also because it was there).