First time on CAT scales with PB and TT (2250rk)

[goducks14]

The low RAWR on F150's and most all 1/2 tons is the reason I went to a 3/4 ton truck 11 years ago. It's no fun trying to shave a pound here and there to go camping. Camping's about getting away and having fun. Having to worry about 50-100 lbs is not my idea of fun. I'm currently in a Ram 3500 CTD towing a 9600lb TT. Overkill? Heck yeah. Fun? Heck yeah. I've got 4558lbs for CCC. Not much I couldn't tow or carry. Still get 20+ empty at 70 and 11-12 mpg towing.
This year we did a family camp trip. We took 3 GK's ranging in ages from 12 to 19. Being all girls they packed some stuff too. Truck bed was full of stuff for river floating as well as our normal camp gear. It could've been just the wife and I as far as the truck was concerned.
IMO get the most truck you can and you never have to go to the scales.

[mkevinmarshsr]

I'm running the exact same setup (TT & hitch) on a GMC 1500. it was mentioned adjusting your hitch to put more weight on the front. I think that is the right move, if you read the R6 instructions your front and rear should lower the same or close to it. If I'm loaded with water and other gear I'm over 100 to 200# GVWR but usually a couple hundred under weight but my truck has a 1730# payload and 3950 # limit for each axel. I personally don't believe you need to build in extra safety margin as i believe the manufacture already did it. If they didn't it would be the first thing ever engineered where the max is also the breaking point. What i have works for this trailer but i have a Ram 3500 on order because we plan to upgrade to a fifth wheel in a few years.

[goducks14]

Ford says nothing about lowering the front and rear to be equal. What they do state is to hit a target factor of 50% for the front. The rear is what ever it is.
In fact they never mention the rear when calculating how to set up a WDH.

Page 42.
https://www.fleet.ford.com/content/d...owingGuide.pdf

[mkevinmarshsr]

Ford says nothing about lowering the front and rear to be equal. What they do state is to hit a target factor of 50% for the front. The rear is what ever it is.
In fact they never mention the rear when calculating how to set up a WDH.

Page 42.
https://www.fleet.ford.com/content/d...owingGuide.pdf

If Ford made the hitch I would say do what they say. Recurve instructions state "Both the front and rear dimensions should decrease approximately the same amount for a properly distributed weight". This is different from other hitches from what I've seen. Doing anything else is not following the manufacturers recommendations.

[goducks14]

If Ford made the hitch I would say do what they say. Recurve instructions state "Both the front and rear dimensions should decrease approximately the same amount for a properly distributed weight". This is different from other hitches from what I've seen. Doing anything else is not following the manufacturers recommendations.

Recurve WDH is for any vehicle. I would never violate what my vehicle recommends. Fords tow guide specs are for Ford not for Equalizer, Blue Ox, Curt, etc. If Ford designed their vehicles to tow a certain way then the WDH must adhere to that. An F150 has no clue what WDH is being used. It reacts to how it is hitched not by what it is hitched with.
So you're telling me that Curt knows more than Ford?

[CWSWine]

My reply was to the poster that recommending getting the truck's weight when empty.

It would make more sense to me to weight the truck the way you going to tow. Which would include people and cargo and even with the WD hitch installed on the truck. That would give you a realistic weight that what's left over for allowable tongue weights. If you weight empty you have to add in all the people and cargo then figure how it relates to GVWR and GAWR after applying the tongue weight.

[jadatis]

You can not simply determine the hichweight , by substracting axleweights , with and without TT, when using WDH.
To law the hichweight counts as weighed off the TV, or without using WDH, by comparing
Total weight TV with and without TT atached.

[callagp7552]

I believe I've read through all the replies but I apologize if I missed someone else mentioning this. I had a 2020 F150 so maybe Ford changed something but if not don't rely on the anti-sway\protection built into the truck. One time when towing in high wind heading West on I90 the truck suddenly lost power and started beeping. I had a pretty big oh sh** moment thinking something major just went. Looking down at the dash I saw the info center saying something along the lines of "Sway detected, slow down". My take is that the truck will only remove power if it detects significant sway. There is no other proactive sway mitigation it offers. I would always use whatever anti-sway system the hitch has and the truck as a failsafe if there is enough sway the hitch can't handle.

We have since upgraded to a F350 which has a GVWR of 11,500. Adding up the individual GAWRs I get 12,430. I believe our 150 was the same in that the individual axle ratings were more than the 7050 GVRW.

[mkevinmarshsr]

Recurve WDH is for any vehicle. I would never violate what my vehicle recommends. Fords tow guide specs are for Ford not for Equalizer, Blue Ox, Curt, etc. If Ford designed their vehicles to tow a certain way then the WDH must adhere to that. An F150 has no clue what WDH is being used. It reacts to how it is hitched not by what it is hitched with.
So you're telling me that Curt knows more than Ford?

I would say Yes curt knows more than ford about a hitch they make. I doubt anyone at Ford has done any testing with the R6.

I have the R6 and I can tell you when I set it up putting weight on the front end and not removing weight from the front end (what they said to do in the instructions) it made towing a lot better.

[Redapple63]

I would say Yes curt knows more than ford about a hitch they make. I doubt anyone at Ford has done any testing with the R6.

I have the R6 and I can tell you when I set it up putting weight on the front end and not removing weight from the front end (what they said to do in the instructions) it made towing a lot better.

I would agree. The nature of bumper towing put weight on the rear behind the rear axle and as such the proportions of front to rear are far from optimal, in some cases not safe.

Common rule of thumb is that’s minimum of 50% of the weight deflected by the wdh back to the front makes it SAFE, but not necessarily optimal. A return of as much as possible ( within the limits of the hitch and amount of weight involved) is my rule of thumb.