The Silver Streak E-mail ListArchive Files[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index] Re: [SilverStreak] towing
Vincent, No, you chain idea won't work. The most important thing when towing any trailer with anything is tongue weight. Go to the site Tom Patterson linked and read the whole thing. Read every word he wrote because it is exact, perfect, and complete. You must understand that like a crane overloaded, there is a point of no return with sway. There is usually no warning sufficient to stop the oscillation and regain control. Any application of brakes is usually sudden disaster. Loss of control is usually at 50+ mph but can be at 45mph. You can induce for sway at 40mph to find out if you have probable loss of control. So speed attention and patience for your turning a 4 hour trip into a 5 hour trip may make a lot of people behind you angry, but get you to destination. Still, that semi that passes you will try to first blow the trailer off the road but then immediately suck the trailer in behind the semi. A good cross wind being blocked by a semi passing you wants to put the trailer into the semi, then throw you off when it finally passes. You cannot control these environments. It will bite you! You must get tongue weight on your truck or the trailer is driving you and your truck. I have an anti-sway bar. You will need to attach the plate it needs and comes with beneath your hitch ball. If you did not use antiseize compound or grease on your ball threads, it probably won't come off if it is fine threaded, so be prepared to buy another ball when you have to cut off the old one. My sway bar uses a L handle which you can adjust on the fly for as much tension as you want until the trailer cannot be turned any corner. It uses two disk brake pads which the L handle clamps on both sides of the sliding bar. Relatively inexpensive and needing only one of two possible, you will get extremely good anti-sway control results. The load distribution levelers are two required. There must be a receiver installed for the bars to attach to your truck. This will require a adapter, but usually a different hitch on your truck designed for the bar system you choose. It is expensive. It will make the truck and trailer level instead of dipping down at the hitch. It will transfer the weight on the truck so as to load the trucks front wheels. It will give you more control in the form of weight on the trucks front wheels. IT WILL DO NOTHING FOR ANTI-SWAY! There is no substitute for getting a trailer nose heavy versus balanced level or tail heavy. No sway bar or anything else will overcome a level or tail heavy trailer. When you let the trailer down on your truck, and the truck does not substantially drop down (in your case) with the added weight, you do not have enough tongue weight. You don't have enough truck, because the trailer is too close to the weight of your truck, but you can safely do your tow if you follow everything Tom and the others have said about tongue weight, and spend the money to buy and use an anti-sway bar. I never use my anti-sway bar. It was a one time use when I towed my 79 Supreme Luxury Liner 3200 miles with a 78 Argosy motorhome. Not a weight factor, I had a wind factor created by towing a trailer with a motor home, which created a draft envelope on the trailer problem, from the motor home which was destroyed with every passing semi. If you are in or near Houston, I will lend you my anti-sway bar complete system for your trip. It works. -Eddie- Houston, TX
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