School me on towing sway bars for a truck/camper please

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  • Ranchero50

    Ultimate Member
    Dec 15, 2012
    5,411
    Hagerstown MD
    My advice is to go RV shopping on a rainy day and spend an hour with your other in the box to see if it's really big enough for what you want to deal with. I built Micro-Mini NPR RV for my folks after they hated dragging this 1706 micro mini with a '03 F-250. Went from 10 mpg with the truck to 14.5 with the NPR diesel and it can park in town. It's around 11k lbs wet. The only downside is the box is a little too small for staying inside all day. This thing may make the trip to Alaska within a year or two and commercial duty means well built.





     

    salopez

    Active Member
    Apr 11, 2011
    415
    Mt airy Md
    You should be looking at the camera gvw not dry weight. You are woefully overestimating your minivan in an emergancy situation. There are so many full size suvs flipped overcinvthe median every weekend.

    Personally I use a crew cab dually to pull my 5th wheel at 11k lbs, which is within specs of many new 1/2 ton trucks and that's just crazy to me.

    A buddy uses the same style truck to pull his 7900 lbs toyhauler with weight distribution and feels it's not enough truck. This is coming from guys that tow big stuff every day for work. We. Both own asphalt companies.... so 30k plus pound towing daily.
     

    welder516

    Deplorable Welder
    MDS Supporter
    Jun 8, 2013
    27,306
    Underground Bunker
    I too feel the OP has too small of a tow vehicle for what trailer he wants , to be honest he would need to tow a small teardrop trailer or a small pop-up trailer
     

    midnightSGT

    Active Member
    Oct 17, 2013
    756
    Calvert County
    Another thing to look at. Does the trailer have brakes on both axles? Some manufactures only put brakes on the front axle, if not you may want to get them installed to help braking.
     

    cobra

    Ultimate Member
    Feb 26, 2009
    2,058
    White Marsh
    FWIW I tow a 26’ with f250 useing equalizer w d/sway bar set up.
    Before I upgraded from a 150 this set up worked fine.
    Only reason for buying the 250 is because we plan to buy a 5th wheel camper next year.
    Good thing about adding a brake controler is most are plug and play and plug into vehicles wire harness opposed to having to spice wires.

    I too think your tow vehicle is marginal for what you want to pull.
    Can never have a too large of a tow vehicle imo.
     

    1time

    Ultimate Member
    Apr 26, 2009
    2,258
    Baltimore, Md
    Plenty of good brands. Etrailers sells several models and you can compare railings.

    The water thing can be weird. My trailer has tanks in the back and the weight is biased severely to the front to account for full tanks. Sounds good but when the tanks are empty my 7000lb trailer puts a sag on my 3500 without weight distribution. I haven’t measured my tongue weight with empty tanks but I’ll guarantee it’s above the 10 to 15% that it should be.

    You will eat into your payload capacity quick that way.

    Also, you will certainly store stuff in the camper. Dishes, food, mats, water, sewage hook ups, bed clothes. Often stuff like tv’s and canopies are not included in the dry weight.

    It can be done and you have looked into this more than most. I wouldn’t buy a camper unless I could set it up and not just weigh it but weigh your vehicle, the trailer, and your vehicle with the trailer attached but the trailer not on the scale, so you get an accurate tongue weight.
     

    Mack C-85

    R.I.P.
    Jan 22, 2014
    6,522
    Littlestown, PA
    Dry weight means dry....no battery, no propane or tanks, no over 50 pounds in a flooded hot water heater. You really need to get a "road ready" weight.

    The other thing to watch is tongue weight, depending on the layout of your trailer, the tongue weight can exceed the vehicle's capacity very quickly even if the trailer weight is ok.

    Tongue weight can also vary drastically depending on fluid levels and tank locations.

    Sent from my LG-G710 using Tapatalk
     

    melikou1

    Member
    Aug 31, 2017
    43
    The 'Dena, MD
    I have a 2k lb rPod and I tow with a V8 4Runner with 7k lb. towing capacity.

    I am looking at upgrading and what you are looking at is at the maximum I am considering, and really don't want to go that high. Otherwise I'll get a tow vehicle with a higher capacity. I think I can get what I'd like in size at around 3500 lbs dry.

    Anyway, enough of my opinion...

    I use a Fastway E2 450/4500 two point model WDH/Sway hitch. Not going to say its the best because its the only one I've ever used. But it works well, and you don't have to disconnect anything to back up. Really makes a difference when a big tractor trailer blows by you going downhill off Sidling Hill on I-68.

    eTrailer is your friend...check out their resources on sway/weight distribution. They really have some excellent videos/blogs etc.

    Good luck!
     

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