Aluma Trailer

[babablackgoat]

Roughly where in Sugarland?


Understand the tongue weight. You might need a few tries to get the car situated. You want "some" weight on the tongue so the trailer doesn't wag, but not so much it squats the truck too much. Did you get a hitch weight distribution setup? That will help tremendously.

Know your tie down points. I use factory tie down locations at front with CROSSED straps, and run axle straps on the rear axle housing, with straight straps to the trailer. I've always been more conscious somebody would cut me off and don't want the race car in the back seat.

You'll have to load it and drive it at highway speed to see. Don't be surprised if it takes you a couple tries to get it in a good-enuf place.

Also, my experience is as long as you tow under about 70mph the trailer tires seem to stay pretty happy.

Hope that helps.

Fortunately in a slightly involved process, gathered info form several sources. Explained to me that tongue weights should be 10% of total load. If trailer is 1500 and car is 3400 plus gear is around 5000 plus pounds so tongue weight should be 500 plus or so pounds. In a perfect world squat would be square, all of which correlates with your comments.

Due to toolbox, could not get weight distribution.

For tiedown points, 4 are embedded into the steel and too far apart yet more can be added. For now, planning on using the tiedowns on the side.

Thank you much for above guidance and suggestion on trying at highway speed first. From industry, I am overly safety conscious and concerned with trailering. Could use someone to doublecheck how I tie the car down.

I am right next to the old sugar mill just off of Alt 90.

[BryanL]

Fortunately in a slightly involved process, gathered info form several sources. Explained to me that tongue weights should be 10% of total load. If trailer is 1500 and car is 3400 plus gear is around 5000 plus pounds so tongue weight should be 500 plus or so pounds. In a perfect world squat would be square, all of which correlates with your comments.

Due to toolbox, could not get weight distribution.

For tiedown points, 4 are embedded into the steel and too far apart yet more can be added. For now, planning on using the tiedowns on the side.

Thank you much for above guidance and suggestion on trying at highway speed first. From industry, I am overly safety conscious and concerned with trailering. Could use someone to doublecheck how I tie the car down.

I am right next to the old sugar mill just off of Alt 90.

Few comments/suggestions for research.

-Believe the rule of thumb is 10-15% of load should be the tongue weight depending on the trailer type. You will have more than 5k lbs by the time it's all said and done.

-How are the tie downs too far apart yet you are going to use something wider on the side? I'm missing something. Featherlite has made tons of trailers and I wouldn't imagine the tiedowns being in a spot that doesn't work for our cars. I would also question the strength of whatever you are hooking it to on the side as I doubt it's rated as high as the built in's which are probably 5k each.

-Research whether you should cross the straps or call your dealer about proper tie down setup and side strength.

-Factory hitch ratings will likely be different depending on whether you are using a weight distribution versus regular and just because a hitch has a rating on it doesn't mean the truck has the same rating.

-I have a hitch with a built in tongue weight scale that I can bring if you want to verify at Hallett. I may not be using it as I have a WD setup to get setup but not too concerned with the weight I tow now.

-CAT scales are at truck stops, you can get an app on your phone and it's $12 to weigh. You put it on the scale so you get the front and rear axle weights of the truck and the weight of the trailer.

-Comments are all right on and about using an axle strap for the rear and being careful with the brake lines. For the front you can get a hook for the factory tie down location, loop a strap over a lower control arm (alignment), hook it through a spoke on the wheel (seems sketchy to me), strap all the way through a wheel or tie downs that go over the wheel.

-Get it set, drive some to see how it feels, check tie down straps and move weight around as needed. It's been interesting watching the tongue weight scale move depending on where the car is loaded along with extra sets of wheels, fuel, dirt bikes, gear, etc.

Staying below 70 is good advice as most trailer tires are only rated to 68 and over 70 seems to be when trailers start wanting to whip around depending on tongue weight, tow vehicle weight/wheelbase, and wind conditions. There are good videos from manufacturers and some DIY youtube people about how to measure and figure out your setup. But you start measuring your front and rear wheelwells of truck and get the trailer level to determine where you need to start with your hitch height and then start measuring after hooking up and loading the car (make sure the trailer is hooked to the truck before loading-hah), then adjusting where the car is loaded to see how much drop the truck has.
Anything you have in the truck bed at the axle or behind also is considered tongue weight. Think about what you can load in the car - I put fuel jugs in the back with some other odds/ends, tools in the passenger seat area. You might want to put a jack and stands in the car.

I just went through a lot of this learning process over the last year even though I've towed open trailers for over 30 years and enclosed for over 10 but getting the tongue weight scale and a CAT scale was an eye opener...and now have a trailer 3k lbs lighter than before.