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different WD hitch comparisons

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We have a 22 ft bumper pull toy hauler and as anyone pulling a TH knows they are heavy compared to a similar travel trailer especially tongue weight. Ours, while being rather short, weighs in between 7400 and 8700 lbs depending on toys, water and fuel in the fueling station, but usually has 1100+ on the tongue. Our old hitch, a Eaz-Lift 1,000/10,000 has always been a bit over loaded on the tongue but not gross and has shown no signs of damage. But now our TH is in the shop getting the tongue extended about 24 inches so that we can place our Yamaha gen, new air compressor and the usual batteries, propane cylinders and electric tongue jack out front, with the additional length AND weight a new heavier hitch is called for. Until I get it back and can weigh it I'm guessing I need a hitch rated around 1,400/14,000. While I'm very familiar with round bar WD hitches using chains I'm thinking of maybe going to a trunnion type with either bars or chains. Has anybody out there used both and can give me some type of comparison between those two kinds?

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Cant give you much of a comparison, but I have the trunion style wirh bars and I also run a sway contol bar. WD helps tremendously esp when I get up over 10k on my trailer. I had never towed with one before, up until about a year and a half ago. Only regret I have is not getting one sooner. I dont have a camper but if I did, the sway bar would be a must if it works well with a flat bed trailer I can only imagine what it would do with a kite hangin off the back of my truck in a cross wind :)

  • Owner

If got a Reese WD setup for my 8,500# trailer. Mine is the chain and bars type and believe it or not I had to lighten the tension on the bars because it was capable of making the rear of the truck too light and promoted sway issues. In theory 13-15% of your gross weight will be tongue weight. So roughly speaking for my own trailer using 13% against 7,500# gives me 975# of tongue weight. But my water tank is at the very rear (at the rear bumper) of the RV so this tend to make my tongue lighter (not good).

MY tag-along Toy Hauler tows pretty nice with the water tanks full & holding tanks empty... it was a real bear coming home with water empty & black water full. I had to get a tag-along because I'm physically unsafe on stairs & sleeping bed in the gooseneck would likely cause yet another fall for me. I wish I could convert mine to a skeleton gooseneck... I'm thinking of adding balast to the rear to offset the holding tank weight. I would sure try to put as much weight at or behind the axles rather than increase the tongue weight. I'm thinking of building tool boxes under the trailer behind the axles for wheel chocks & leveling blocks.

  Mopar1973Man said:

Problem. Can't haul the ATV in the bed of the truck with a 5th wheel or a gooseneck. :rolleyes:

Nothing but an excuse there. They make rear receiver and or frame mounted platforms where toys like 4 wheelers can ride on the back end on 5th wheel trailers now days.:thumbup2: Pretty rare to not see some sort of Motorcycle or ATV hanging off the back end of most campers in my neck of the woods.
  Mopar1973Man said:

Problem. Can't haul the ATV in the bed of the truck with a 5th wheel or a gooseneck. :rolleyes:

Just buy a bigger gooseneck :lmao:
  Wild and Free said:

Nothing but an excuse there. They make rear receiver and or frame mounted platforms where toys like 4 wheelers can ride on the back end on 5th wheel trailers now days.:thumbup2: Pretty rare to not see some sort of Motorcycle or ATV hanging off the back end of most campers in my neck of the woods.

A receiver style platform that can hold a 700 pound machine? Where do you get those from? While there are advantages to a 5th wheel, a well balanced tag along will work just fine for most applications. I think thats what the op is trying to establish...
  • Owner
  Wild and Free said:

Nothing but an excuse there. They make rear receiver and or frame mounted platforms where toys like 4 wheelers can ride on the back end on 5th wheel trailers now days.:thumbup2: Pretty rare to not see some sort of Motorcycle or ATV hanging off the back end of most campers in my neck of the woods.

As for my RV I won't advise hanging a 650-700 pound ATV off the back. Its bad enough I got a 50 gallon water tank right at the rear bumper so the 650-700 pound ATV might pose a big tongue weight issue being I'm rather marginal now with a full tank of water. I didn't opt for the toy hauler for the simple reason I did want to have fuel / oil fumes inside my living area. So that's why I selected a bumper pull trailer because then the bed can haul the ATV, generator, fuel, extra supplies, etc. My RV has very limited storage for odd ball things...

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  diesel4life said:

A receiver style platform that can hold a 700 pound machine? Where do you get those from? While there are advantages to a 5th wheel, a well balanced tag along will work just fine for most applications. I think thats what the op is trying to establish...

I was half joking but at the same time throwing options out there. I have seen a dual receiver setup where it has two receiver pockets on the outer edges rather than a single mid receiver and I have also seen ridged frame mounted atv ramps, some fold up some don't. Not sure where or who supplies them just know that a majority of 5ers have them around here at least the ones that don't have their boat hooked behind the 5er. I realize travel trailers are limited in what can be done for load distribution, I have a 1972 25' Avion travel trailer with rear holding tanks the main supply tank is 40 gallons and is directly behind the axles grey water behind it and black water at the back. But there is plenty of toungue weight even with full tanks where the axles are positioned. Dry weight is listed at 6800lbs.
  Mopar1973Man said:

As for my RV I won't advise hanging a 650-700 pound ATV off the back. Its bad enough I got a 50 gallon water tank right at the rear bumper so the 650-700 pound ATV might pose a big tongue weight issue being I'm rather marginal now with a full tank of water. I didn't opt for the toy hauler for the simple reason I did want to have fuel / oil fumes inside my living area. So that's why I selected a bumper pull trailer because then the bed can haul the ATV, generator, fuel, extra supplies, etc. My RV has very limited storage for odd ball things...

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I believe he meant you should get a 5th wheel trailer and put the atv on the back of it. Just get a longer one, that way the atv counters the hitch weight of the longer trailer. LOL

My ToyHauler has 3 recievers accross the back & had a ATV sized frame in the tripple reciever when we bought it. We decided that we didn't want it & left it behind. An ATV on the tail would have changed the weight distribution quite a bit. The axles are position is more nearly centered on TTs vs THs.

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MikeThere is a logical missconception about toy haulers having gas fumes. In our experience with two different THs the only time we had gas fumes was when our Yamaha generator tipped over. With that big back door it was aired out in a couple of hours with no futher smell. We've talked to many other TH owners and found the same thing, no fumes. We travel most of the time with our Polaris RZR in the back of our truck though because on most of the ATV jamborees we attend (five so far this year) we have to trailer to the staging area so it's just more handy to leave it there and save the TH for bringing our other ATV.

My 30' TT runs about 1300lbs of Tongue with 56 gals of water (fwd of the axles). I run an equal-i-zer and it works GREAT! I highly recommend it.

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