chuck said "ok gang it's trailer 101 time!"
I'll go with much of what he said but the geometry is the most important factor
in the deal. I just towed my horrible fright 4' x 8' folding trailer to
Birmingham, Alabama from Cincinnati, Ohio, and back! It is a short tongue,
narrow trailer that pulls beautifully at speed if it is set up correctly... I
had a Crapsman 20 hp lawn tractor on it coming back and we averaged 75 mph with
short bursts to 85 and not the slightest wiggle out of it.
The tongue weight has to be correct. Too little and you get the wag. Too much
and you get bouncing and wagging. For a heavy trailer being pulled at high
speeds you may need up to 3 degrees of forward pitch on your trailer ball. If
the weight of the trailer causes the hitch to sink ( vehicle suspension pushed
way down) very much you end up with a backward pitch on the ball and that is a
very bad thing! Kinda like the castor and camber stuff on a front end...
The tow vehicle and the trailer should sit LEVEL when fully loaded. If you
can't manage that without going too light on the tongue weight then you need a
weight transferring hitch. If the trailer tongue is going uphill or downhill,
you don't have the geometry correct and you will suffer some bad habits on the
road.
My .02 after many years of towing stuff from 400 pounds to 5 tons,
Kent
1960 Bugeye
1978 Midget
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