Weight Distribution Trouble Shoot and Repair Demonstration
Weight Distribution
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Today what we are going to do is work on an existing weight distribution system and we are going to correct some flaws that we found in it. First off we are going to show you how the bars are set off on here. It is most obvious actually. The bars on here are level with the frame. However, they are way to close to the frame. Plus they are probably tilting upwards so we will need to fix that. Also if you can see on the dual cam sway control, it is sitting nice in there, but should be pointing downward a little. Also why we want the arms to be pointing down just a little bit and away from the frame is that the nuts on the bracket are pretty close to the spring bar here. So you are wanting the keep the contact at 0. So if you had the bars tilted downward just a little bit they can swing underneath the nut which is fine but you need to try and keep every inch of clearance.
We will go ahead and straighten this out and show you how it is suppose to be. To fix this basically all you have do to is take this apart and get down to the head assembly. Then what you need to do is loosen these nuts up. Where the head will not be tilting towards to truck like it is now. In the beginning he probably did not have as much tongue load on it but over time he has increased the tongue load and started to sway down to counter act that. First step is we will have to lower the trailer then disconnect the trailer from the truck. Notice we actually picked up on the truck and the trailer. That eliminates some of the stress and tension on the bars. Which means it will be easier to release them. Now we can lower it and take the pressure off of the ball then put the coupler back up and off the truck.
We want to go ahead and break these bolts loose and we will show you a little detail on how these teeth work. Originally the head assembly was installed with the head tilted all the way towards the vehicle. What we need to do is have the spring bars pointed downward a little bit more then what they are now. To do that we will need to go ahead and tilt the head assembly back towards the trailer. It will not take all that much just a little bit. Basically you want to have the ball about one inch higher than the coupler. Then tighten it down from there. If you can not do it from the bench you have to go back out there and do some measuring for fit and finish on that. First step in getting everything reset is we will go ahead and get the trailer level so we can get the measurement off the top of the coupler. From the ground to the top of the coupler it looks to be about 20-1/2 inches. We want to go 3/4 of an inch higher on the hitch ball to make up for the squat on the truck. Aside from tilting this up or down we are also going to have to raise this up about an inch or we will try it on the last notch from the top.
Basically you will go up one notch and we ran out of holes on the shank here. So we are still shy about an inch. So in this case it is just fine to flip it over and get our height from there. Right there we are at a height of 21-1/2 inches and the head is still pointing down so we still have clearance for those spring bars on the bottom. Once you got it set the way you want it we will go ahead and torque the bolts. Now we will go ahead and back up to the truck and reconnect it and see what we get. Once we have gotten it connected we will go ahead and raise it back up and we will install our spring bars. As you have seen we have plenty of spring bar space well below the bottom of the trailer now.
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