Re: Towing Vehicles / Weight Distribution Hitches

["Tina Rushing" <tinarushing@coastside.net>]

Title: Towing Vehicles

A weight distribution hitch (e.g. equalizer bars, stabilizer bars, lift bars, "those extra gizmos") will take the load off of your hitch ball and distribute it back to the trailer.  I haul a light 2 horse stock trailer with a big 1-ton 454 Chevy dually.  Even though I have plenty of truck the WDH makes an impressive difference in hauling a load. 

 

Drawback: for extreme off-road driving (visualize rutted dirt track mountain 4WD fender-ripping bushes) I have to pull the bars to get clearance.  I can pull the bars in 5 minutes which I feel is only a minor inconvenience.  

 

I also have a sway-control bar but results are inconclusive; no sway before installation, no sway after installation - possibly because of the stability of the dually.  I use the sway-control bar for highway journeys.  Where horse hauling is concerned I feel it is better to err on the side of caution.     

 

Go for the WDH.  It's a good thing.  If you're paying a guy to drill holes in your trailer you might as well have him install a sway bar while he's at it.  Then you can tackle the Altamont Pass in a severe windstorm without turning a hair.  

 

Tina Rushing

El Granada, CA

(would a person with the good sense to haul a Miley really choose to drive a Jeep Chickadee?)

----- Original Message -----

From: Kathy Mayeda

To: Antonio_Corbelletta@affymetrix.com

Cc: ridecamp@endurance.net

Sent: Friday, January 18, 2002 9:38 AM

Subject: RC: Towing Vehicles

... Stabilizer bars – I think this depends on the truck-trailer combo.  If the truck has a long enough wheel base stabilizer bars may not be necessary for a smaller trailer.  My trailer also has rubber torsion axles, which makes hauling it real smooth.   You’ve seen my trailer, it’s a 2 horse but it’s definitely bigger than a Miley.  The only people I know that have stabilizer bars drive a Jeep Cherokee hauling a Miley. [EVERYONE ?!  tr]  Everyone else is hauling a two horse trailer fine without stabilizer bars with their full size pickups.  [EVERYONE ELSE?!  tr]   We are talking about those extra gizmos that go from the trailer tongue to the attach to the truck besides the hitch ball and safety chains, huh?  Or are we talking about something different?  I know I DON’T have stabilizer bars and have been hauling for 3 years over sometimes very windy steep roads without having a problem...