Jay A Ganns picture of his Buccaneer on a real nice aluminum trailer reminded me to share a new style load leveling hitch that I stumbled on. I had the trailer in the foto made for a 65 Owens Flagship 30 Empress. The dry weight and trailer combined come in just under 10,000 lbs. To get good stability and sway control the tongue weight is in the 1,000 lbs range. I tow this with a Silverado 2500HD Duramax, so definitely needed an equalizer hitch and possibly sway bar(s). The problem is normal spring bar style equalizer hitches are not good for aluminum trailers. They create inward rotational forces on the aluminum I-Beams. Over time, these forces can lead to cracking, or beam twisting which then compromises the load capability of the beam. This can result in potential failure under load, and , or, cracking of the beam at the attachment points. So before I had the trailer built I talked to some trailer design engineers to discuss methods of structural supports to prevent the rotational bending. One of those engineers turned me on to a new style hitch made by Anderson Hitches. These hitches use chains instead of bars or cams to distribute the load. Another challenge was that the wye part of the trailer structure was so far back that neither the old style, or new style hitch, would be able to extend that far back. This would mean I would have to have a separate structure built closer to the hitch on the main beam that would spread out far enough to get the proper minimum outward angle of the bars, cam assemblies, or in this case the chains, to allow a reasonable turn radius without binding the assembly. I called Anderson and talked to them trying to find out what they considered the minimum outward angle. The guy who invented and designed this hitch said the marketing info shows a spread angle, but that it a spread is not really necessary for the hitch to work properly. This is because the whole hitch assembly, including the chain attachment points and the ball itself rotate in the hitch block. The rotation exactly mimics the movement of the trailer, so the alignment is constant. As you can see in the photo the black band with the red chain attachment points are directly mounted to the main beam. This is where the tension chains attach to the trailer. I towed this boat from Sacramento, to New Orleans , then to central Alabama with this setup. No sway bars needed. When I first set out on the trip I was hesitant about how stable the rig would be. I drove very conservatively at first. I learned however, that this trailer handled as well as anything Ive ever trailed. In fact it handles, braked and trailed so well that when my mine would wander (3000 mile trips have that effect on me), I often didnt realize my speed was creeping up in to the 70s. Id have to force myself to back down. So if anyone has load distribution, or sway issue with an aluminum trailer (or any trailer for that matter), you might want to look into this new style of hitch. I also need to share another important thing I learned during this process. A trailer design engineer told me that you should never install brakes on all axles of a multi-axle trailer. More braking is not necessarily better. The rear most axle should always be brake-less. This allows the wheels on that axle to continue turning in an emergency braking maneuver, which prevents wheel lock and jack-knifing of the trailer . Hope this helps some of you out there. Towing a trailer can be a very safe operation, but only if the trowed rig is properly equipped and balanced....be safe You can read Andersons product here: andersenhitches/Catalog/weight-distribution-kits.aspx
Posted on: Tue, 23 Sep 2014 14:54:45 +0000
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