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Tongue weight


lawman

Question

I have an 18 foot Alumacraft w/115 4 stroke and I can't lift the tongue without the bogey jack. Are you supposd to be able to lift the tongue without the aid of a jack? How much weight should there be on the hitch? My buddy has a 20 foot Crestliner and he can lift his up unaided.

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I agree with S.T., you do want weight on your tongue or your trailer will "fishtail" very bad while towing.

10% is good or more, if your vehicle can support it.

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Like valv said, to little tongue weight and your trailer will fish tail real bad going down the road. to much tongue weight and you might overload the capacity of your hitch. If you want to check what your tongue weight is take your wifes bathroom scale and cut a 2 x 4 so that the lenght of it sitting on the scale is the same height that your trailer tongue will be when it is on your hitch, then put the trailer tongue on the 2 x 4 and read what the scale says.

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Shorelandr recomends 5-7% of the boats weight be on the tongue. I went through this last year as well, when you weigh it, make sure you weigh it at the ball, not the tongue jack...

http://www.shorelandr.com/pages/o_measureguide.html

Figuring Tongue Weight... is important because too little will cause

trailer sway and too much will cause uncontrolled "pushing" of the tow vehicle.

A. Transom should be flush with the end of the bunks/rollers to make sure that tongue weight calculation is correct.

B. To determine proper tongue weight, total the package weight (boat with fuel/battery, motor with maximum horsepower, and trailer) and multiply it by 6% on single axles and 5% on tandem axle trailers. ShoreLand'r suggests that tongue weight may be acceptable in a 5-7% range.

Example:

Boat with fuel and battery 2,000 lbs.

Motor 500 lbs.

Trailer 900 lbs.

Total Weight 3,400 lbs.

Single Axle Figure x 6%

Tongue Weight 204 lbs.

C. Using appropriate scale, weigh trailer at coupler, making sure the trailer is at towing height...

If tongue weight is within the 5-7% range, move to Step #4.

If tongue weight is too heavy, move axle forward an avg. of 10 - 15 lbs. per inch for which the tongue weight is over.

If tongue weight is too light, move axle back an avg. of 10 - 15 lbs. per inch for which the tongue weight is under.

After readjustment, check tongue weight again; proceed as necessary depending on results.

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  • Your Responses - Share & Have Fun :)

    • got this tackled today took about 3 hours to get both sides done. Didnt even get to use a torch....   Thought I was golden with just jacking it up and I could get to everything but no luck. Had to remove the entire axle hub and brake assembly to get to what I needed. Was a pain but still better then taking off the entire pivot arm.    Axle bearings were already greased and in great shape thankfully. Got both leaf springs installed and its ready for the road again.   Probably going to have my electric brakes checked, I am not touching anything with the brake drums. Based on what I saw it doesn't look like my electric brakes have been working anyway. Brakes are nice to have if its slippery out
    • By The way that didn't work either!! Screw it I'll just use the cellular. 
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    • 😂 yea pretty amazing how b o o b i e s gets flagged, but they can't respond or tell me why I  can't get logged in here on my laptop but I can on my cellular  😪
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    • You got word censored cuz you said        B o o b ies….. haha.   Yeah, no… grilling is on hiatus for a bit.
    • Chicken mine,  melded in Mccormick poultry seasoning for 24 hours.  Grill will get a break till the frigid temps go away!
    • we had some nice weather yesterday and this conundrum was driving me crazy  so I drove up to the house to take another look. I got a bunch of goodies via ups yesterday (cables,  winch ratchet parts, handles, leaf springs etc).   I wanted to make sure the new leaf springs I got fit. I got everything laid out and ready to go. Will be busy this weekend with kids stuff and too cold to fish anyway, but I will try to get back up there again next weekend and get it done. I don't think it will be bad once I get it lifted up.    For anyone in the google verse, the leaf springs are 4 leafs and measure 25 1/4" eye  to eye per Yetti. I didnt want to pay their markup so just got something else comparable rated for the same weight.   I am a first time wheel house owner, this is all new to me. My house didn't come with any handles for the rear cables? I was told this week by someone in the industry that cordless drills do not have enough brake to lower it slow enough and it can damage the cables and the ratchets in the winches.  I put on a handle last night and it is 100% better than using a drill, unfortatenly I found out the hard way lol and will only use the ICNutz to raise the house now.
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