Trailer scares the he#@ out of me!

[Fred Villiard]

Thank you Tkanzler,
We are almost neighbors, I'm in the Sidney NY area and will probally spend a good bit of time on Ontario, when I get the boat done.

I need to shift my balance point, as it is now with just the empty boat, about 50 pounds on the stern will raise the tongue, not good.

Right now the boat is off of the trailer being rebuilt and I want to overhaul the trailer before the boat is put back on, don't want to have to take it off again other than to launch it.

Looking at the pictures and posts thought that Sumner's Mac would have about the same weight distribution as mine, which would give me a starting point.

I'm putting on Tiedown Engineering torsion axles with 4 wheel disc electro over hydraulic brakes. They will be mounted on a subframe so that the balance can be trimmed a bit.

Thank You
Fred

 

[Sumner]

Thank you Tkanzler,
We are almost neighbors, I'm in the Sidney NY area and will probally spend a good bit of time on Ontario, when I get the boat done.

I need to shift my balance point, as it is now with just the empty boat, about 50 pounds on the stern will raise the tongue, not good.

Right now the boat is off of the trailer being rebuilt and I want to overhaul the trailer before the boat is put back on, don't want to have to take it off again other than to launch it.

Looking at the pictures and posts thought that Sumner's Mac would have about the same weight distribution as mine, which would give me a starting point.

I'm putting on Tiedown Engineering torsion axles with 4 wheel disc electro over hydraulic brakes. They will be mounted on a subframe so that the balance can be trimmed a bit.

Thank You
Fred

Fred it is about 9 1/2 feet from the stern to the equalizer and about 17 3/4 from there to the ball on the tongue. I have almost 400# of tongue weight with the 9.8 HP on the transom and the old ....

...5 HP on the pushpit. Towing 2200 miles to Florida I also had 19 gallons of gas in the inboard fuel tank in the laz as I didn't know if we would be able to get ethanol free gas there (we could as it turned out). We also had the boat really loaded and the way it was loaded and with the gas I'm guessing the tongue weight was less than the above figure. It towed great.

Now saying all of that I'm kind of with tkanzler in that I'd work off of your current trailer's axle point. Maybe start 12 inches back from there and check things out. If you are welding the axles sub-frame on, just tack it until the boat is on and you take a short test drive. I think our boats and trailers are too different to use ours as a starting point.

Also things will be different with two axles. With a single axle if you are strong enough you can lift the tongue to any height since the trailer is pivoting around a single point. With two axles this isn't the case as soon after you start raising the tongue you are trying to lift the front axle and there is no single pivot point. I guess what I'm saying is that I feel that with two axles tongue weight isn't near as critical. Me, if the tow vehicle can handle it and the hitch I like tongue weight,

Sum

Our Endeavour 37

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[Fred Villiard]

Thanks Sum,

That's the info I needed, I know that our boats and trailers are different that I can't use the measurements. What I wanted the measurement for was the rotation point in relation to the length of the boat. An estimate that your boat and mine will balance at pretty close to the same ratio front to back even tho they are different in length.

I'm pretty well experienced towing trailers, I've put about 30K on my Grady over the years and back in the late 50's designed and built horse trailers.

My Grady trailer has close to 500lb tongue weight, and I tow with the tongue about 1 inch down, that way in a panic stop the trailer will not try to lift the back of the vechicle.

I'll also have have a 9.8, 12 gal fuel and a large battery bank all behind the keel, and be towing all over the states and Canada.

I was in Florida Pine Island terrorizing fish in May, and would have liked to met up with you, but the charger for my lap top took up smoking and I couldn't make contact. I'd like to meet you and Ruth some time.

Thank You

Fred

Say hello to Ruth hope her foot heals fast