m101 tongue weight?

[seapotato]

Curious, you guys with un modified canuck m101 trailers, any guesses about how much tongue weight you have?

I don't have a great side shot of mine at the moment, ( and can't find the damn camera) just this crappy camera phone pic.

Seems aweful light on the tongue, very close to neutral, when unhitching, there's about 8 inches where it's balanced, I lift it a bit more and it wants to flip on it's back.

I stuck that little ammo box on there to put a jack etc into, to add a couple pounds, just curious what they're normally like.

Might be that my axle is a smidge too far forward which wouldn't help.

( has a 45FF axle under it, and cruiser springs)

And probably added a few pounds when I built the tailgate.



Probably going to extend the tongue a couple feet at some point to help with this, and to make it easier to back up ( twitchy little bugger ever with a shorty bj70)

anyways, just curious what they're normally like. A bit more tongue weight would probably make it run a little quieter at low speeds on rough roads too.

cheers,
ryan

 

[gaberelli]

My unmodified M101CDN had significant tongue weight. I don't know what it was in #s, but it was enough that it would not tip backwards until the tongue was lifted very high.

 

[greentruck]

I took the bathroom scale out to the garage and used a 2x4 to set the lunette on the scale.

~60 pounds

 

[seapotato]

I took the bathroom scale out to the garage and used a 2x4 to set the lunette on the scale.

~60 pounds

Thanks man ! That's a lot more effort than I was expecting!

Mines definately no where near that. Think I'll start by moving that axle back an inch or so, it's definately too far forward. Thats probably where the problem lies.

cheers,
r

 

[greentruck]

I was kind of surprised it was so light. What little I remember from towing watching my dad was that we should keep the tongue weight under 200 pounds. But that was with a '64 BelAir station wagon towing a 14' camper. Since the M101 was designed to be towed by the Iltis, a 60 pound tongue weight seems about right though. But that's empty, so I'm curious what happens when I get it loaded with ice and beer...well, maybe not the whole trailer, but that does sound good on a summer holiday weekend

 

[Ebag333]

I've always heard that the tongue weight should be 10% of the trailer weight.

Interestingly enough, in researching pintle hitches I've come across many recommendations to overload the tongue (more than 10%) to reduce noise and movement from the hitch. The 10% rule isn't as critical for a trailer that only weighs ~1k lbs, when you get a trailer that weighs as much as the vehicle then it can make a big difference.

 

[seapotato]

yeah, that sounds about right.

I'm definately going to extend the tongue a couple feet. I was debating it, but had a bit of a "tail wagging the dog" experience today.

Had to pick up a bunch of 12' lumber, didn't have far to go and did most of it slowly on back roads, but thing was seriously unstable with the weight hanging off the back.

If the trailer was 3' longer I could slide the lumber forward more, and things would have been a lot more civilized.

So with that, I'll leave the axle alone, and extend the tongue, put a bigger box on front and that should take care of the tongue weight, and I'll be able to carry 10-12' lumber safely, cuz that was sketch as hell today, and won't be repeated until I get things changed around.

 

[greentruck]

seapatato,
Did that myself first trip to the lumber yard with the M101. I just had a few sticks of wood, opened the back of the tarp, shoved the wood in, and tied it down. Jumped on the interstate for the 5 mile trip home and the tail was wagging the dog. Glad to be driving the 80 with full-time 4WD, as it helped things some.

But this is a good reminder that it's not just tongue weight that's important with cargo trailers, but the balance of it once loaded. Travel trailer, etc are harder to get unbalanced, since so much of the load it permanent and the designer usually makes it so that filling tanks, etc won't result in an unbalanced situation without the operator trying real hard to mess things up.

Sounds like you have a good solution. Extending the tongue would be harder to do if keeping the pintle, which I definitely want to do. Curious what your plans are on that, but it will sure help with transporting lumber.

 

[seapotato]

Yep, keeping the pintle for sure.

Next time I have a free day, I plan to have a good stare down with the front of the trailer and a case of beer.

By the end of that I'll have figgered out a solution....

Tentatively thinking of just cutting the two diagonals that go to the pintle on angles so that a straight piece of rect. tubing can be put in on each side, then plate the joints...if that makes any sense...;p

But we'll see, I might come up with something better. Angles get weird when extending a triangle...


But yeah, with the tail wagging, I was surprized at how wonky the trailer got, fortunately it happened on the highway right when I was slowing down for a light, so I just turned off and took back roads the rest of the way.

I knew the load wasn't great when I did it, but it seemed pretty solid in the home depot parking lot...apparently not...