Caravan Weight

Gary and Kerry · Guru

Caravan Weight

dave06 · Guru

gary, thats a very good post and well explained, it gives some idea to the uninitiated just how close we come everyday to an overweight vehicle/van combination, by the time swmbo gets a rock collection going and you throw a few mudcrabs in the freezer you are going to be "overweight", (hmmm!!! note to self, perhaps thats my problem too many bloody mud crabs in the freezer, and thats why I'm overweight) hell did I say that outloud!!!! damn!!!!,

I suggest you throw away the unecesary items, womens clothes, food, that sort of stuff, that way you could cram more drinkypoo's in there!!

anyway a lot of people I see nowadays carry that you beaut water, well a 20 litre container of that would be of course 20 kilos so you really havent much room to play with. fill up the crapper and you're history???

was that weight taken with it hooked up or unhitched, could be you are already "overweight" but I guess it is "axle load" that counts here

Gary and Kerry · Guru

dave06 wrote:

gary, thats a very good post and well explained, it gives some idea to the uninitiated just how close we come everyday to an overweight vehicle/van combination, by the time swmbo gets a rock collection going and you throw a few mudcrabs in the freezer you are going to be "overweight", (hmmm!!! note to self, perhaps thats my problem too many bloody mud crabs in the freezer, and thats why I'm overweight) hell did I say that outloud!!!! damn!!!!,

I suggest you throw away the unecesary items, womens clothes, food, that sort of stuff, that way you could cram more drinkypoo's in there!!

anyway a lot of people I see nowadays carry that you beaut water, well a 20 litre container of that would be of course 20 kilos so you really havent much room to play with. fill up the crapper and you're history???

was that weight taken with it hooked up or unhitched, could be you are already "overweight" but I guess it is "axle load" that counts here

The van was unhitched.
How do you measure the ball weight? Didn't know how to , so didn't.

I guess you are refering to the Lucile Ball movie with the rock collection, Our slaes rep keeps telling me to watch it.
She hates travelling behind vans, every time she comes back from a country trip I get lectured about the speed vans travel at and not pulling over to let traffic pass.

She is also threatining to fill the van with concrete so i can't go on my big trip........fat chance of that happening.
I can't even say she is jealous,hates camping of any sort and unless is 5 star accommodation not interested in seeing the country. I think her boss is a bit more leniant on her expenses than my boss LOL.
But then I have never seen the sense in paying a bucket load of money for a bed, if its my money or the companies.

-- Edited by Gary and Kerry at 16:53, 2008-11-09

dave06 · Guru

well I thought I knew how to measure the ball weight but I dont, silly me thought that if you made up a stand with a towball on it attached it to the van and let the setup rest on a set of scales that would give you the ball weight but our freindly caravan salesman laughed at that, and came up with an explanation that I found implassable but have never tried

lucille balls movie is called the long long trailer, I think, and in typical lucille ball fashion it is a scream from start to finish, highly recommend you watch it, she is the last of our great slapstick comedienes, should go into the hall of fame

I agree with your sales rep about 5 star accomodation, I myself and me (the three of us) wont settle for anything less than ten million star accomadation

I found this on the haymen reese website

Q: How can I check my ball weight?

A: Ball weight refers to the weight on the front end of the trailer not carried over the axles. As a rule you should aim to have 10 percent of the total trailer weight as ball weight. This can be measured at a weigh bridge by resting the jockey wheel only on the scale.

now if that is not the same as my scheme I will eat my hat, but what do I know???

-- Edited by dave06 at 17:20, 2008-11-09

Basil Faulty · Guru

There are some complex formulae for working out the ball weight but for PRACTICAL purposes simply weigh the downward weight by putting the jockey wheel on the "scales" and using that as a guide for ball weight. That should be around 10% of the GVM. Most vehicle manufacturers give a max allowable weight, this is for safety reasons and you should not try and load your van so that you get the max ball weight allowed....

Wombat 280 · Guru

Here not so long back I had to upgrade my HR tow bar to the bigger model as the smaller one had a mass capacity of 1400 kg and a ball weight of 90 kg . upping to he bigger HR bar the all up weight rose to 1600 kg and a ball weight rose to 160 kg or 10% which in NSW I'm lead to believe are the regs for ball weight.

Cupie · Guru

G'day ..

re Measuring Ball Weight .....

If you are fortunate enough to have access to a weigh bridge, one way to do it is ..

First drive over the weigh bridge with the van hooked up. Park with the van wheels on the weigh bridge & the tow vehicle's off. This is weight A.

Next reverse backwards & fit the jockey wheel positioned that it is on the weigh bridge along with the van wheels. Unhitch & drive tow vehicle off the weigh bridge. This is weight B.

Tow ball weight is B - A.

Of course assuming that the approach is flat this can be checked by positioning the jockey wheel so that only it is on the weigh bridge.

(I check my ball weight using two mechanical bathroom scales on a flat surface with the van's coupling hitch resting on an inverted 'T' frame which in turn is positioned across the two scales. The tow ball weight is the sum of the two scale readings less the weight of the 'T' frame. I need to use two scales because of my high ball weight of around 270 Kg )

- 21'6" Jayco - 2.3ton (fully laden with water, gas, extra fuel, food, clothing, etc., etc.)- hitch capacity - 350kg, towbar rating - 2.8ton, Patrol weight - 2.8ton)
I prefer the heavier than the generally recomended 10% tow ball weight & use Hayman Reese weight dist hitch to maintain even load on the Patrol front/rear wheels.
>150,000 towing Km so far & it tows perfectly. biggrin

-- Edited by Cupie at 09:22, 2008-11-10