I have only just bought the van and I have followed the instructions about putting heavy things into the middle over the wheel area but apart from looking at the van how do I tell when it is attached to the car that it is evenly balanced and if it appears by eyesight to be balanced is there anything to be aware of when towing that would indicate it is not evenly balanced?
Wendy,thank you for asking the question.I know that Dave will give you some great advice.Your query will generate a great deal of interest.Cheers.Ibbo.
You don't say how big or heavy your van is but the general setup is much the same regardless of size. You want to see, at a rough idea, 10% of the van weight on the towball. eg 1500kg loaded weight should have about 150kg downforce on the towball.
There are special scales for weighing this and most van sale yards will have one and MAY let you use it.
Another way is to go to a weighbridge and weigh your van twice, once on its own, then connected to your vehicle(which is not on the weighbridge). The difference in weight is your ballweight.
A simple way to do it at home, or somewhere on level ground is to use a set of bathroom scales, or two sets depending on the expected weight........put the scales on the ground under the ball, using an appropriate length prop to keep the van level ( a cut broomstick will do) take the weight on the scale, this gives you the ballweight.
If the expected weight is more than the max the scales will handle then use two sets side by side (they are cheap at Big W) with a cross piece of wood spanning them, do the same as above to get the weight but this time you add the two readouts to get your ballweight.
This is much easier to do than to type so I hope I have made it clear enough.
It is important to be balanced correctly for safety but it is better to err on the side of too heavy rather than too light on the ball.
The obvious symptom of unbalance is instability with a 'tail wagging the dog' feeling and taken to extreme a dangerous swaying can occur resulting in loss of control with sometimes tragic results.
Cheers
Neil
-- Edited by Delta18 on Tuesday 22nd of September 2009 07:39:44 PM
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Neil & Lynne
Pinjarra
Western Australia
MY23.5 Ford Wildtrak V6 Dual Cab / 21' Silverline 21-65.3
wendy the above load distrubution assumption is quite correct but very overwhelming and can be incomrehensible to the young player
what I suggest is to get to know your vehicle/van in normal non loaded mode with just the water tank full and gas bottles full, if you have a level driveway then all the better, check, by eye, how level the vehicle is, place your fingers (perpendicular) into the gap between the wheel arch and the tyre, remember how many fingers you can place in there
now do the same to the front tyre of the vehicle (wheel arch to tyre measurement)
load the van and take the same measurements again, if the front tyre to wheel arch measurment has increased more than the rear then you have too much weight to the front of the van, if it has decreased then too much weight to the back of the van, adjust the load as seen fit
I cant see that the ammount of gear that you would carry is going to affect the distribution of the vans weight that much (unless you start hauling rocks, alah "the long long trailer starring lucille ball")
assuming you take the necesties and a few luxuries I cant see any more increase than about 80 kilo's including food, (an extra 8 kilo's on the ball) just whack it in and see how the vehicle looks afterwards, I dont think it will be affected that much, dont worry too much about it
