Deleted I was incorrect I have the tow package.
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Sagging rear - suspension or new hitch
- Thread starter DebbieC
- Start date
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Hayes Riviere
Full Access Members
I just took a look at the owner's manual, and it says to place the heaviest items over the trailer axles when towing. Could placing most of the weight in the front of the trailer result in the sagging rear of the Expedition?
Also, JExpedition07, I took a look at the maximum GCWR's - gross combined weight rating, or how much weight the combined mass (in this case the Expedition's and the trailer's weights), and it takes into account towing with vs. without the towing package. If you subtract the weight of the Expedition then you have the towing rating. Mine is 6078 lbs, and is 6 years older than yours is, but they have the same engines so Ford should have included the towing ratings on your manual. Pages 259 and 260 in a 2013 Expy manual.
Also, JExpedition07, I took a look at the maximum GCWR's - gross combined weight rating, or how much weight the combined mass (in this case the Expedition's and the trailer's weights), and it takes into account towing with vs. without the towing package. If you subtract the weight of the Expedition then you have the towing rating. Mine is 6078 lbs, and is 6 years older than yours is, but they have the same engines so Ford should have included the towing ratings on your manual. Pages 259 and 260 in a 2013 Expy manual.
Putting too much weight forward of the front axle on a trailer will load the rear axle of the tow vehicle, which lifts the front wheels reducing steering control. Heavy weight behind the rear axle on a trailer can result in the trailer acting like a pendulum, eventually causing you to jack-knife. An even load on the trailer is ideal. If not possible, put the weight right over the axle. Trailer brakes can help with the sway, but they won't prevent it from happening. If you need to hit the trailer brake to control it, pull over and re-distribute the weight in the trailer as best you can.
Deleted I was incorrect. I do have the tow package.
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Charles Schlough
New Member
I read all the posts and looked closely at your pictures. It appears to me that before you spend any more money on bigger better or anything else, you need to adjust the hitch for your new vehicle. Your problem looks to me as a misadjusted weight distributing hitch. The setup for your Dad's vehicle is not the same for yours. You will have to take apart the hitch head and reset everything for your truck. If you want to use it for your Dad's truck you will need to get a different hitch and set it up right for your Expy. I bet the other Receiver is several inches higher than your Expy. Look to see what hitch it is, then look up the install instructions online and reset the hitch for your truck. I bet it will be just fine after that. It can be a pain, because you will need to reset the head so it is correct. First check is level the trailer on a flat surface, with both ends of the trailer frame equal height from the ground at each end. Then measure from the ground to the top of the hitch itself, the round bit on the end where the ball goes. Then with the hitch head in the back of the Expy measure from the ground to the top of the ball. If the difference between these 2 measurements is more than about 1/2 inch either lower or higher, take the head apart and reset till the ball is equal to the height of the trailer hitch itself. The installation directions from the manufacturer will be a great help. If you need a different hitch look on Amazon. You will go stupid trying to decide which one to buy, I use a Fastway E2 600/6000 because I have a smaller trailer with less than 500 lbs tongue weight and trailer max GVW is 5,500 lbs. Don't buy a more heavily rated hitch than what your trailer calls for. a 10K WDH on a 5K TT will mean it rides hard. You will get all you ever wanted to know about hitches on U-tube. Lots of help for you for free. Adjusting a hitch is not rocket science, with the right tools and patience you can do it yourself. Most people have to adjust things several times to get it all dialed in. 1 last comment, Cardinal rule, hitch weight should be NO LESS than 10% total weigh and NO MORE than 15% of the total weight of the trailer itself. Don't GUESS, this is one time when a SWAG is not good enough.
DebbieC
Member
Sorry, no I have not abandoned this thread. My computer had to go in to the shop because I got put on lock down by ransomware. I just got it back this morning. Yay! So I've had a little progress but not much. So my dad wouldn't let me adjust his WD hitch mount so I had to order one online. It came in towards the end of last week and we tried it out. Once again, I told him we needed to take it to a level lot but he insisted that we do it on the gravel driveway because we had power for the power tongue jack. So the first time we did it, we did just like the instructions said and it was perfectly set in the middle of the 2 heights that I recorded (one before hitching up and one after hitching). We took it out and it was still too high. So we came back to the house and did it again. This time when we hitched it up with the WD bars, it was a little more towards the "before" measurement. We took it out and it felt better. Still feels a little too high in the front and has too much sag for me. We're going to have another person in the back seat and that means it will sag even more and makes me nervous. My dad drove it and said it was fine but has too much bounce. Which it definitely does. Feels like a rollercoaster when you hit bumps. I'm still not convinced that we have it right, so I'm not going to tell my dad that I'm going to get it this weekend and go to a parking lot and see if we need to redo the hitch mount. I tried to look at the coiloversprings.com site that someone suggested but it's not a valid site. I did see something on etrailer.com about a helper spring that sits in between 2 of the coils on the rear spring. It's called a coil sumospring. Has anyone tried these before? Or do you know of anything that would help better? Or should I get heavy duty shocks instead? I've heard that they work great for towing but are really really rough when you're doing normal driving. Thanks!
Bedrck47
Full Access Members
You know that the tongue jack runs off of 12 Volts which means that as long as your connected to the expy and the expy's running you will have plenty of power to operate the jack
DebbieC
Member
The place we bought it from is about 2 hours away, but I did try and call a local rv place. They said they were booked through December. I ran out of time today but there is another one about an hour away, I will try them tomorrow.
No I did NOT know that if the trailer was hooked up to the car, the trailer connector would give it power. We thought if it wasn't plugged in to the outlet then it ran off battery. And that battery isn't worth a charge. We're also getting a new one of those this upcoming weekend too.
