Now I'm confused!!

[Harper]

I bought a tongue weight scale with the intention of using it to help adjusting what I thought was a 2300lb tongue weight on a 4500lb boat/trailer setup. The trailer is new, custom built, and I was really concerned that I was overloading the rear axle on my truck (max weight rating 4150lbs). So look below at the pictures of the two weighs that I did last week on a CAT scale. First picture is with the trailer, and for the second weigh I unhooked the trailer and weighed just the truck. Third picture is the tongue weight of 450lbs shown on the scale. So I'm a bit confused. And still a bit concerned that there's too much weight on the rear axle. But I can't figure out the huge discrepancy between the CAT scale weights and the tongue scale readout. Any opinions on what the deal is here?

 

[Harper]

Okay..... been thinking this through. I drove 18 wheelers for a while and know how to scale, but that day I was paying the most attention to the position of the truck axles .... not so much on the trailer. Had to pull up far enough to yell into the speaker and hear the person inside. The rear axle of the truck was on the very front edge of the drive axle section of the scale. I bet the front axle on the tandem trailer was also on the drive axle section of the scale.

That boat trailer ain't no 53 footer.

 

[Dave LeGear]

And still (all things being equal) a lot of tongue weight for that light of a boat Brother... See below for some tips on such which you may know already naturally

https://www.performanceoutdoors.net/media/determining-and-adjusting-your-trailer-tongue-weight.10285/

 

[Harper]

Yeah, 315# would be about right. But I'm not going to bother. My Tundra can handle the hitch weight okay. They didn't make this trailer with easily movable axles, attached with U-bolts. These torsion axles are through-bolted to the frame. Apparently figured the tongue should be 10% of total instead of a preferable 7%.

 

[Dave LeGear]

Understood, what about pushing the wench stand further aft so, you are shifting some of that weight back onto the trailer? Those usually unbolt and slide some as long as the bunks are long enough to still support the hull all the way to the stern of course.

 

[Harper]

I would do that Dave, but the shop foreman of the shop that built it, is one of those guys who knows everything there is to know about building boat trailers. And in hindsight, I should have known better and insisted. He'd been the shop foreman for over 17 years, after all. Well....... he didn't need the Triumph bunk diagram, even though he admitted that he'd never built a trailer for the Triumph 195 ... wouldn't even look at it. He said he would build the trailer around the boat and be sure to support it. Although I told him it had to have the "V" bunk in front, and the stern need to be fully supported on the bunks, he did neither of those two things. I had to fabricate the "V" bunk myself and add it, since I noticed within 10 days of getting the trailer back that you could see the bow starting to sag. He was only about a foot short of supporting it far enough forward, but he was also supporting that front portion with the longitudinal bunks either side of the keel. So the support wasn't there. The rear of the bunks were also about an inch forward of the stern, which I corrected by moving the boat forward a little over an inch.

I was disappointed in the trailer. I was good overall, but he simply refused to learn anything new. I won't recommend the manufacturer to anyone after my experience. Even though darn near every other trailer you see on the coastal bend area of Texas is of this brand. I don't have much respect for a man who refuses to learn anything new, and this guy just knew everything there is to know.

Anyway, I didn't trust him to correct those problems, so I modified the trailer myself to make up for its deficiencies. All in all, though I am disappointed in how that outfit did, the trailer is good now. I know the boat is adequately supported, launch and recovery are every bit as easy the the original EZLoader was. I wrote a letter to the company about the episode, but decided that it would fall on deaf ears. Seems that's the way things are anymore.

So, if you've read this far, you know I can't move the boat and winch stand back (not without putting new longer bunks on it). I'm fine with the 450# tongue weight. Actually, the tongue weight was most likely lighter by at least 100# before the mods that I did. But the boat is now supported, and the trailer pulls well.

 

[Dave LeGear]

I get it Brother, another one of those "My mind is made up, don't confuse me with the facts" type...