Thread: What are your Tow Ball Weights?

Originally Posted by WildOne

As some may know i'm busy building an offroad trailer and need a little info from fellow camper trailer owners please, what is your hitch weight on your camper?
The reason i'm asking is i'm wondering if i need to redesign part of my trailer as my hitch weight is already just short of 100kgs and there is still the kitchen to go in. Now admittedly the water tank is still to go into the rear of the trailer and there is still some weight going in behind the axle that will counterbalance some of the final drawbar/tow ball weight. But am interested to know what some of the "proffesionally" built campers weigh in at.

Thanks all, Phill

You're going to be shocked what some of the 'professional' campers ball weights are. Outrageous add-ons peppered along the drawbar, a man can't lift them on their own.
Remember also that using the water tank as ballast at the rear is fine on the way TO destination but coming home empty...

Mate,
aim for about 50-60kg on the ball. THAT"S IT.
For some reason in this country everyone believes that 10% of the weight of the trailer should be on the ball. Bollocks.

This is all you need to maintain stability, even at high speed.
This is all the European specs recommend even for the autobarns, and they go alot faster than us.
Too much weight rearward of the rear axle stuffs up your handling of your vehicle.
Let the trailer axle bear the weight, 60 on the ball and pull the trailer rather than carry-pull it.

CC

Read this thread
Opinions on my Disco1 springs

Due to reconfiguring the ball weight I haven't got the helper bags yet.

The main bit you're interested in is quoted below

Originally Posted by Utemad

Found out my ball weight tonight using a bottle jack and the bathroom scales. With the tow hitch where it would be if it was on the ball with no sag.

In order of heaviness:

124kg
Spare wheel on A frame
Batteries front of main storage area
Empty water tank

84kg
Spare wheel on A frame
Batteries back of main storage area
Empty water tank

77kg
Spare wheel on A frame
Batteries back of main storage area
Full water tank

71kg
No spare wheel
Batteries back of main storage area
Empty water tank

62kg
Spare wheel front of main storage area
Batteries back of main storage area
Full water tank

59kg
Spare wheel back of main storage area
Batteries back of main storage area
Empty water tank

51kg
Spare wheel back of main storage area
Batteries back of main storage area
Full water tank

Thought this was interesting and might help people

I'm going to give the 62kg ball weight a go this for this weekends trip.

Coming home last weekend it would have been 124kg!

Spare is a Disco1 steel rim with worn BFG KO A/T 225/75 16
Batteries are roughly 20kg 6v 200amp/hour gel x2

Two of my mates have campers (full aluminium construction) and they said their ball weights are approx 160kg. They have their batteries and spare tyre in front of the axle but not on drawbar. Not sure why theirs are so heavy.

Not sure of the exact figure on mine, but it would have to be in the order of 100kg. It's not been a problem to date over some pretty serious terrain, however I am about to fit airbags to the rear springs, as both car and trailer fully laden for extended touring does cause some rear end sag.

Less mass on the tow ball would be good, but not essential. Sometimes the result doesn't justify the effort.

The argument of how much will differ here greatly. Facts I know.

1. The camper that I’ve just sold (new one to be constructed) was 130kg on the ball – towed beautifully with D2.
   
2. Qualified engineers that do the numbers (like my wife) will recommend more weight to eliminate the see-saw effect.

Now some don’t agree with recommendations from people that specialise in the dynamics, forces and geometries of the overall towed package, and I’ve notice that few of these have actually tried a trailer with this advice. I have - and I will never own another balanced trailer.


European specs would be lower - has something to do with the smaller tow vehices, Freelander is considered big over there. Anyway Don’t European countries have reduced speed limits for vehicles towing? UK definitely does – max 80km and they wobble all over the road.

Last time i weighed mine it was 95KG, might do it again as I've changed a few things, the weight of my camper is 1.3t or 1300KG.

What you need to do is get the weight over the ball so it doesn't want to lift off the hitch, it doesn't have to be 10% of the trailers weight, but needs to be enough to keep the trailer from lifting too much.

Baz.

From memory, 75kg is the maximum legal limit here in SA.

Not too sure how they enforce that though.