Lloyd E. Sponenburgh wrote:
"Steve Hopper" wrote in message
...

For anyone out there who knows about trailers:
Last year I bought what seemed to be a heavy-built,
double-axle trailer. While towing it home with
my Full size Chevrolet long-wheel base truck using
a 2" receiver, the trailer pushed the truck around
whenever I got above 40 mph. It seemed to 'fish-tail'.
I had no load on it whatsoever, but the tongue load
seemed higher than my other dual-axle trailer.
Would a too-heavy tongue load cause this fishtailing?
Many thanks. sdh.


That's usually symptomatic of having insufficient tongue load. You should
count on loading the trailer so that 12-15% of the total load weight is
imposed on the hitch. That should be true when the trailer is empty, too,
unless it wasn't built exactly right. A "heavily built dual-axle trailer"
reads in my book like 200-300lb on the hitch, even empty. I just bought an
18' x 7' enclosed trailer for peanuts (had a bent left-rear axle stub). It
has an empty weight of about 1200lb, and has a solid 200lb tongue weight,
empty. Even then, without a load, it tends to wander around a little behind
our 2500 van. Not bad, but a little.

You might also have a tightly sprung suspension, and be experiencing one or
both axles bouncing so badly that the tires are momentarily losing road
contact. Some trailers don't tow well empty.

LLoyd



Thank you very much for the information. I guess what I can
do is put a load on the front of the trailer and see if that
helps. I wasn't sure whether the fishtailing was a symptom
of front overloading or front underloading. This was a home
built trailer so it's proportions may be questionable. In
thinking about it, could it be that my hitch is higher than
it should be? That could tend to take weight off the tongue
and even raise the front axle wheels. Is that right???

Again, thanks. sdh.