Advice on trailer sway control? - Yowza! That makes me shake a little just thinking about it. A device a buddy of mine has on his 4 place enclosed snowmobile ...

Yowza! That makes me shake a little just thinking about it.

A device a buddy of mine has on his 4 place enclosed snowmobile trailer is an adjustable friction bar that is attached to the trailer tongue and a small "side ball" mounted on the hitch on the truck. It's hard to explain, but imagine the main 2.5" ball on the back of the receiver, then just off to the side of the main ball is a smaller 1" ball where the friction bar attaches.

It does an excellent job of reducing sway due to the friction of the sliding bar between the truck and the trailer, but it still allows the truck to turn corners with ease.

Next time I'm over at his house I'll try to get a picture of it.

Starspangled, glad to hear you pulled out of it and both you and your truck are ok.

Angry Russell

I agree. Do not "slam" on any brakes, just apply the trailer brakes a little harder than you normally would. Let the trailer brakes take the swing out and then pull to the side of the road and adjust your load.

OK... thanks for the advice! I'll never forget that feeling: the total weight was a little over 13,000 lbs., and in just a few seconds, I totally lost control. Amazing! Anyways, am I correct in saying the current towing setup is fine, as long as I load it correctly? The max I'm supposed to have in the trailer is only 5000 lbs (7000 lbs GCW; 2000 lbs dry trailer weight).

I'd say you would have been fine, had you loaded the majority of the weight in front of the trailer axles so it was pushing the tongue down.

Great! I have to spend enough $$$ on the truck as it is... I wasn't looking forward to plunking down more cash on a new hitch. At what weight should I think about getting something with sway control?

Well, I've heard of people using sway control devices with a 3k lb trailer loaded, so you can get one whenever you like, but that's up to you. As stated, use the trailer brakes to control sway and adjust accordingly. Glad you didn't wreck.

Just load it correctly and you will not have those issues. Too much forward or too much aft is going to cause issues. I have always been told to put about 300 to 350 lbs. of tongue weight on the ball, anymore than that will affect your steering and any less than that can affect your braking. That is just a rule of thumb and I myself have had some "interesting" situations, but it has most always been because of improper weight on the hitch. This rule varies with the class rating of your hitch and model of truck, adjust accordingly.

the new HD'S have built in trailer sway control it works awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! that is why i bought a HD my loaded 7x14" enclosed trailer caught alot of air it was really bad if i would pass a semi doing 70+mph it would be all over the place a few times i had to back off to 40 and get back over in the other lane just to keep the truck and trailer under control! and it is some scary shit!!!!!!!!!!!

starspangled6.0 wrote:

ASTE25 wrote:Well, you obviously know what caused it (having more weight behind the trailer axle than in front of it, causing the tongue to raise the rear of the truck). I do not think there is anything on the market that will prevent sway from an improperly loaded trailer. I would say that the absolute worst thing to do in that situation is to apply the brakes (of the truck), at least aggressively. I know you don't really want to speed up, but if you are unable to apply the trailer brakes alone, putting power to the truck will help the sway stop. I sure am glad that you were able to bring it to a controlled stop and avoid crashing or damaging anything.

I do remember when I first slowed down, the trailer started to swing like crazy. Would it be best to just hammer the trailer brakes, and wait a little bit to apply the truck brakes?

This is coming from a professional truck driver with 500,000+ safe miles, when having an improperly loaded trailer you can use the trailer brake to "pull" the trailer back behind the truck but the weight distribution is still unsafe. I would make sure the weight is close to the tongue and the trailer axle. I have had my fair share of improperly loaded trailers and tractor trailers can move the 5th wheel and trailer wheels forward and backward to "even" out the ride! But its never safe to drive an improperly loaded trailer! Glad youre safe brother!

a guideline from who knows where thats always stuck with me for some reason is to load at least 20% more of the weight as far forward of the axles as you can. And if things get out of control (just like on snow/ice) be patient with your corrections... ease into applying brakes/tbrakes, steering, accel so you dont make the problem worse. I'd bet your problem could be almost completely solved with better loading- we had my nbs 1/2 ton ccsb and 5x15 utility trailer loaded down with our entire boathouse's remains after a 3 foot tree fell through it... We were almost 14k pounds on the scale at the dump- had no problems cruising at 65 on idaho highways.