[Land-speed] Towing a Race car

[Jim]

Guys,
I hope you don't mind me joining the conversation this late. We used to own
a 10T 5th whl gooseneck back in the 80's. Pulled it with a very heavy duty
3/4t chev pu. The gooseneck ball was about 12-18 " forward of the rear axle.
By doing this the weight of the trailer load was spread on the entire frame
of the truck, the turn radius was improved, rear end sway was eliminated but
too little tongue weight and probably more little things I don't remember
now.

The extreme loading of the bumper hitch by a normal trailer, even using
'load' bars to help transfer the hitch load , is most of the time not a real
good thing. But too little weight and you get trailer sway and dangerous
travel, too much and you may stress the limits of safe hitches, balls,
couplers, etc.

You lose bed space in the truck, shortbox pu's don't' do well because the
hitch is too close to the cab. Have seen a short box extended cab that was
repaired twice from turning too short and having the gooseneck kiss the cab.
But the lost bed space can be made up by using the space on the gooseneck
for storage .

Even semi drivers with a long cargo trailer, move their loads to the front
half when the trailer gets empty. I wouldn't do some kind of redneck 5th
conversion to pull with a car, but for a pu, it's the ultimate. Plus, most
of your friends can't ask to borrow the trailer  :)  Which can be a good
thing.

Sorry if I butted in.

Jim 

-----Original Message-----
From: land-speed-bounces at autox.team.net
[mailto:land-speed-bounces at autox.team.net] On Behalf Of Ed Weldon
Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 9:26 PM
To: John Burk; LandSpeed List; Skip Higginbotham
Subject: Re: [Land-speed] Towing a Race car

John/Skip -- I think I share Skip's skepticism.  The physics of the
situation suggests to me that the weight on the 5th wheel should be a
significant amount to give the rear wheels of the tow vehicle extra sidewise
traction to resist the sideways component of trailer deceleration forces
whenever slowing down.  With no 5th wheel experience I personally have no
good idea of how much down force at the 5th wheel is enough.  But it strikes
me that in the case of an 18 wheeler truck that 5th wheel down force could
be close to half the weight of the trailer.  And still the truckers have
jackknife accidents.  So it seems that the loading of a 5th wheel trailer
ought to be as much as the tow vehicle can safely handle considering all
aspects of the tow vehicle's operational characteristics.
Ed Weldon

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Skip Higginbotham" <saltrat at pahrump.com>
To: "John Burk" <joyseydevil at comcast.net>; "LandSpeed List"
<Land-speed at autox.team.net>
Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 4:42 PM
Subject: Re: [Land-speed] Towing a Race car


> UhhHUH, really?..................
>
> Skip
> At 11:33 AM 6/2/2009, John Burk wrote:
> >5th wheel trailers work fine with zero tongue weight .
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