adjusting tongue weight

Hi,

There is really no reason to deliberately shift weight rearward unless you have run out of hitch capacity on your tow vehicle. That just loads the (pretty weak) trailer axle and rear trailer frame more And of course the higher the hitch load the less likely sway is.

I suggest you start by actually loading up the rig as you would normally travel and then weigh it and the toungue weight. Now you have a real world baseline to work from. As that point you can calculate changes in tongue weight with load changes as follows:

Change in tongue weight is (changed load) x (distance of load from trailer axle)/ (distance of tongue from trailer axle). Added load in front of the trailer axle increases tongue weight, load added behind the axle reduces it. Removing load does the reverse. If you’re handy with spreadsheets you can make up a little weight and balance calculator,

I’d suggest after getting the real weights, just using the formula and moving whatever you have that’s convenient.

I find with mine that I get about a 3% change between outbound and return legs due to water shifting from the front fresh water tank to the rear gray water tank, offset a bit by reducing consumables stored in the rear kitchen of the 179. So I range from 11-14% and I’m happy with that, I don’t need to move stuff around just to rebalance. If you really want to stay within 1% at all times you’ll probably have to.

I have used a tongue scale for several years.  Some additions have changed that weight, however I have a way to monitor. 

Nothing wrong with having a tongue scale, but If you want to know the tongue weight as a percent of trailer weight, a tongue scale will only give you half the answer. You still need the trailer weight, so it’s either use a little math or it’s back to the public scale. Just sayin’

Some folks have also tried the Curt Betterweigh system but have reported mixed results for accuracy.

For me, I trust the math which has been around since Archimedes at least. It’s how pilots keep their airplanes loaded safely as well. If you add a 100 lb battery 11 feet from the axle and the tongue is 13 feet from the axle your tongue weight will go up by 100 x 11 / 13 = 84.6 lbs, guaranteed. Your trailer weight will be 100 lbs heavier. So if you started with a 3500 lb trailer with 350 lbs or 10% on the tongue you would now have a 3600 lb trailer with 434.6 lbs on the tongue, or 12.1% tongue weight.

Either way, it’s not something that really needs to be looked at that often, once you’ve looked at your normal range of load configurations you’ll know where your limits are and how to load to stay within them.