trailer question......

[Dink]

Does boat balance on trailer effect gas milage?? I need to put some new supports on and may move boat on trailer back a few inches. I have a lot of toungue weight right now, and get 9mpg towing.......think it'll help?

[simplepeddler]

can't hurt.........

[BayBolt23]

Or get a higher trailer hitch. I had that problem with my trailer.

[Gerald]

Does boat balance on trailer effect gas milage?? I need to put some new supports on and may move boat on trailer back a few inches. I have a lot of toungue weight right now, and get 9mpg towing.......think it'll help?

I don't know if it will effect gas mileage.

If you have Tooooooo much tongue weight, this could effect the stearing of your truck. So reducing the tongue weight may give you a better ride.

You might want to consider moving the axle(s) up some to balance the weight.

[JDd]

Does boat balance on trailer effect gas milage??

NO, the total weight you are pulling doesn't change.

Kinda like the old adage, what weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of lead.

[B-Stealth]

Yes but if the resictance is not evenly dispersed it could cause one of the axles to dig.

[FF_T_Warren]

NO, the total weight you are pulling doesn't change.

Kinda like the old adage, what weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of lead.

Sorry, but that is definitely not true. I cut grass part time, and for 2 years I would pull my mower to the front of my trailer when going to and from my jobs. Well every time I loaded up and drove to baton rouge to mow these town homes I would burn a 1/4 of a tank and its not a far trip. One day I decided to park over the tires(only moving the mower back about 18-24", its an 8ft trailer) I noticed a drastic difference. I went all the way to baton rouge and back + another 15 miles and burned maybe 1/8 of a tank. Now it is a V6 toyota but still it did make a big difference

[JDd]

RIGHT!

You are saying you burned 1/2 as much fuel?

You got double the milage? :shaking:

[Dink]

I look at it this way........I have a 2 wheel cart I use in the yard......if I put a trash can, or tools over the axle, its much easier to move than if I put it close to the handle.......now granted, I'm useing muscle to hold the load up and the truck isn't.......

Yeah, I'm no sure either way.......

[SULPHITE]

I thought you were supposed to center the weight over the axles when hauling on a trailer?

[longsidelandry]

I thought you were supposed to center the weight over the axles when hauling on a trailer?
Same here, I would think that the more evenly balanced the weight is, the easier it is to pull it which would lead to better gas mileage.

[Dink]

If he weight is to close to the front, it'll be hard to steer. If he weight is to far to the back, the trailer will whip back and forth........mine is doing neither, just bad milage

[JDd]

Buy a smaller/lighter boat.

[Dink]

No chance!! I think buying a bigger truck is prolly the right way to go............I was just throwing it out there, looking for real world experiance........I'm gonna give it a go and report later..........thanks for the info Warren..........

[Ray]

You want some weight on the ball or the boat will not track correctly.

[Dink]

You want some weight on the ball or the boat will not track correctly.


Man........my balls weigh enough as it is!!! wears me out lugging these things around all day!!!

[FF_T_Warren]

RIGHT!

You are saying you burned 1/2 as much fuel?

You got double the milage? :shaking:

no not 1/2 but definitely a noticeable amount. Think about this: I want you to go take a lil trailer and load a bunch of weight towards the front and see how hard it is to move it. then move that weight over the axles where it is balanced and then see how much easier it is to pull it.

Im not saying you gonna get twice as much mpg but you will see a noticeable difference. you can watch your tach change when the load is moved. Its not the same results regardless of the load distrubution as you stated, I can assure you of that. I burned 1/8 tank after my load shift and before I was burning b/w 3/16 and 1/4(somewhere in that ballpark)

[SULPHITE]

Man........my balls weigh enough as it is!!! wears me out lugging these things around all day!!!

thats why I wear a jock...

[Dink]

Y'all ever watch the tractor pulls? ? That's where I'm getting the question from

[JDd]

Today's sleds use a complex system of gears to move weights up to 65 000 pounds/29 000 kilograms. Upon starting, all the weights are over the sled's rear axles, to give an effective weight of the sled plus zero. As the tractor travels the course, the weights are pushed forward of the sled's axles, pushing the front of the sled into the ground, synthetically creating a gain in weight until the tractor is no longer able to overcome the force of friction (http://www.saltycajun.com/wiki/Friction).

The effectiveness for a sled to successfully stop a high-speed, fully modified pulling tractor depends greatly on where the two "leg supports" (the support posts that goes from the frame down to the skid pan, also known as the "fulcrum point") are positioned on the frame.

How does the sled work?
A To help understand how a sled works a little history of the device is sometimes necessary. In the early days of pulling people used to stand beside a skid plate in which they hitched to a tractor, horse, or whatever competitive vehicle they were competing with. People stood along the side of the track at regular marked distances from the beginning of the track to nearly the end. As the skid plate drew closer they prepared to jump on it making the skid plate harder for the vehicle to pull as it progressed down the track. Today, a sled is a weight transfer machine that works similar to the original design. It still uses a skid plate (which I will now refer to as a pan) and the machine has been built over the top the pan. A large ramp is placed over the top of the pan with most of it's length existing behind the pan. The sled has regular semi truck wheels in the back that turn as the sled is drug down the track. As the wheels turn a series of transmissions, gears and large chain pull a box full of weight up the ramp as the sled progresses down the track, thus transferring more weight off of the wheels and onto the pan, thus making the entire sled much more difficult to pull as it progresses down the track.


http://gardentractorpullingtips.com/images/sleddraw.gif


A Tractor pull sled weighs the same from start to finish. It doesn't GAIN weight. The weight moving forward pushes the sled into the ground. The tractor isn't pulling more weight. the weight is being transfered from a rolling force to a dragging force. The force that slows and/or stops the tractor is friction. Not weight.

[Salty]

Right after Christmas, I rented a U-HAUL trailer and pulled it from Muskogee, OK. It was a 12' tandem axle box trailer. The dood at the rental place told me to make sure to place 60% of my cargo weight from the center of the axles forward. It even had signs in the trailer stating that. It pulled like a champ.....didn't even know it was back there.

[Salty]

A Tractor pull sled weighs the same from start to finish. It doesn't GAIN weight. The weight moving forward pushes the sled into the ground. The tractor isn't pulling more weight. the weight is being transfered from a rolling force to a dragging force. The force that slows and/or stops the tractor is friction. Not weight.

This isn't the same as pulling a trailer.

[Dink]

Well, I moved boat back 2inches on trailer today.........it pulls like a MUCH smaller boat now.......I noticed last weekend my reciever hitch was no longer pointing strait out from the truck, but instead was twisted down a little........where the boat sits now, I should no longer have any problems...........I only have half tamk of gas in it right now, so I'll know more when I fill it up tomorrow............My neihbor and I can lift the toungue now.......Before......NO WAY.......I'll know more about gas milage this weekend..........