Thanks for sharing your experience. It’s well in line with what I’m experiencing. I was actually looking at the Hensley hitch today which I believe is similar. Also been looking at F-250s and what they would do to our bank account. If we could go that route right now we would.

I’m willing to give the F-150 a chance with these few upgrades but I have not been happy with the towing performance thus far. I think we bit off just a little more than the 150 can chew. Hopefully I can prove myself wrong.

Thats a nice looking rig!

I wanted to give an update on my process. I've put firestone airbags and Michelin defender LT tires on the 150. I took the trailer to the scales today and played around with the WD hitch settings. The truck feels much more planted and the rear end is much more stable. 20 psi in the bags seems to do the trick. Counting from the top of the chain, 9 links on the blue ox seems to be ideal. The only problem I have now is that the front of trailer is too high (because of the extra airbag height) so I'll have to adjust the height of the hitch. The 9 links (vs my original 7) make the truck feel really planted and stable. It even seemed to help with how much the trailer was affecting the truck even though the front was too high. Once I drop the hitch a bit to get the TT parallel with the road I'll re-weigh to see if there is any change although there shouldn't be much. Starting to consider a Pro Pride p3 for even more added peace of mind.


I also confirmed what howson had said earlier about airbags not affecting the WDH. 20psi vs 5 psi resulted in the exact same axle weights on the scale.

I'm still a bit confused about tongue weight % as it relates to with and without WD. Do you go by the tongue weight % without WD or after WD is added?

I've included my spreadsheet for reference.

I realized the spreadsheet is hard to read. Here's a link to my ready-only google sheet https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

I've always used with WD to determine tongue weight, but that doesn't appear to be accurate. From https://www.etrailer.com/question-180152.html : Weight distribution works to distribute the tongue weight of a trailer up to the front axle of the tow vehicle so that it will sit more level and handle/brake better. That being said the systems do not "reduce" tongue weight or allow you to tow beyond the capacities of the vehicle. The tension on the spring bars essentially lifts up on the tongue, figuratively "holding" some of the tongue's weight. This causes a shift in the distribution of the weight off of the vehicle's rear axle to all of the axles in the entire setup.

Those are excellent hitches but they are very proud of them. ($$$$). If the Blue Ox works great at 9 links, consider a set of Lippert's Strapteks instead of the P3. The Strapteks transform the Blue Ox into a very easy system to use. I don't even mind unhitching on consecutive travel days it's that easy. I had a passionate "love/hate" relationship with my Blue Ox WDH before the Strapteks. (As always, tip-of-the-hat to Triplethreat.)

Thanks for posting the follow up and congrats on getting it (almost) dialed in. The time is worth it--once you've found that perfect configuration you'll be glad you spent the time and effort to find it.

That does make sense about the tongue weight. The weight is still there just suspended across the tongue instead of at the point of the hitch ball.

They sure are proud of them! I'm going to see how the blue ox does on our next trip. If it seems to be doing the trick I'll definitely be investing the strapteks.

No problem! Hoping others can benefit from this info. Thanks again for the spreadsheet.

Another quick update, I took the time to get the rig perfectly level with the new airbags and 9 links on the Blue Ox. It's looking really good. We towed about an hour or so away over the weekend in some fairly strong cross winds. Gusts ranged up to 25 mph and the wind was constant at 15 or so. The truck felt really planted and the handling has improved immensely. However the push and pull forces from the trailer are still making things uncomfortable. I wasn't able to confidently go above 55. There were a few times where the wind got the front of the truck heading towards the other lane but I was able to keep everything controlled and never left our lane.

Since we plan on towing longer distances on major highways I really want to be able to do 65 comfortably. I'm about to pull the trigger on a ProPride 3p with 1400lb bars. From all the reviews made by people with a similar rig, I think this will fix the problem I'm dealing with.

There's no doubt it is a fantastic hitch. Please update this thread again with the results!

Cross winds at 15 gusting to 25 would make most folks towing an RV slow down , I know I would.

Brian

I installed the ProPride P3 over the weekend and took it for a test drive. It was crazy windy (18-25mph) here in South Texas over the weekend and the hitch performed absolutely fantastic. I still have a little tweaking to do to get everything leveled out but so far its proving its worth the money. I still feel the force of the wind on the rig but it's controlled and predictable with a much less profound effect on the front of the truck. I was able to hit 65 without much discomfort at all.

I'll post my CAT scale results as soon as I get the math worked out.

Here's a link to my weights spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

I can't for the life of me figure out how my trailer weighs 400 more pounds than the last time I weighed it. All the tanks are empty and it has the same load in it. I know the PP weighs more than my blue ox. I think the BO was about 90 lbs and the PP is 190. So I should only be seeing a 100lb increase. I'm getting total trailer weight by taking the GCW and subtracting the truck only weight. I'm scratching my head... am I missing something?

MikeG90
Hi Mike,

I am just catching up (again) to this discussion. Good to learn that you have found a combination that works well. As you know, I tow a 5th wheel with a factory HDPP F150 . . . so, not really an apples-to-apples comparison. I just wanted to add that I have found that the last piece of "tuning" for stability in cross winds & transport passing, to be front tire pressure. My factory specs are 60 psi rear and 55 psi front. I take the rears up 15 psi when towing and tried this on the fronts as well. This much pressure increase on the fronts made the truck less stable. It is most comfortable and stable with +15 psi rears (75 psi cold) and +5 psi fronts (60 psi cold). I run 30 psi in the rear airbags.

Just another reference point . . .

Rob

Thanks Rob! I appreciate the info. I was trying to get Michelin to give me a pressure/load table for the Defender LTX but I had no such luck. I'm going to play around with the pressures and see what kind of difference it makes. Right now empty I'm running them all at 55psi. I took them up to 65 with the trailer on but I might take my rear pressures up like yours and see how it feels loaded/unloaded.

I checked my tank gauges and my grey tanks are both reading 1/3 full. I'm going to empty them this evening and re-weigh. This could be the culprit for the extra weight. I guess I didn't get them good and empty last time we had the trailer out. I swear they all red empty when we left the camp ground.

I'm also wondering if I'm transferring enough weight back to the front axles. I was doing more with my Blue Ox but I'm wondering if its better to return half the weight rather than almost all of it. Any advice here?

So after all of my efforts it was clear that the F150 just would not handle the trailer the way I wanted it to. So I just brought home a '19 F250 XLT 6.7 crew cab short bed with camper package. I'm keeping the ProPride because this combo is pretty sweet. The trailer was at the dealer for some warranty work and I towed it home yesterday. Wow what a HUGE difference in handling and power. About half way through the trip the wind went from 10mph to reports of 30mph sustained and gusts to 40. This was totally unexpected but with the 250 and ProPride it felt like the F150 on a regular day. Amazing combo. I think I'll start a new thread about my rig combo and post all of the weigh results. Thanks everyone for all your help!

Welcome to the (unofficial) Two Time TV Club, Mike. I'm a member, too. And we are not alone. Not by a long shot! As your post describes, when conditions get bad it's nice to have "too much truck".

Howard