How Do I Weigh My Trailer?
Now, Sean asked the following question. “Can you pull a travel trailer across a set of weight station scales to get your weight, or what do you have to do at a truck stop to get your trailer weight? ”
Well I would want four weights; the towing weight, dead weight, tongue weight, and the side to side weight. This can be done in three steps. The first weight is the full weight of the trailer, that is disconnected from the tow vehicle and sitting alone on the scales. Then hook up and move the trailer forward until just the wheels of the trailer are sitting on the scales. Subtract that weight from the total weight and you will have the tongue weight. One note here, do not engage the load distributing bars when weighing.
Next get the trailer positioned so that just the wheels on one side of the trailer are on the scales. This will give you the side to side weight. Subtract the weight recorded from the weight of just the trailer itself to give you the weight of just one side. Hopefully the side to side weight will be about equal.
Ideally the area around the scale is level as if it is not it will effect the weights when only part of the rig is on the platform. I do not know if the DOT scales will weight you and take the time, but a commercial scale will do what you want as long as you foot the bill. I use a commercial railroad yard off loading facility as their scale and the surrounding area is flat. The local scale that I could use is not flat and when I have compared weights between the two I got some real weird numbers.
Now with the numbers in hand sit down and do the numbers. Do you have your stuff evenly distributed in the rig? Have you exceeded the tongue weight? Have exceeded the GVW? And are tire pressures where they should be?
What Is a Class C?
A class C motor home is built on what the factories call a cut-away chassis. It is an incomplete van. The front of the Class C is very familiar to the person that has ever driven a van but the coach body is then added on. Most class C’s the body is wider than the nose or original van dimensions. In the longer units the chassis is extended and modified.
The main sleeping bed can be then located over the drivers cab and leave the rest of the floor space for living and traveling. For the most part the class C’s are lighter than class A’s and use a smaller power plant and more automotive like. They are lower and usually offer less basement storage than a class A. If you use the overhead bunk as your main bedroom the floor space is very close to and older style class A that had the swooped back nose and a center entrance door. The newer bus slab front rigs do gain a little extra floor space because the front entrance is mainly carved out of the passengers floor space and with the straight up and down of the windshield head room is gained right to the front.
Well that is about it for this week, catchya.
Brad