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Made it up here yesterday. The most disturbing thing was when the trailer first started doing a little fish tailing. Scared the CRAP out of me! The rest of the ride I was on a little edge controlling it. When it begins to happen, I either try to counter the frequency of the trailer's wagging directly by feeling it and gently fight what it is trying to make me do...or how it wants to wag ME. The other thing I did was to just ever so slightly oscillate the steering to disrupt the trailer's frequency. More often than not, it worked. But what I really want to know is how to simply PREVENT the "trailer wagging". Someone I met along the way suggested it might be too much weight on the tongue, but my trailer hitch is set higher, so I believe the trailer weight sits better onto its own axel.

Mast raising tomorrow! Wish me luck!

My understanding is that swaying is aggravated by not having enough tongue weight. The figure often used is 10% of the load, or maybe as much as 15%. Less than that causes the boat sometimes to lift the tow's rear with inertial bounces, and causes more sway. A typically equipped MacX would weigh in at about 4K, with trailer and the usual stuff on board, so 400 lbs. would be ideal, if the tow's hitch rating can take that tongue weight. Many common hitches are rated for 300 # max tongue weight, so that is marginal on the Mac.

kmclemore wrote:

johnnyonspot wrote:I concur with the AT cooler. Easily installed and can be worth its weight in gold if it means you avoid a tranny rebuild while out of warranty. BTDT.

Nice thing about the Toyota Sienna is that it comes with a towing package as standard equipment (cooler, etc). The only things I added was the 4-wheel disc-brake package for better stoping power and an Air-Lift kit to level the ride. (Not installed in the picture above, hence the sagging bottom!)

Mac Ziggy wrote:I have a Chevy 1500 with the tow package and as soon as you engage the button for tow/haul, the engine revs up about 50%.

I suspect what it's doing is locking out the overdrive in the tranny. This is a good idea for anyone who's towing something, particularly a *heavy* something - use the non-overdrive setting on your shifter. Check your owner's manual, but usually it's one notch back from the last 'drive' location. If you don't do this you run the risk of burning out the gearbox.

I have a 07' chevy silverado classic 1500, according to the manual, "...Tow/Haul mode adjusts the the transmission shift pattern to reduce shift cycling, provide increased performance, vehicle control, and transmission cooling when towing or hauling heavy loads."
I towed the 96' macX from fl. keys to pgh, pa (less stolen engine,) and found the tow/haul mode the rev the tranny to high for my tastes. mostly highway miles so didn't affect it much. Mpg was 12 to 14.
Billy

rfehon wrote:The most disturbing thing was when the trailer first started doing a little fish tailing. Scared the CRAP out of me!...

Yes, you're right that it does indeed scare the ***** out of you when that happens!

To prevent this, as ALX357 noted, you need to increase the tongue weight. Again, 10% is the usual guide, but it sometimes depends on the angle of the trailer, the trailer's tires and how stiff your car's rear suspension is, too.

For your next 'ride' I'd move as much of your loose equipment up to the bow of the boat as you reasonably can. This will help quite a bit. Also, you might take a careful look at your car with the boat on the hook to see how level it is. If it's tail-heavy you need to consider either a load-balancing hitch addition or, as is my preference, a pair of Air-Lift rear suspension supports. This will flatten your ride out and help prevent that sway that scares us all.

Now, if you *do* get the sway, I recommend that you do not try to counter it with your steering - you can easily get into a whip-saw motion that will be very hard to stop and may lead to disaster. Instead, just ease off the gas slowly and gently slow things down... this will soon stop the sway and will also help prevent it happening again, as it is usually at higher speeds that it shows up most.

Thanks, kmclemore, I probably should jsut slow down, but it seemes such work for my Ody to get to its speed...to its proper rpm's that I hated to steal it back by slowing. It seemed fairly easy to correct it by disrupting its frequency, but I am glad to hear that it is fixed more simply by balancing the weight. My tongue does raise the trailer enough to make it look like it is slightly leaning back. This is probably the structure I need to change. Until then I will try to redistribute the weight before returning. I will try to drive more slowly. Thanks all for the advice.

If the trailer is biased with tail lower than hitch, you're almost surely running too little tongue weight. When speed exceeds 50 mph, ail-wagging is the inevitable result.

The quickest fix would be a stop at Pep Boys for a receiver with a lower drop, prolly 2 inches to start. If the trailer is clearly more than 2 inches non-level, choose accordingly.