Quote:
Originally Posted by Gower50
Thanks Paul, the side friction pads are new and I am about to change the front and rear pads and the hitch has been cleaned.
I have only been towing for about 7 months having had motor homes for the previous 30+ years.
I even took the van to my local approved caravan service centre and got them to check out the hitch, brakes and ATC and everything was OK. The van has also had new tyres as when I bought it the van was four years but the tyres were six and a half years old !
Have tried loading the van with 2x6kg gas bottles in the locker but it takes the nose weight to approx. 95kg. The allowable weight on my car hitch is 90kg. was advised not to try and counteract this by putting a couple of heavy items under the rear bed.
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Mines has a nose weight limit of 75kgs, took me some fiddling to get below that but achieved it with both gas bottles in the front locker. As I said I have no problem at all with pitching or sway. Mine has the rear island bed and central washroom, 1638 kg all up.
As tannon says the cars are rated for heavier noseweight in other countries, of course that will hold no water if pulled by vosa in one of their motorway test stations. Have you cleaned ALL the paint off the towball? I started with 1200 emery cloth but found it needed wire wool to finish the process. By that time the pads were contaminated so I ordered new and rebuilt the hitch paying particular attention to pad preloaded. In fact ended up with more packing behind one side pad than the other to get them into limits. What a difference that made to stability especially on tramlined motorways. That was with the old van and since changing to the coachman I realised I could of gone tighter on the pad preloaded when I rebuilt the hitch. I went for good preloaded where the new hitch on the coachman is set for maximum preloaded and I find I have to use quite considerable force to engage it, more than on the rebuilt hitch of the old van.
I would ensure the ball is clean with wire wool, set the preloaded of your rebuilt hitch to the maximum possible, ie just inside the tolerance markers on the forward end and ensure your pads are clean as I found the paint had contaminated mine and even wire wool struggled to clean them sufficiently in comparison to uncontaminated new ones.
Just one point, how are you measuring noseweight? I baught a noseweight gauge and promptly threw it in the recycling as it was so inacurate, I now use a slater bathroom scales with a piece of wood across it to spread the load and a stout stick to take the weight of the hitch when measuring noseweight.
Paul.