Setting up trailer for proper balance/ride?

[mallardtone-man]

Hey guys, I bought this trailer a few years ago and modified bunk and rollers to fit my boat and am having some issues with the way it is towing and uneven tire wear. It's a newer trailer 2007? that I believe had a 15ft boat on it before, seems to have a very heavy axle and suspension, possibly too heavy for my boat? It seems to bounce very hard and sway when I hit potholes. My boat is 16 foot fiberglass with a 115 so fairly heavy rig. The trailer was significantly too short originally so I added a 48" extension to the tongue and tried to center the weight of the motor and gas tanks over the rear roller as much as possible without making the trailer too long. When I first set it up I believe I had the bow roller positioned a little bit too far back and it was bouncing and bucking a lot in the front while towing so I moved the bow roller as far forward as the length allows which centered the weight over the rear roller more and smoothed out the ride significantly but it still doesn't tow as smooth as most of the boats I have owned and has a very high tongue weight, we can barely lift it off the ground and onto the hitch with two strong people and has actually bent my Reese hitch to some degree. After a few seasons during which I really haven't towed that many miles (under 1000) I am noticing that my tires have worn very unevenly and are extremely choppy on the outer edges. I'm thinking that either I did not add enough length and the boat needs to be positioned even farther forward to be balanced correctly, or the suspension is too stiff causing the boat to bounce and sway a lot, or possibly a combination of the two? I am planning on adding a swing coupling soon so if I do need to add more tongue length now would be the time to do it. I have attached a bunch of pictures so you can get an idea of how the trailer is laid out and the issues I am referring to. I am desperately in need of any advice you all can offer oh, I really need to solve this issue. Thanks in advance!

 

[H20Rat]

Need some pics of the whole rig, not just closeups... Especially any mods. You are also probably going to want to dig up some accurate weights of the boat and tongue weight.

 

[beerman2]

Looks like your boat is too far forward to start with and the trailer is too small for the boat. A trailer with 13" tires is not designed to carry a lot of weight. You need to find the weight of the boat and the gross vehicle weight of the trailer and see if your trailer is overloaded. From the looks of the tires they have been bouncing off the road a lot. This is usually caused by the axles bottoming out on the frame from worn out springs or being over loaded. If your trailer has shocks which some don't, you could try a heavier shock. A boat of this size one man should be able to lift the tongue and sit it on the trailer ball especially with that huge engine you have on the back of the boat. Good luck, I hope this helped.

 

[JimS123]

From the looks of it, that's a fairly light boat for a 16 footer. Plain and simple, your trailer is not suitable. Its too short for one thing. You have inadequate hull support. Adding tongue length is not appropriate. Look at the trailer specs - it may not be rated high enough.

The tires may or may not be an issue. Again, look at the rating to ensure that it exceeds the weight capacity needed. Probably a 12" LRD tire would be sufficient for that small a boat.

Regardless of the trailer capacity, your springs are too stiff. You are chewing up the tires because the trailer is bouncing due to the low weight on them.

You need a new trailer...