Trailer boat balancing help needed

[hantheman7]

History... So I bought a 1990 MacGregor 26S swing keel sailboat a few years ago that I use as a camper for my family and it came with a 2000 MacGregor 26X factory plain steel not galvanized single axle trailer which I've been wanting to replace since day one of ownership since I only use it in saltwater. The boat weighs less then 3000 pounds. I was able to find a nice Magic Tilt tandem axle aluminum trailer on craigslist that needed the axles and springs replaced for $500. I bought new Rockwell American galvanized torsion axles($550 for 2 w/ new hubs) and installed them on the trailer and rebuilt the bunks with painted pine boards(couldn't get any cedar redwood or cypress at the time and you should never use pressure treated with aluminum). Took the boat out over the holiday weekend and put the boat on the new trailer yesterday. Boat appears to sit on all the bunks much better then I expected.

The problem(s)... There does not seam to be any tongue weight because when you release the hitch the tongue rises up in the air. The front torsion axle suspension seams very compressed while the rear axle's suspension does not. I would think that they should be evenly compressed sharing the weight of the boat. Both these issues seem to contradict each other. No tongue weight would leave me to believe that the boat needs to be moved forward on the trailer or the axles moved back but the front torsion axle seams to be carrying too much of the load making me think that the boat needs to be moved back or the axles moved forward?

Questions... Do I move the boat forward or do I move it back? Do I have a possible bunk/cross member issue because there is too much weight on the on the cross member in front of the front axle? I'm not sure what is going on so I thought I would solicit some help on here to see if someone has experienced this before? See boat trailer images...

​

​​

​

​​

​

​​

 

[Scott Danforth]

welcome aboard

none of your pics came thru. need 3 more posts under your belt to upload pics

 

[tpenfield]

:welcome:

It does sound counter-intuitive that the front torsion axle would be compressed and the tongue rising (negative tongue weight)

I would check the installation to make sure you installed the torsion axles correctly,

If all is good and the tongue weight still needs adjustment, you can sometimes move the bow stop forward to increase tongue weight. If not then you may have to move the axles.

Here is a link to my sailboat page where I moved the axle on my Catalina 22 trailer to adjust the tongue weight.

http://www.tpenfield.com/Catalina22/Tongue_Wgt.html

 

[ahicks]

Without seeing your pics (yet) I'm guessing the trailer is being pulled with a setup that has the tongue of the trailer way lower than it should be. If you want an equal load on the axles (a good plan!) the trailer frame they're bolted to should be level when coupled to the tow vehicle. If using a receiver type hitch (hopefully) you would select the proper ball mount to establish that level trailer frame.

 

[Silvertip]

Unfortunately, tandem torsion axles do not have the same equalizing feature that a leaf spring design has. Your assumption is correct that the front axle is loaded more than the rear and with no central pivot point like a leaf spring design, the front torsion spring pushes the tongue upward. I've seen torsion axle trailers go over a rise and have the rear wheels come off the ground and then later the front does it as the rear axle begins to load up. Lack of equalization in this system can create very high overloading of either axle. These are great for a single axle but not so much for a tandem, especially if loaded pretty close to or at maximum load limit for the trailer.