2016 DRV Atlanta 43 Weight

[Shawn Patterson]

So I know that there have been some folks with pin weight issues on their DRV trailers and a LOT of talk about this issue.  I finally got all my weigh slips together, so I thought I would share.

The trailer is a 2016 Altanta 43 (23,000 GVWR on the sticker) loaded with all our possessions and had about 1/3 a tank of water at the time of weighing.
The truck is a 2013 Volvo 730, 13.2K Front Axle, Tandem Rear Axles, no bed yet, full 125 gallon fuel tanks and an ET hitch at the time of weighing.

Here are the numbers:

	Steer Axle	Drive Axle	Trailer Axles	Total
Truck / Trailer	10,480	14,360	19,180	44,020
Truck Alone	11,580	9,340	-	20,920
Difference	(1,100)	5,020	19,180	23,100
Total truck weight w/Trailer	24,840
Total truck weight wo/Trailer	20,920
Difference (Pin Weight)	3,920
Pin %	17.0%
Truck Front Axle Weight	42.2%
Truck Rear Axle Weight	57.8%

At 23,100 lbs of total trailer weight, we are 100 lbs over the stated GVWR of 23,000 and lower on the pin weight than I would like. The current DRV brochure says the Atlanta has a 24,000 lb GVWR, so I am interested as to what may have changed between 2016 and 2017 (if anything) that they now have a 1,000 lb higher GVWR.

I would rather see the pin percentage at or above 20%, but that would require an additional 700 lbs of pin weight. We are evaluating if we can shift any heavy cargo to the nose area to help and I am considering going to a straight pin box to help increase the pin weight without adding additional weight to the trailer, but I need to be careful about clearance to the truck as I am planning on adding a bed to handle a Polaris RZR side-by-side.

We will be going through the RVSEF weigh station at the DRV rally in Goshen and I will be interested to see if those numbers differ much. I will post an update in August once I have the new weights.

[GlennWest]

Drv does this so toy trucks can tow them. Not smart in my thinking. Right way to fix is move axles. I would contact Drv. They probably will say it's fine like this though. Are you getting any tail wagging? 

[Shawn Patterson]

Yeah, I agree, it's all about the $$$!  Fortunately for us, the trailer is tracking well and the ET Hitch seems to be handling the 4k of pin weight well as I don't really see any more float than what I would expect. At some point I want to set up a camera on the back of the truck to record the hitch motion and see what Henry thinks since it is his hitch design.

[WeBeFulltimers]

1 hour ago, GlennWest said:

Drv does this so toy trucks can tow them. 

What do you consider to be "toy trucks"?  Not everyone wants a HDT.  I got my fill of them over a 20 year span while logging 3.5 million safe miles and have no need or desire to play trucker.  Never again!

[GeorgiaHybrid]

1 hour ago, WeBeFulltimers said:

What do you consider to be "toy trucks"?  Not everyone wants a HDT.  I got my fill of them over a 20 year span while logging 3.5 million safe miles and have no need or desire to play trucker.  Never again!

Seeing how you got your fill of them, why are you on the HDT forum? Would you prefer that we call the LGT's a 4 wheeler? Everyone on this particular forum is here to learn about a HDT or they already own one. As for playing trucker, no thanks, I prefer to play safer.

[sclord2002]

Shawn, you have 1100 pounds in weight shift from your steer axle to the drive axle that is not part of your trailer pin weight. It is simply tow vehicle weight that is shifted rearward due to hitch placement. I ran into the same thing weighing my rig and it was really puzzling for a while.    OOPS, my poor math skills bit me again....upon re-reading your post, I see you figured in the 1100 pounds.......sorry I overlooked it.    Charlie

[GeorgiaHybrid]

Charlie, the weights are still the same. If you take his truck only rear axle weight of 9,340 pounds and add the weight shifted from the front axles when the trailer is loaded of 1,100 pounds, you have 10,440 pounds of weight for the trucks rear axle. subtract that from the 14,360 pound rear axle weight when loaded and you still have the pin weight he came up with of 3,920 pounds. That is the 17% of the total trailer weight that he has.

[sclord2002]

Dave, I woke up right after I posted about the 1100 pounds, re-read Shawns post and saw the error of my ways and tried to edit my post. It's terrible when you go to night school and can't count in the daytime !!      Charlie

[Shawn Patterson]

2 minutes ago, sclord2002 said:

Shawn, you have 1100 pounds in weight shift from your steer axle to the drive axle that is not part of your trailer pin weight. It is simply tow vehicle weight that is shifted rearward due to hitch placement. I ran into the same thing weighing my rig and it was really puzzling for a while.    Charlie

Right, I expected that with the hitch being behind the rear axles. The video on Gregg's channel that Jack did "RVHauler Axle Weight and Hitch Placement Discussion" did a great job in going over that.  So in calculating the PIN weight I originally looked at just the rear axle weights but then quickly realized that wasn't right... So, total front and rear axle weight with the trailer was 24,840 and without the trailer was 20,920, leaving a difference of the 3,920 lbs coming from the trailer.  3,920 lbs out of a total of 23,100 lbs is 16.97%, rounded to 17%.  

The trailer seems to pull fine, and the ET hitch seems to be handling it well, so I have no grave concerns at this point. That being said, I feel like I'm in the "Yellow" zone with pin weight and possibly the trailer's GVWR.

[Jack Mayer]

Shawn, you may or may not have a lot of bounce in the ET due to that pin weight. Look at the upper stops and see if you are hitting a "lot". You should be able to tell. 

I'd probably recommend three things:

1) shift stuff to the front - costs nothing and can increase pin weight a little.

2) Put on the vertical pinbox. This will help substantially. And it likely will not interfere with your deck cargo given the rounded nose design of the DRV. Marc has his VERY close to the smart as you can see in the pictures of the pinbox on our website (or HERE). And no interference.  This costs $390 + shipping.

3) put in the ET cushions for dampening upward movement. In essence this can preload the airbag and simulate a heavier pin. It makes a REMARKABLE difference on these lighter pin-weight trailers. We have been testing this with Henry for some time - as you know, and it really is working out well. Don't know the cost on this yet, since up till now it has been prototyping.....but Henry can chime in, or if he does not I can pursue for a price.

I'd probably do all three. It will make a substantial difference, IMO.

On edit: here is a short video that will show three trucks the same size with smarts. The white (far) truck has a DVR (43' Dallas) with the RVH pinbox on it. Look how close the smart is. All three beds are the same dimensions and the trucks (back of cabs) are lined up as close to perfectly as we could.
https://goo.gl/photos/EpmRsQ8yr8vaQb7M6

[Shawn Patterson]

34 minutes ago, Jack Mayer said:

Shawn, you may or may not have a lot of bounce in the ET due to that pin weight. Look at the upper stops and see if you are hitting a "lot". You should be able to tell. 

<SNIP SNIP>

 

Thanks Jack...  I'll take a look at the upper stops and see what they look like. After being back here and clearing out our storage unit, we have had some stuff come into the trailer and some other stuff leave, so it will be interesting to see what the weight look like when we hit the RVSEF scales. After looking at the picture, it looks like the straight pin box won't be an issue at all unless the wife decides she wants me to set up the truck to haul a Jeep... I will reach out to you directly sometime over the next few weeks about that.  I'll hit Henry up about the ET cushions and see what he has to say.

[ms60ocb]

18 hours ago, Shawn Patterson said:

Here are the numbers:

	Steer Axle	Drive Axle	Trailer Axles	Total
Truck / Trailer	10,480	14,360	19,180	44,020
Truck Alone	11,580	9,340	-	20,920
Difference			19,180

We will be going through the RVSEF weigh station at the DRV rally in Goshen and I will be interested to see if those numbers differ much. I will post an update in August once I have the new weights.

The individual RV tire weights will interesting

I haven't weighted individual tires but my axle weights with 20 gal of water were approx 7100 and 7950 # on 8K axles.

Are the 3 axle RV's using 7K or 8K axles

Clay DRV MS 38P3/Dallas pulled by FL M2 106

[Shawn Patterson]

5 hours ago, ms60ocb said:

The individual RV tire weights will interesting

I haven't weighted individual tires but my axle weights with 20 gal of water were approx 7100 and 7950 # on 8K axles.

Are the 3 axle RV's using 7K or 8K axles

Clay DRV MS 38P3/Dallas pulled by FL M2 106

Fairly certain all 3 of our axles are 8K.

[phoenix2013]

Shawn, I'm, not impressed with 17%, not at all.

As Jack said, take a look at the sled vertical wall in the rear and the paint on top edges, are there any indications that the sled is coming up all the way up and hitting the stop plates on big bounces.

I installed the mods Jack is talking about on half a dozen ETs so far and Jack and Mark are testing couple more "tweaks" to the new system.

The tweak is the additional spacer you see in the third picture, we want to see if it can fool the ET into "thinking" that it has more pin weight than what  DRV deemed "sufficient".

The prototype parts right now are about hundred bucks, but that's prototype. The bigger challenge is that the sled (and the head) need to be modified to accept the new stop plates with the "bounce" absorbers. I've done it on some older sleds.

I'm building all the new hitches to the new configuration, regardless.

[Shawn Patterson]

18 hours ago, phoenix2013 said:

Shawn, I'm, not impressed with 17%, not at all.

As Jack said, take a look at the sled vertical wall in the rear and the paint on top edges, are there any indications that the sled is coming up all the way up and hitting the stop plates on big bounces.

 

Henry,

I agree... 17% doesn't sit well with me either.

It appears that there has been very little wear on the top of the sled (see pics), but there has been some.  Considering the state of our interstate system, it doesn't surprise me that it has banged the top plate a few times.  I will let you be the judge on if this qualifies as too much.

Regards,
  Shawn

[GlennWest]

I came down I 10 from New Orleans to Houston area. No where near that movement. All that was painted.

[Dollytrolley]

On 7/5/2017 at 11:11 AM, Shawn Patterson said:

So I know that there have been some folks with pin weight issues on their DRV trailers and a LOT of talk about this issue.  I finally got all my weigh slips together, so I thought I would share.

The trailer is a 2016 Altanta 43 (23,000 GVWR on the sticker) loaded with all our possessions and had about 1/3 a tank of water at the time of weighing.
The truck is a 2013 Volvo 730, 13.2K Front Axle, Tandem Rear Axles, no bed yet, full 125 gallon fuel tanks and an ET hitch at the time of weighing.

Here are the numbers:

	Steer Axle	Drive Axle	Trailer Axles	Total
Truck / Trailer	10,480	14,360	19,180	44,020
Truck Alone	11,580	9,340	-	20,920
Difference	(1,100)	5,020	19,180	23,100
Total truck weight w/Trailer	24,840
Total truck weight wo/Trailer	20,920
Difference (Pin Weight)	3,920
Pin %	17.0%
Truck Front Axle Weight	42.2%
Truck Rear Axle Weight	57.8%

At 23,100 lbs of total trailer weight, we are 100 lbs over the stated GVWR of 23,000 and lower on the pin weight than I would like. The current DRV brochure says the Atlanta has a 24,000 lb GVWR, so I am interested as to what may have changed between 2016 and 2017 (if anything) that they now have a 1,000 lb higher GVWR.

I would rather see the pin percentage at or above 20%, but that would require an additional 700 lbs of pin weight. We are evaluating if we can shift any heavy cargo to the nose area to help and I am considering going to a straight pin box to help increase the pin weight without adding additional weight to the trailer, but I need to be careful about clearance to the truck as I am planning on adding a bed to handle a Polaris RZR side-by-side.

We will be going through the RVSEF weigh station at the DRV rally in Goshen and I will be interested to see if those numbers differ much. I will post an update in August once I have the new weights.

Good evening Shawn,

 

As you may recall at times I sometimes post some examples of calculated wight & balance solutions for some of the RV's here on the forum (including a second-grade math error in a recent post)…….

 

For the most part my methods of calculating various weight & balance solutions here on the forum are often viewed as exciting as recreational tax audits or big-box-store-inventory-control or some other nerd-like-fetish…….

 

Perhaps you and some of the DRV owners just might have a “partial-solution-to-your-skinny-pin-weights” right under your feet……..

 

Here is my point…….perhaps by calculating your various liquid tank mass capacities you could likely make a substancial change in your pin weight potential(s)………

 

Here is the concept, large trailers tend to have large mass (weight) potential fresh, grey, and black water tanks often some behind the average axle center line and some tanks in front of the Avg axle center…...so…...consider removing mass from the aft tanks and add mass to the front tanks and IF room exists in the lower underbelly of the trailer consider perhaps adding another fresh water tank as far forward as practical. The advantage here is that your largest viariable RV load potentials are mass contained in your various liquid tanks so the smart thing to do is to make your fresh water tankage do double duity as your pin weight enhancement system.

 

Once you make friends with the third-grade math required to calculate weight and balance you will be amazed how much power you have to adjust your pin weights WITHOUT major mods to your trailer.

 

If you do not disire to do the math yourself I would be willing to perform the calculations and give them to you.

 

What I would need is the distance from your hitch pin to your center trailer axle and the distance from the pin to the center of each of your liquid tanks and each tank capacity in gallons…...with these items defined I can provide you with various potential pin weights at various liquid loadings…….simple math.

 

You can email me at mmcdan3189@aol.com or try my cell at (520) 891-3695.

 

Drive on……...(game the pin loads with ……..variable mass)

[HERO Maker]

On 7/5/2017 at 4:17 PM, Jack Mayer said:

 

On edit: here is a short video that will show three trucks the same size with smarts. The white (far) truck has the DRV pinbox on it. Look how close the smart is. All three beds are the same dimensions.
https://goo.gl/photos/EpmRsQ8yr8vaQb7M6

Hey Jack.  Don't you mean the white truck DOES NOT have the DRV pin box on it, but instead the straight down pin box?

[Jack Mayer]

4 minutes ago, HERO Maker said:

Hey Jack.  Don't you mean the white truck DOES NOT have the DRV pin box on it, but instead the straight down pin box?

I meant the RVH DRV pinbox. Good to point that out Rocky - I'll edit the post to clarify. The Moryde pinbox extends out significantly.

[HERO Maker]

I'll possibly be looking into this change out this fall.

Take care.  Hopefully see you in August.

[Jack Mayer]

17 minutes ago, HERO Maker said:

I'll possibly be looking into this change out this fall.

Take care.  Hopefully see you in August.

We will likely bring a few of these pin boxes to the National Rally. If you decide to do it, make sure to let me know. Contact me privately, not on the forum. Pricing is on the website.

[phoenix2013]

3 hours ago, Jack Mayer said:

We will likely bring a few of these pin boxes to the National Rally. If you decide to do it, make sure to let me know. Contact me privately, not on the forum. Pricing is on the website.

Finally a "real solution"!

1. If you have any air hitch all you need is hard pin box, Air pin box is totally unnecessary, unnecessary additional cost and sometimes creates "strange behavior" between different airbags, different inflations, etc., etc.

2. Air pinboxes, or "anti-chuckers" like Moryde are much longer (forward) to provide working space for their features. This adds unnecessary stress (torque) to the fifth's frame and adds length to the fifth/truck overall dimension.

3. The air pinboxes are a good solution for lighter trailers to go along with a hard hitch, they are totally inadequate for larger and heavier fifths.

4. The Moryde anti-chucking pinbox is a feel good pinbox. Sort of like the sugar pill you get when they test new drugs and you are a part of the "control group". If you "feel like it works" I guess it works.

5. The air pinboxes and Moryde spend their engineering time designing the features of their "creations". Their engineers pay little attention how their "creations" integrate with all the models of fifths and what happens to the adjustability to make the pins on those units sit at the 47 inches from ground industry standard. Case in point below.

This one at the "top of its adjustment" was almost 4 inches too high and needed all this material added and welded on to make this New Horizon travel level.

[noteven]

Point 4.  The MorRyde pin box we added to a 39ft Carraige changed the ride in the cab of our won ton on our busted Canada roads that have lots of frost crack/depressions straight across the road from "wear your coffee" to set it on the console once it is 1/2 empty ... a yuge improvement... it will move fore and aft around 3 inches on our shittiest roads. It feels good. 

Is ET hitches advising to remove the MorRyde if using a power unit with an ET?  

[phoenix2013]

No, since it "does not harm anything". The one I lengthened above was behind an ET. An ET has a built-in anti-chucking mechanism which redirects chucking motion from forward and back to up and down (into the airbags) very effectively.

Moryde does not publish its range of motion, nor the amount of chucking it reduces, so it's all subjective. I'll grant you that its effect when pulling with a one ton a 39 footer and a hard hitch, any reduction would seem significant. Chucking, when pulling with a one ton, can be particularly vicious, I remember it well, The reasons, weights and geometry. Most trailers behind one tons will easily weigh twice the weight of the truck. 39 foot Carriage is probably close to three times the weight of the one ton. The trailer rules the truck particularly breaking or on down hills.

Also chucking is directly transferred into the cab, why, the hitch is high and ahead of the rear axle creating a torsion moment forward and not into the axle.

In HDTs the ratio between the truck and the fifth is closer to one to one so the fifth does not rule the truck and the torsional moment upon braking is transferred into the axles because the hitch is behind those axles.

But chucking is one of the nastiest aspects of RVing with fifths, that's the reason I designed the anti-chucking system into the ET as one of the first thing when I started that engineering effort.

[Shawn Patterson]

On 7/7/2017 at 10:39 PM, Dollytrolley said:

Good evening Shawn,

 

As you may recall at times I sometimes post some examples of calculated wight & balance solutions for some of the RV's here on the forum (including a second-grade math error in a recent post)…….

<SNIP SNIP>

1

Thanks for the offer! It's a good point, and yes, our holding tanks are forward of the axles so we could use them for ballast.  I'm less excited about that though being as I am right at my GVWR for the trailer overall. Additionally, we aren't having any stability issues, and I like to keep about 1/3 of a tank of fresh water on board for emergencies.

Personally, I am going to start with moving some heavy loads around and the RVH DRV Pinbox and see where that gets us.  After that, I may consider having Henry add the bounce absorbers to my ET hitch.