Utility Trailer sway

[hbfc6]

Before I bought my first pop up. I bought a used Utility trailer to put my tenting equipment in. It sits in my garage most of the time and I do not use it very often. But every once in a while I like to haul something in it. It rocks from wheel to wheel really bad. I read about people putting sway bars onto pop up campers to help with sway. What is a sway bar and how does it work? Are they expensive? Do you think a sway bar would help with the rocking motion?

[farmer]

hbfc6
I don't know a lot about hitches and I imagine some more knowing persons will chime in but....
we had a sway bar on put mini-van before upgrading to the truck and our sway bar was (I'll do my best to describe) a short two piece friction bar that went between a small ball near the hitch receiver on tv and a small ball on on side of the tongue.  It is approx. two feet piece that has one metal section and one friction plate that are held together by an adjustable nut device so you can set the amount of tension/friction on the sliding plate thereby reducing sway.  We needed to remove the sway bar(BY pulling two 'jesus clips') before backing up.
I don't know how well it worked but we had no sway with the van(now with the truck (and no sway bar) we also have no sway).
Farmer

[mikewilley]

The sway that a sway control device stops is what I used to call "fishtailing".  The first thing to do to control this is to make sure that more of the load is in front of the trailer wheels, than behind the trailer wheels.  Once you have done this, sway control may help.

There are two types of sway control.  The least expensive is friction sway control.  This is usually a bar that slides through a sleeve and just makes it harder for the hitch to rotate around your trailer ball.  The more expensive kind is pretty complex looking with chains and bars and stuff.  The advertising stuff on this type says it controls sway without interfering with turning.  Basically it prevents the trailer from rotating on the ball ANY until it needs to turn a lot.

I use the friction type on my Jeep Liberty and it works great.  The friction type are about $90 and you will have to get a shop to make a minor addition to your hitch which should cost another $30 or so.  The more expensive kind is closer to $200 and I have no idea what to expect for installation costs.

Hope this helps.

cheers,

[MtnCamper]

I would be willing to bet the reach or tongue length on your utility trailer is fairly short too. The distance from center of the axle to the hitch ball. The longer this length the less sway you will notice. Other than inflating the tires to max, and loading heavy in the front, there isn't much you can do. A friction bar, would defiantly help and may be worth the cost to add. Depends on how much you use the trailer.

[tlhdoc]

You should make sure the load is spread out evenly on the trailer.  If one side is heavier that can cause sway.

[Ab Diver]

hbfc6-- a lot can depend on the design of your utility trailer. Is it the back half of a old pickup truck, or more like those *kit* trailers you can buy at the Borg-type superstores? What type of axle does it have, and what size are the wheels? Is it rated to haul a cubic yard of gravel (read: about 2500 lbs), or only a couple hundred pounds of sand? How high is it's center of gravity? Are you towing the trailer at a level position?

I ask these questions because a sway bar will help control sway, but only up to a point. If the trailer isn't designed for what you are asking of it, or the load is inherently unstable, a sway bar will be too little, too late.  Example: I have a utility trailer made from the back half of an old Datsun pickup. I cut the frame rails longer than usual to allow room for a standard full-width truck tool box bolted in front of the bed. It tows like a dream-- never a hint of sway in several thousand miles of use over the last ten years with all types of loads. Except: one time when I loaded it with too much reclaimed lumber, stacked high, and sticking too far out the back of the bed. Figured it was only gunna be a half mile to my house, it was late at night on a deserted road, and I was only gunna go 25 mph at most. Boy, was I wrong! That thing started swaying, then bucking, and literally JUMPING from side to side all in about 5 seconds. Shook the heck out of my old full-size Bronco.
 
A sway bar in that situation would have been about as useful as a cup of water on a hot campfire. Point being, a well set-up trailer won't need sway control, a trailer mildly out of whack will benefit greatly from a sway bar, but an inherently poor trailer/load combination will be more problem than a sway bar can fix.
 
If it's just a simple utility frame with a plywood box on it, take it to a welding shop and have them "stretch" the tongue a foot or so. You'll be amazed at how much more well-behaved your trailer will act. Then just make sure the trailer frame is level when you tow it (proper drawbar height), and that it has 10-15% of the total (loaded) weight of the trailer riding on the tongue, and you probably won't need any sway control at all.
 
Otherwise, adding a sway bar is a simple bolt-on. You can buy the sway bar for about a hundred bucks, plus about 20 bucks more for a bolt-on arm that mounts on the drawbar so the sway bar is anchored on the tow vehicle side. or, you can buy weld-on style arm and have a shop permanently mount it on your drawbar.
 
Hope this helps.

[mike4947]

And just like our PU's and all other trailer tongue weight is very, very important.

It's very easy to load a small utility trailer "level" rather than front heavy.
 
A case in point, my Father bought a trailer to haul around his garden tractor. Worked fine until he had a ramp installed to make it easier to load. That extra weight on the back flipped the trailer the first time out at less than 20 mph. That was on the way home from having the ramp installed without the tractor. After repairing the fenders and a few lights I found I had to add 120 pounds of weights to the tongue to keep the tailer tracking behind the Astro van.
Make sure when you load up a utility trailer you've got at least 10% of the total weight on the tongue.

[wynot]

Most utility trailers are pretty sway proof UNLESS the load is so far back on the bed.

The ONLY time I have ever experienced sway on my utility trailer is to have a refrigerator strapped to the tailgate.

I'm concerned with the fact that you are saying from wheel to wheel.  Do you mean side to side?

[MommaMia]

Also, shouln't he check to see that when hitched, the trailer is as level as possible?  Maybe the rise to the ball is too much since it's a little trailer.  Maybe a step down would be useful?

[wynot]

Also, shouln't he check to see that when hitched, the trailer is as level as possible? Maybe the rise to the ball is too much since it's a little trailer. Maybe a step down would be useful?



I always make sure my trailers are level, I use different drawbars for different things.  Does bring up an interesting point which is...are you towing from a step bumper or from a receiver hitch?  Step bumpers cause all sorts of adventures.