Hi GK
I understand your concerns. However hooking up a WD hitch once sorted out is no more complex then hooking up the camper to go camping with. One of the beauties of SOC is we as a group are patient enough to help anyone who wants help for as long as it takes them to understand something.
Your truck and towing experience will benefit from using a WD hitch and you can lower the odds of not having a sway induced event by adjusting the hitch and anti sway control correctly.
Let me explain a little so you can see why I’m saying this. The day the camper left Sunline it has a published dry tongue weight of 420#. That is without 1 stick of camping gear in it, no LP gas in the tanks, no battery on the tongue and no dealer or prior owner installed options. Sunline also did a good job at creating proper balance in a TT of where stuff can go to create a stable towing TT. Yours in the dry configuration can be about 13.2% tongue weight for the actual gross vehicle weight the day it left the factory. The 13% tongue heavy is good and makes for a stable towing TT all by itself. That is step 1 in creating a stable towing rig.
However most of us who buy a camper and have a PU truck actually put camping stuff in both. It is the camper way!!! We like to have our stuff with us. And stuff adds weight that creaps up on ya with out knowing it. 20# here, 10# there, etc etc. It is not shocking (to us at least) that you will and can add 800 to 1,000# of stuff to your camper. And then there is stuff you put in the truck bed. Do you have a cap on the back? Do you put camping chairs, fire wood. Etc etc in the truck? We do…. And so will you in time.
Now your loaded camper tongue weight can end up in the 500 to even 600# range loaded. And the back of the truck is loaded too with say, 150 maybe 200# behind the rear truck axle plus the weight ahead of it. Well this puts the rear truck suspension into more then just carrying the 420# dry tongue weight that was on the camper the day it left Sunline. That much weight, loaded tongue weight and truck bed weight needs help in your rear TV suspension. With out the help the front of the truck get’s lighter then normal, steering control is lessened and a condition called under steer can develop.
Understeer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Or basically the front of the truck being light, the truck will keep going more straight then turn when you want it to turn.. Being wet and slippery and it gets even worse. And with the front being light, sway induced effects on the TT magnify that much worse on the truck as the front is light.
How to help correct the understeer and straining rear axle weight is to use weight distribution. It’s main purpose is to return the front axle to it original unhitched weight and ward off the understeer condition. The next benefit is removing extra weight imposed on the rear axle by the tow ball being some 60 to 65” behind the rear axle. That is one big lever to have 500# pushing on it plus the bed weight aft of the rear axle.
Your truck receiver in weight carrying mode most likely has a 500# weight carrying limit and at that limit it takes a lot of flexing going on. By adding the WD hitch it helps correct the wind up in the receiver that gone unchecked can cause ills in the truck receiver.
Then there is anti-sway controls on top of the WD hitch. They are there for when bad things come your way when towing a TT. Yes your camper pulled home empty with no issues and it should tow well with no sway control. Sway controls are for the bad days of fast passing buses or semis, doing hard panic maneuvers, dropping off the side of the pavement, high winds and other things that come at us towing a camper.
Now how to help this deal, lets start with taking a picture of the pile of hitch stuff that came with the camper. If you do not know how to put it on the truck and TT, then just take a picture of the pile of parts. We can tell what it is you have and then help on how to set it up.
You mentioned U haul. Well there are some that I’m sure are very good shops. However you have a TT, not a cargo trailer or open trailer. I have rented many U haul dual axle cargo trailers and never once did they have any kind of WD hitch on them. Or would I trust the rental place to properly adjust the WD hitch that I brought to them. If after seeing the pile of hitch stuff you have and after we try and talk to you on how to use it, and it still seems too much, then need to find a good RV dealer to help. And that can be complex too but the odds are better then U haul for a TT. Regardless even if you get an RV dealer to do this, learning how to adjust it and “why” is something that can help you greatly in the future.
Hope this helps. Glad to help more.
John
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