Weight Distribution Bars

When you put 280 - 300kg on the towball, the front of your Patrol will lift up, taking weight off the front axle and lightening the steering. This is regardless of how stiff the rear springs are. In fact, you could replace your rear springs with solid bars to stop the rear from sagging, but the front end will still lift up (I'm not suggesting that this is an option). Towing with a lot less weight on the front axle can be quite dangerous, as you simply don't have enough weight on the front wheels to steer effectively. This affects just about every aspect of towing, such as braking, stability etc.

Weight distribution bars are the ONLY way to distribute the weight load evenly between the front and rear axles. If you are going to be putting 280 - 300kg on the towball, then you should get a Hayman Reece 350kg weight distribution hitch. The 250 kg hitches won't be enough. It is also a good idea to measure the weight on the towball by visiting a weighbridge. I think another post may have had details about how to do this. They need to be setup correctly, but anyone who sells them should be able to help in advising on setup.

I found this out from experience towing a 2t van with a 100 series, and the difference was un-believable. I also used a HR hitch plate and chains so that the safety chains hitch near to where the towball is and this has the effect of shortening the chains so that if the thing jumped off the ball, the A frame would not hid the road. Usually, using the existing safety chain points on the towbar means that the chains are too long to keep the nose off the road. This plate also has it's own chains which can be used to secure the tow hitch to the towbar, just in case you loose a pin. I guess that it's just a bit more insurance in having a more secure hitch.

Hope this helps

Onece you have towed with a WDH you won't go back. The number of times I've had to disconnect mine has been very very small.

Gday
i once had to throw the anchor out the window whilst towing my van. In this instance it was backed up traffic around a corner on a highway.....lucky i wasnt going very fast, the front wheels locked up and i skidded for many metres, and this was with the load assisters on the back...they obviously werent doing enough..and less weight was on the front wheels than usual, but the cruiser had now become a 5 tonne load. Roughly 70% of braking is done by the front wheels of a car.....i suggest to you that it will be quite alright to tow your load around unassisted if nothing out of the ordinary happens....but who can guarantee that??
Be prepared, use the load distribution bars, and take them off when you get to the rough stuff, or tyou may bend your van axle.
Andrew

how do these Hayman Reese gadgets compare to ride bars?

If the bars you are talking about are the small solid bars with a sort of hook on the end, they do exactly the same thing as the HR bars, but on a smaller scale. For a smaller vehicle with a lower towbar weight, say a medium sedan with an 80kg towball weight, these bars (either 2 or 4 I think) will shift some of the weight back to the front axle. Using them on anything much above that sort of weight is a waste of time. The bottom line is that you are much better off spending the money in the first place, rather than either doing nothing or getting something such as those "helper" bars, for want of a better work.

I also agree, that if nothing ever goes wrong, you could get away with not using anything, but if you're going to tow on a public road, then little things go wrong all the time. Any situation such as swerving slightly to avoid a pot-hole can put the rig on a path to disaster with the pendulum effect that can develop from a slight sway.

I'd like a dollar for every rig I've seen that is not setup correctly, with the headlights pointing skyward; they really are an accident waiting to happen somewhere. So all we can do is try and get the message across. If everyone with a badly setup towing rig could just try a set of weight distribution hitches, they'd never go back to not using one. Also, bear in mind that I'm not talking about off road towing, just on the blacktop and dirt roads where trailer articulation is not an issue. I've actually got a 250kg hitch that I'm not using, but it would not be enough for 280 - 300kg,

regards

Andrew

Just a brief follow up.

Because of their very high inertia, long nose heavy 'vans generally feel ultra-stable. They lull their owners into a false sense of security - 'naah I don't need bars mate -she's as steady as a rock'. Until that day when a combination of circumstances starts it pitching and reinforces that movement.

I've studied many reports of accidents involving caravans without WDHs - almost without exception the owners say the rig had felt totally stable right up to the time of the accident.

People arguing against the need for WDHs are simply denying one of the more basic physical laws.
Collyn Rivers

Spot on, Collyn. I've seen some shocking setups; one of the worst, a Patrol ute with a longer tray and a 500mm extended towball hitch, and the little ride helper bars or whatever they're called.

The worst thing is that failure to rectify a weight imbalance situation only make the roads more dangerous for us all. Lots of people in the industry (towing and 4WD) don't seem to understand this principle either. I've even read tow tests in magazines that should know better, where they are basically saying that you can overcome rear end sag by fitting heavier springs. Come to think of it, they're right, but the problem is not really at the rear; it's at the steer end.

Sorry to sound like I'm on a soapbox, but I think the issue is important enough to feel the need to climb up sometimes. I hope 10Para doesn't feel like he's being lectured too much,

Andrew