Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

question??,,if I use a tortion axle which has a 8" trailing arm,,are the calculations based on the spindle of the wheel or on the tortion bar centerline where it bolts to the frame,,

chip

That's a valid question. Since everything articulates around the wheel center, the correct answer is "wheel spindle center". I believe the spreadsheet uses those words too!

Mike...

I have added a couple of extra spreadsheets to this page: Hitch Weight Estimate

A Mark 2 version of Rik's spreadsheet allows you to add a concentrated weight in the galley. I don't think this is significant in the Baja Benroy case, but it would be for a well-equipped small trailer.

The other spreadsheet works the other way round - you put in the hitch weight you want and it tells you where to put the wheels. This shows that to get 10% hitch weight on the Baja Benroy, the wheels would need to move 10.6 inches forward.

I have changed wording to 'hitch weight' as there was a potential confusion with 'tongue weight' (used for the weight of the tongue).

And I hope you Merkans appreciate me carefully using 'center' - we Brits use 'centre'.

Andrew

angib wrote:And I hope you Merkans appreciate me carefully using 'center' - we Brits use 'centre'.

You also stuck with the original spelling and pronunciation of al-you-min-ee-yum. I don't have a clue why we felt it needed changing to al-loo-min-um.

Nook-you-lar as opposed to nook-lee-ar still drives me nuts, though...

Joseph

Oh sure Andrew, credit me so I can take the heat when someone's tongue weight turns out wrong!

Wow. Great work. By the time I saw what you had done, you had already made improvements that I was going to suggest! This should be very handy for folks on both sides of the pond.

Rik

I thought it would be interesting to compare the results of Rik's spreadsheet with the much more detailed weight and LCG estimate spreadsheet that I did for my Superleggera design.

Rik's spreadsheet: 57lbs on hitch = 15% of trailer weight
Detailed spreadsheet: 47lbs on hitch = 12% of trailer weight

So, it's close.

By the way, the weight estimate is now available to download as a spreadsheet rather than just a table.

Andrew

You Brits and your new-fangled weights and measurements!