Caravan Towing Level & Tow-Ball Weight: On the Level – Part 3
How caravan level affects your tow-ball downforce
Recently we discussed how to level your caravan when you are at your campsite (catch up on On the Level – Part 1), and ways to level your caravan and tow vehicle while travelling (catch up on On the Level – Part 2).
Further to that, there is one more interesting factor about the correlation between how level your caravan is (front to back level) and the downforce on your tow-ball. This has a larger effect on tandem axle caravans compared to single axle.
If you think about what affects the tow-ball downforce on a caravan, you will find out that it is relevant to how much weight you have in front of the fulcrum point versus how much weight you have behind the fulcrum point.
More weight in front will give you more tow-ball downforce. Less weight in front will give you less tow-ball downforce. In the instance of a caravan, the axle is the fulcrum point.
What happens when you have 2 axles?
With a tandem axle caravan, you effectively have a “wider” fulcrum point, which is the area between the front and rear axle.
This area in your caravan is the “sweet spot” for packing heavy items, as it does not affect the tow-ball downforce because the weight is not either in front or behind the fulcrum point… when the caravan is level. This becomes a benefit for any tandem axle caravans.
But, when your caravan is not towing level, the fulcrum point changes, therefore affecting the tow-ball downforce.
If your caravan is towing with the front too low, more weight will be applied to the front axle, and the fulcrum point will move towards the front of the caravan. As this happens, more weight will be behind the fulcrum point, therefore the tow-ball downforce will reduce.
When the opposite is applied, and your caravan is towing with the front too high, more weight will be applied to the rear axle, and the fulcrum point will move towards the back of the caravan, placing more weight in front of the fulcrum point. Your tow-ball weight will increase.
While this all sounds very dramatic, it will only change the tow-ball downforce by a relatively small amount. But if your rig is close to any weight limitations, this may make all the difference to towing within your tow vehicle and caravan’s limits.
Other important factors to having your caravan towing level
By having your caravan towing level, you will have both sets of tyres sharing the load evenly. This will increase your caravan’s braking efficiency, as both sets of tyres will have the same weight applied to them.
Both sets of tyres will be carrying the same amount of load, which will even out the “stress” on each tyre.
You will also get more even wear from your tyres, because the front set of tyres will scrub the same as the rear set when turning corners.
We’ve pulled tyre and tow-ball checks like these into a printable maintenance schedule, and you can grab your own copy here.
