I installed my FastWay e2 trunnion hitch Monday.  It is the 600/6000 model, and it appears to be a bit too much hitch for my setup.  It's not going well.

My setup is a 2018 Toyota Tacoma 4x4 V6 Access Cab, upgraded with OME heavy duty springs and shocks all around.  Nothing in the truck bed. My trailer is a 2016 RP-171 with one FULL 20lb propane tank, Lippert electric tongue jack and two 235aH 6v batteries, boxes and associated wiring.  Water tank and waste tanks were empty.

I installed the hitch per the instructions.  I put the L brackets in the middle set of holes, and I used 5 washers (the manual says no fewer than 5 washers and no more than 9 washers).  Fewer washers gives less WD effect.

I put a piece of blue painter's tape on the body about an inch above the front wheel well to give a distinct measurement point to measure between there and the ground, going through the center of the wheel.

With the trailer uncoupled from the truck the distance from the ground to the tape was 38 1/4”.

Then I hooked up the trailer with the full tongue weight on the hitch but without the WD bars in place.  That measurement was 38 3/8”.  Only 1/8” higher than without the trailer weight.  That was a surprise, but I do have upgraded suspension in the truck.

With the 5 washers and the L-brackets on the middle set of holes (per the instructions) and the WD trunnion bars in place providing weight distribution (WD), the measurement at the tape was 37 3/4”, which is an indication there is too much WD happening.  The goal is to get that distance back to ½ way between the unloaded and loaded heights.  That target distance would be (38 ¼ + 38 3/8 / 2), or 38 5/16”.

Since I was already at the minimum number of washers, the next alternative is to lower the L-brackets.  I moved them down one set of holes which reduces the WD effect.  Now the measurement was 38” even... still too much WD.

Moved it to the next set of holes down (which is as low as you can go), and the measurement was 38 1/8”... still a hair too much WD.  But that was the minimum I could set it up for according to the instructions.

Strangely though, with it still having slightly too much WD, the trunnion bars have very little tension on them.  With maybe 10-20lbs of effort I can lift the bars off the L-brackets.  That can't be right.  Not enough friction there to give any sway control.

I called e2 support and told him the story with all the measurements.  He said I can actually go as low as 3 washers (it would have been nice if the manual said that instead of the minimum being 5).  So he wants me to move the L-brackets back up (he didn't know if I should go up one set of holes or two sets of holes) hoping to get the trunnion bars as parallel to the trailer frame rails as possible.  If there is too much angle between the bars and the L-brackets it reduces the contact patch and there is not enough friction for sway control.  Further he wants me to try either 4 or 3 washers instead of the current 5 washers.

I will follow his instructions, but my feeling is that this is too much hitch for this setup.  Perhaps the light duty 450/4000 version would have been better, but since I have installed it I can't return it.

Things will change a little for the better when I have stuff in the TV bed and some water in the tank though.

As a cross check, have you measured your actual loaded tongue weight? If you don't want to use the bathroom scale process you can go through a public scale twice, once with the just your TV and once with the trailer attached and the WD hitch not tensioned. The difference will be your tongue weight. You can get your actual axle weights at the same time by adding one axle at a time to the scale.

Here is a calculator you can use to do a cross check with what you're getting against your trailer and TV specs.

https://www.ajdesigner.com/apptrailertow/weightdistributionhitch.php

My main reason for doing the e2 was for the safety aspects of sway control more than the WD capabilities, but I figured having a WD hitch couldn't hurt and might help some.  But I do realize that too much WD is a bad and dangerous situation.

You can try your local county waste transfer station. As a taxpayer you should be able to use that if they're not busy. That's what I do here in NC.  Asking nice always helps as with anything in life. 

But if I had what would be for me a typical amount in both, it would be about 10 in the tank and 6 in the water heater (plenty for a 2 day trip for me).  The 6 way back and the 10 forward would probably about cancel out as far as tongue weight goes.

Also, the water that starts out in the FW tank would get transferred to the holding tanks that are rear of the axle, so as I use water, there would be less and less tongue weight. 

I think. ;-)

In your case the worst scenario sounds like it might be a full gray tank reducing tongue weight below 10-11% of trailer weight, resulting in risk of sway. Placing as much load as far forward as possible in the trailer will mitigate against that. 

Michael,  Our Rpod is a 180.   I also have a Tacoma access cab 4x4. No extra helpers on the rear springs, just the factory hitch and towing package.

I bought a fastway from my Rpod dealer and had them install it. It is a 450/4500 model.  The mechanic that installed it said this is the size they put on the R-pods.

I watched him do the installation. The 450/4500 comes with three hitch ball angle adjustment washers and he put all three in.  He mounted the L brackets in the center two holes.  He told me to just try it and move the L bracket up or down if I felt it was too much or too little after towing it for a while.

It towed great with no bounce or sway, but being the curious type I decided to try the other location holes for the L brackets.    Mounted in the bottom holes (L brackets highest) it took a lot of force using the cheater bar to set them on the L brackets.  In the top holes it seemed like it was fine and still towed nice...no sway or bouncing...so I left them there.

The front of the Tocama didn't move very much up with weight only or down with weight distribution engaged.

No weight height=36 in.  Weight only=36 and 3/8ths in.

Center holes with weight distribution=36 and 1/4 in.

Top holes with weight distribution= 36 and 3/16ths in.

I would suspect you will just need to do some test towing with different settings and you will be able to find a satisfactory setting for your hitch.

Have you found thes Fastway factory videos of hitch installation.

450/4500 instalation on an Rpod     www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqjjUwv-YsM

Heavier hitch     www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_kbKyXRZTM

 

Also, you may not "need" the WDH for your Tacoma. For example, we really don't "need" the WDH for our F-150, but we do prefer the ride and anti-sway we get with the E2. 

As per usual, YMMV.

Yes I have the Sherline, but have not used it yet.  My trailer is parked on my driveway which is sloped, and I don't want to try to measure the tongue weight there, my intention was to do it when I tow the trailer out to a level area to attempt the setup and adjustments again.

FastWay has shipped me a new e2 head today.  It occurs to me that in order to use it or test I am gonna have to have the hitch ball removed and torqued (430 ft/lbs) onto the new one.  I don't have the tools to do that, 250 ft/lbs is my limit.

My plan is to measure it and compare it with the one I have first.  The problem with the old one is that the FastWay support guy told me the angle adjustment bolt should be able to close up the gap between the rivet head and the shank even with NO washers on it, even though the installation manual says you must use 5 to 9 washers.  

The one I have now even with 3 washers leaves a 3/16" gap between the rivet head and the shank with the bolt screwed down tight.  Based on that, they decided the head was welded together wrong or the holes were drilled wrong.  I'm not buying that.

These things are certainly made in jigs that assure stuff like that doesn't happen.  I am not going to go to the trouble and expense of having that ball transferred unless I can find a difference between the new and old heads.

I will try just putting the new head on the shank with 3 washers on the rivet, and I am betting the new one won't close up that gap either.

I pulled the trailer today about 100 miles on the same type of roads I would be normally using it on and never felt the slightest amount of sway even with 18 wheelers blowing by from the opposite direction on a 2 lane road at 55mph.

I asked my local mechanic if he had a torque wrench and if he would help.  He agreed.  But he didn't have a socket big enough for the hitch nut. I went to NAPA and purchased a socket and a short extension, then went back to the mechanic and we got it torqued on.  I would imagine that local RV places would have the appropriate torque wrench as well.

One thing we did to make it easier was to put the hitch in the receiver turned 90 degrees,  This allowed us to use the floor to get more torque.  We also used an extension tube to get enough leverage.

Good luck,

Sean

We'll see.

I had the ball torqued by a tire shop I do a lot of business with (they used a 1" drive adjustable  & calibrated air impact gun to do it), and they did not charge me.  I tipped the guy twenty bucks though.  If I have to do it again I will take it back to them for the work.

I was just looking at ours, and it either has 2 very thick washers, or 4 relatively thin washers. It's hard to tell, but it looks like there might be 4 thin ones, but that's not my main point.

I got out a short decimal measure, and measured the distance between the insert/drop-down bar and the inside face of the hitch head. I measured 0.8" in that space, and hopefully you can see it in the picture below. What does yours measure (irrespective of how many washers are in there)?

This is what I thought I would find.  Wrote to FastWay support, the ball is back in their court.  I also posted a review of this thing with my saga on the etrailer site where I bought it, but they won't publish it because it is a negative review.  That's why you only see 4 and 5 star reviews on their site.  

That is what I already did to begin with, and I even supplied them with all the measurements.  What they SHOULD do with this setup is swap it out for the 450/4000 since my beefed up Tacoma and this light 171 only has 380lbs MEASURED tongue weight.

I tell ya, I wish I had never heard of FastWay.

Oh well, it's not the first time I have wasted money, and I'm sure it won't be the last.

There is also the Tuson one that uses the brakes too but it uses them differentially where the Hayes applies both brakes.  The Tuson costs about double and is a way more complicated install because you have to tap into the individual brake wiring.  That seems more complex than it needs to be.

In my case even with the minimum WD setting (5 washers, L brackets in the lowest setting), it still over corrects, but the bars are so loose I can lift them off the L brackets by hand with only 10-15lbs of pressure.  That is not going to provide any noticeable sway control.

The other issue is that when I have the L brackets in the lowest holes the angle of the trunnion bars is enough different from the angle of the L bracket friction surface that it really just makes point contact between the two for absolutely minimum contact of the friction surfaces.

I have a Reese Pro wdh. The issues I have with it are that it is quite time consuming to hook up because the sway control is done with two separate friction bars that have to be installed in addition to the trunnion bars, and that there is no room to adjust where the trunnion bar chain brackets attach to the A frame. 

The separately adjustable sway control bars are now starting to look like an advantage. The inability to change the A frame mounting points is still a problem for me though. Guess I'll do some more reasearch.

i have a fastway E2 600lb. trunnion wdh as well.  It works well.

Look at the pic from the instructions.  figure 2a and 2b. The top bolt that attaches the ball assembly to the receiver that goes in the vehicle has a slotted opening that should allow you to make the top of the ball assembly make contact to the rivet without much help from the bolt at the bottom.  Will yours not make contact if you do that?  I have 420lbs of tongue weight w/o water. Hope this makes sense....

The recommendation on our F-150 is to use a WDH if the tongue weight exceeds 500 lbs. So we are on the edge of that, as our tongue weight at the high end is around 570 lbs. We opted to go with the WDH, and we use the E2. We have plenty of tension on the WD bars, as we have to crank the tongue up quite a ways to get them to go on in the first place.

We also have a Tacoma, which has much lower ratings, and is a lighter vehicle as well. I am positive that we would use a WDH if we towed with it. No question.

So your issue is that you're putting something in the neighborhood of 400 lbs (give or take) on the receiver of your Tacoma. Given the moment arm, that is (for sure) reducing the weight on your steering wheels. Probably something on the order of 100 lbs, but I have not done the math.

I personally think that the mods you made on your suspension are leading you astray. With the lighter capacities of the Tacoma, I think you would be better off with a WDH. 

I would suggest that you go to https://www.ajdesigner.com/apptrailertow/weightdistributionhitch.php - this web site and plug in the numbers to see where you're at.