Level or Nose down?

[Geoff_5120515]

I have a twin axle Lunar Lexon EW which I tow with a Shogun Sport. I noticed the other day that when hitched and fully loaded that the caravan was 'nose down' from horizontal by just over an inch when checking height of the lower trim rail to the ground (flat tarmac). The back end was an inch up. My towbar has another set of towball mounting holes just under an inch higher than the lower set. The towball is fitted to the lower set at the moment. If I raised the towball to the higher set of holes and therefore made the van perfectly level is this a good thing to do? Would it tow any better or be more stable? By lifting the front of the van would overcome a slight grounding problem with the front corner of the chassis that I have every time I get the van off the drive.

The nose weight is 100kg which is 7% of the loaded weight of the van and I carry 2 x 6kg gas bottles and spare wheel in the front locker in their 'designed' location. The towbar will take 140kg so the noseweight is well within the car's limits.

Any thoughts?

Cheers

Geoff

 

[busman1]

Geoff,

as far as I am aware the recommendation is slightly nose down to srop 'wind' getting under the caravan and helping stability.as far as the grounding is concerned try a small ramp under the rear wheels of the car to lift the van slightly on entry/exit to your drive

Will

 

[ProfJohnL]

Regardless of the attitude the caravan assumes when hitched the EU now stipulates the tow ball should be between 350 and 420mm from the ground to the centre of the tow-ball.

Caravan manufacturers are aware of this and will be manufacturing caravan that have the necessary ground clearance front and back to accommodate this range of hitch heights.

If a cars tow ball settles out side these limits then either the nose load is wrong or there is amechanical fault with the car. The regulations do differentiate between cars, and some 4x4s

You will need to check with your tow car supplier to find out if your car is exempt from the regulations.

Provided the tow ball falls between the EU height limits the attitude the caravan assumes is within the designers criteria even if it is nose up down or level.

 

[Geoff_5120515]

John L - thanks for your info. I have checked the tow ball height to the centre of the ball and it is currently 460mm unladen. I would imagine that when the van is attached that this would drop by 20mm. So it seems that raising the tow ball to the higher set of holes is a non-starter or be illegal. Back to putting the planks under the wheels to prevent grounding on the drive.

If the towball height was within limits (350 - 420mm) the van will be heavily 'nose down' and would look ridululous on the road - not to metion what it is doing to the towing dymanics with so much more load on the front axle.

 

[Lutz]

The standards that John L refers to are based on the assumption that both car and caravan are fully laden. Therefore, if you are towing the caravan with little or no payload aboard it will obviously have a nose down attitude, but this is something which is quite normal and other than it may not look right, does not affect its dynamics in any way. The additional load that a nose down condition imposes on the forward axle of a twin axle is well within normal operating limits and no cause for concern.

By the way, the same applies to a nose up attitude, too.