RV FEATURE
WATER LOAD: IS THIS A WORRY?
"JUST HOW EASY IS IT TO
INADVERTENTLY OVERLOAD
THE TOWBALL?"
Hitch up a van and a couple of things
happen. One, the anticipation of the journey
ahead will build. And two, a transfer of
weight occurs – the weight previously
resting on the jockey wheel is now being
supported by the tow vehicle.
EASY TO OVERLOAD
As you (hopefully) know, every tow vehicle
has a maximum towball mass that is
mandated by the vehicle’s manufacturer. You
would also know that it is illegal to overload
the towbar.
But how easy is it to inadvertently overload
the towball? In this article, we will look at
how the position of the water tanks on a
van impacts that van’s ball weight and, by
extension, the legality of your towing setup.
On a tandem axle van, it’s very common to find
two water tanks mounted forward of the axles.
These tanks differ in size but usually they’ll offer
about 100L of water storage capacity each.
Picture this: your 4WD has a maximum
towball mass of 300kg. You’ve just purchased
a van with an unladen ball weight of 155kg.
However, in your excitement, you didn’t
consider what the loaded ball weight of
the van would be, and by ‘loaded’, I mean
with those two 100L water tanks that the
manufacturer had fitted in front of the tandem
axle set filled to the brim.
To find out the extent to which filled water
tanks can impact ball weight, I enlisted the help
of Andrew Phillips of the RV Repair Centre in
Bayswater North, Victoria. We found a suitable
secondhand van in his yard, grabbed his digital
ball weight scale, and got to work.
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