What is a fold back tongue?
Too short a tongue, and you run the risk of clipping the front of the trailer with your tow vehicle when turning corners and whilst the trailer will follow the tow vehicle nicely, when reversing, the trailer will be oversensitive. Short tongue trailers are prone to rapid and sometimes unexpected turning.
If you have to use an “A” frame coupler, and would like to have a reasonable length of tongue forward of the trailer body, it is recommended that you build the tongue to be wrapped along the side of the trailer.
That location takes the trailer tongue hinge out of the picture in an emergency. The tongue is often a place to hang trailer accessories for access and function. The tongue jack, for instance. For applications using a trailer tongue hinge, those accessories must attach behind (on the trailer side) of the hinge.
Splice one of the two wires coming out of the breakaway switch into the trailer brake wire running from the trailer connector to the brakes. 2. Open the battery box and connect the second wire coming out of the switch to the positive post (red) on the battery. This connection will send power to the breakaway switch.
A persistent side to side swaying motion is not normal and could likely lead to whipping if speed increases. Whipping is a more violent and uncontrollable sway that is usually caused by loading your trailer heavier in the rear. Also, don’t exceed your trailer’s maximum gross weight and never overload your tow vehicle.
Swing doors or “barn” doors are ubiquitous in the trailer industry. They are designed to maximize the net cargo area. When operating in a loading dock environment, swing doors must be opened before the trailer is at the dock and then closed after clearing the dock.
It Should Be No Longer Than Six Feet Most states have regulations specifying the maximum length of a trailer tongue, with six feet being the norm.
Will Extending the Trailer Tongue Affect Tongue Weight Extending the trailer tongue will not increase the trailer tongue weight, it may actually do the opposite but you may be able to shift cargo or your boat forwards to get the tongue weight back where you want it.
I have extended the tongue on a couple of trailers. It is cheap and easy. Butt joints are a big no-no. The best way I have found is to cut the tongue off about 18 inches from the coupling and using a length of the next larger dimensional sized steel tube, simply sleeve the tongue.
The Trailer Breakaway System is designed to bring a trailer to a safe stop by activating the electric brakes on the trailer, should the trailer be disconnected from the tow vehicle while driving.
Trailer sway is when your trailer starts swinging from side-to-side and is out of control. It can happen to any trailer when you are using a tow ball (i.e. a single pivot point) behind the rear wheels of the towing vehicle.
A folding or removable trailer tongue usually adds a few inches of overall length to the trailer, but the benefit is that by simply removing one pin, the tongue can be removed or folded to the side for more clearance in tight garages.
