Hitch height
 

I have a 3in raised rear end to accommodate 22 in rims on my 96 dodge ram.
With a 2in drop hitch with 2 5/16 ball.
Our HI-LO is a 95 22ft Towlite.
What is the tongue height. Need to know before I go so I can get the proper drop hitch for level towing.
Thank you for all you help me with in advance.

FyreDraic, with a trailer that big, you really need a Weight Distributing Hitch (WDH) to distribute the weight of the trailer tongue over both of your tow vehicle's axles. A WDH will give you the ability to either raise or lower the towing ball to accommodate the height of the receptacle on the tongue of your trailer. The WDH will also make it MUCH easier to make your trailer level during towing which is necessary to properly distribute the trailer's weight evenly over BOTH of its axles. The WDH will help you avoid overloading ANY of the axles on your truck and trailer and will avoid overloading any of the tires too.

I think the tongue weight of that trailer will be somewhat above 600#, so you'd want a WDH that has a hitch load limit of no less than 800# and 1000# would be good too. If you DON'T use a WDH and instead rely on a Load Bearing hitch, I'm pretty sure you would limit your towing weight to no more than 5000# and I think the hitch limit would be 500#.

- Jack

The guy I am buying it from is giving me an equalizer hitch. According to NADA Ana NUWA
Spec pages it is less than 3700#. One says 2270 and another says 2745...
Thank you for reply. I will get what I need when I get here. My truck will handle 750 tongue weight.

FyreDraic, I suggest you take the trailer to a CAT scale and weigh it. According to the HiLo brochures for that year (1995), there were NO 22ft TowLites manufactured. There WAS a 22ft Classic, and its factory weight is about 4100#. The hitch weight is shown as 460#, but that is clearly a misprint - it SHOULD be close to 600# if the trailer weight is 4100. My 17ft TowLite HiLo weighs about 3500# without any water in the fresh water tank, and that is about 500# more than the brochure says it should weigh in that configuration.

An Equal-i-zer hitch is a very good WDH, and it should take care of the issues I mentioned in my earlier post. It should also let you set the ball to the proper height for towing the trailer level.

You DO want to find the actual weight of your trailer so that you don't overload it or your truck with cargo, thinking it weighs less than 3700#.

I'm not trying to be a wet blanket here, but you DID ask, and the experience of many of our members is that the trailers are heavier than the listed weights. Find out what yours really weighs and what its tongue weight is too! The ideal tongue weight is between 10-15% of the trailer weight. Anything less can lead to trailer sway and that can kill you, or others.

- Jack

Thank you. I thought that was wrong weight.
I will look into it. I am going to Montana tomorrow to look at it...he has the manual but wasn't home when I talked to him
I will take all precautions. If too heavy...I may just pass.
These are so rare that most RV centers can't pull up any Data on them.
Much love...thanks again.

We looked into floor plan for 1995 HI-LO with model number 269 BR (number given by seller).
There is no such number. There is a 26BR model which
Looks exactly like our pictures he sent. Too many Windows. Then we looked at specs pages and located the exact floor plan according to pix. Turns out...
26 foot Voyager. Way too heavy. Too big for the cubby hole campsites we go to.
Thank you for all your help. Saved me $240 in fuel...and a big disappointment when we would have got there.
Happy trails to all in HiLo

Sounds like the seller was giving you the length of the "box" (that you live in), rather than the length of the trailer from hitch to rear bumper the way HiLo measures it. Glad you found out in time.

- Jack