Towing questions

[t_j]

Having just bought my Raptor I'm just getting the parts together to start towing my track day rig and had a few questions.

I picked up a WD hitch however the stock draw bar with it only does a 2" drop, doing the math from this it looks like I need a bar with a 8" drop (top of ball is 21" off the ground now, I need it to be 15"). The concern that I have with this is that the bar may be too long when combined with the long travel of the suspension.

The next question is, is there a way to get the AUX pin in the 7pin connector to be always on even when the truck is off? (I still need to get the relay and fuses for this). The reason I ask is that the interior lights of my trailer (which I sleep in at the track) run off the aux pin, the break away controller charger is wired in such a way that it is only connected to the AUX pin while the trailer running lights are on so its not charging from the truck battery when the marker lights are off. To make it easier to connect up the interior lights I built a special extra long cable that hooks up to the trailers distribution box then to the 7 pin on the truck with only AUX and GND connected, so that I don't have to back the truck up all the way to the trailer once I have disconnected it.

 

[Nv Guy]

You will probably want the ball to be about 2" higher than the hitch height for the trailer, reason being the truck will drop a couple of inches even with a W/D, you will still see some suspension compression, so you might not need as much drop as you think.

In regard to the Aux, I would rewire the trailer so the battery is charged in a normal way. All it's going to take is someone leaving a light on & your truck battery is going to be toast. Starting batteries do not like being deeply discharged, so if you drag the starting battery down to a fully discharged state, you will most likely need a new battery or at the very least, you would have shortened it's life.
If you're set on having the Aux hot all the time you could put a jumper in the relay socket so the aux is hot all the time, Car Stereo can chime in with what terminals do what, as I don't remember....and I know he has all that info right at his fingertips.

 

[whtrapta]

Why not buy a small generator? I have a yamaha 2000 that is almost silent.

 

[t_j]

You will probably want the ball to be about 2" higher than the hitch height for the trailer, reason being the truck will drop a couple of inches even with a W/D, you will still see some suspension compression, so you might not need as much drop as you think.

In regard to the Aux, I would rewire the trailer so the battery is charged in a normal way. All it's going to take is someone leaving a light on & your truck battery is going to be toast. Starting batteries do not like being deeply discharged, so if you drag the starting battery down to a fully discharged state, you will most likely need a new battery or at the very least, you would have shortened it's life.
If you're set on having the Aux hot all the time you could put a jumper in the relay socket so the aux is hot all the time, Car Stereo can chime in with what terminals do what, as I don't remember....and I know he has all that info right at his fingertips.

Never had any issues with the tiny interior light draining the battery on my jeep, considering I only turn it on for a few minutes while climbing in and out of my sleeping bag.

Why not buy a small generator? I have a yamaha 2000 that is almost silent.

I have a 2000W ryobi silent genny with 12v out that I could rig a cable up for, I had just gotten used to the convenience of being able to turn the interior lights on without the truck or genny running.


Maybe its time to install a small deep cycle in the trailer.