I'm going to do a video that maybe some people take for granted that they know
how to do this so this video wouldn't be for you but there are people out there
I'm sure who maybe are new at backing up a trailer hooking up a trailer as a
matter of fact what maybe decide to do this video is on the blog I go to the
survivalist blog net there was a person who had just gotten a trailer and they
were experimenting I guess with backing it up or you know practicing starting to
get good at it and I thought to myself you know I bet you there's a lot of
people that don't know there's a few little tips and tricks and and ways to
make it a little easier and I'm gonna do a video about that so you ready you're
gonna help you're gonna spot me all right I'm gonna just go about this like
I was going to be hooking up my trailer here's here's what I want to show you an
easy way to hook up your trailer and breezy I'm gonna have to let you down if
you get in my mirrors so well I'll call back up we'll do this just in real time
first here's my trailer back over here
okay breezy I'm gonna have to let you down you wanna get down you got to get
down alright there's my trailer when you want when you hook it up to your trailer
are backing up to it you want to make sure you have an equal amount of that
trailer in each mirror and I do not so here's what i'ma do
all right I can see the fender
and I've got about the same amount in this mirror so now I'm going to back up
to where I think I'm you know getting close to it the hitch
I'm going to show you away I'm going to stop now I want to get out I'm going to
see how far how much further I have to go back I'm pretty sure where we're you
know square with the trailer don't that's somebody working in New York
don't go to barking alright I would say we are about 30 inches from
that being on that now I'm going to look at this from another angle and it looks
like we're pretty much square and that's what making sure you have and you have
the equal amount in your mirrors does it puts you pretty much square with this
all right so I'm going to show you how to judge 30 inches on this method you
may have to get out more than once but I'll show you how I do it take something
heavy that won't move let's see I will use a wrench just later you can use a
stick or rock or something that's already there like you know cigarette
butt see how far my foot is from that wrench that's about the same distance
that I want to back up so let me put this in Reverse if I
oh yeah I'm going to say now I'm gonna go back this pair cuz it moved there we
go alright now let's see how close we are pretty damn close and if you're that
close you can let take a little weight off of that and I swear you can pull
your truck or pull your trailer take a little more weight off
pull your trailer a little more weight or you could just get back in
see now you're now you're on I'm gonna go ahead and move this all the way up
and now I'm going to show you the easy way to back it up now that was an easy
way to hook up let me grab this wrench more I go off of
forgetting
now safety chains I always put my safety chains on when I get on the road if you
don't have them it's just what you're doing if you don't have them as you're
placing a lot of other people that you don't know in danger if to me it's kind
of reckless and careless if if you don't have safety chains you know you're
taking a lot of liberties with the health and life of other people alright
my truck has two kinds of plugs this plug is for trailer that has electric
brakes I don't use that I had a camper at one time and I used it then but I
don't have a camper now and this is the plug I use now as a matter of fact I
just rewired this ground wire I'm not going to go ahead I'm just in my
driveway so I'm not gonna plug that in but I always check my lights before I
leave my biggest well one of my complaints about people with trailers is
and it takes no effort to make sure your trailer lights work no effort and I see
so many people driving down the road who haven't even bothered to plug their
trailer in so you can tell when they're stopping I just wanted to give you a
shot of that again all right let's uh I'm gonna pull this down the road out in
my driveway I'm not gonna all right I'll tell you what I'm gonna what I'm going
to do is go out here turn around and then pull up in my driveway and then
back my trailer back around here you know what I'm gonna do first I'm going
to show you how to back up straight first so use the same principle
okay you want to use the same principle that you use when you're backing up
towards your trailer you want to keep the same amount of trailer in your
mirror and here's another tip that I will mention and I might mention it
several times because lots of people don't know this if you want your trailer
to move to the left you turn your steering wheel to the right while you're
backing if you want your trailer to move to the right you turn your steering
wheel steering wheel to the left it's just the opposite
all right let's go let's back up here you want to keep if you want if you're
happy with the direction the trailer is going in you want to keep it with the
same amount of trailer in your mirror and when you make corrections here's
another mistake people make when they make corrections
they make major half a turn corrections if you stay with it and you can you keep
that amount of trailer in your mirror the corrections you need to make our
minor minor minor Corrections
okay now it is going to the right my right son which is where I wanted to go
I wanted to go square with that with that building back there so I'm going to
let it I'm going to follow it what I'm going to do is turn my will to the right
and I'm going to follow that some I don't want to get out of hand but I want
to keep that slight arc that I have going okay now I'm going to straighten
it out because I'm back where I want to be so I'm going to put that same amount
of trailer in my mirror again that means it's going straight backwards
I hope you can see that it's hard to do all this wall backing alright I'm going
to go out and turn around and I'm going to come up here in my driveway and I'm
going to back my trailer back here where I'm at now you won't have to watch that
we'll be right back
see how I got my trailer started I've got the ark that I want started now you
can't really Jack your trailer around that much so I may have to take two or
three different stabs at this but what I'm going to do is get my trailer in the
general direction that I want so I want my trailer to go to the left so I'm
going to put a couple of turns to the right just to get my trailer started on
the ark that I want it to go down the path the Avenue the directions all right
now that's that's a good arc that's that's a direction I want to go in so
I'm going to unwind it a little bit I don't want to get too far or else those
jackknife the trailer now okay it's going in the direction I want so now I'm
just going to sort of follow that arc with my steering wheel if it goes too
far one way I want to unwind if it goes too far the other way I'm going to wind
it wind it up a half turn okay now I'm in the general direction I'm going to go
back to that blue tarp there okay here's here's how far the trailer is that's
where I want it right beside that house there and that's where it is it's
probably a 1012 feet away from where I want it now
go forward
okay that's about how far that's about how far I want it from the house that's
about perfectly straight right there so we're going to back I'm going to try
to keep that amount in the mirror and it'll be perfect
and the the simple fact is the more you do this the easier it comes to you the
better you get at it now I want to try to stop pretty much
where that wooden block is back there and I kind of know where that is yet one
way when my truck goes off the edge of the curb
pull forward just to skosh and that ought to be right over that block or
close to it all right let's go see close enough
now if you had you sure wouldn't want to do this if you had weight on your
trailer because if you do that it might be too much weight past the axle with
nothing about loading trailers axles are generally past the halfway mark and when
you load a trailer you want to make sure you got the majority of the weight on
the I'll say left left side of your axle the side closest to your towing vehicle
you don't want it you don't want to put all the weight up here but let's say you
were going to put a thousand pounds in this trailer you would want about 600 on
that side 400 on that side you want tongue weight you want a little bit of
tongue weight not too much if you get too much then your trailer does this
squirrely fishtailing thing going down the road loading your trailer right is
as important as a tying stuff down all right
you see if I forgot anything I just repeat when you're backing up and you
want to go straight you want to keep the same amount of trailer in each mirror
and sometimes your trailer is a you know not as wide as your vehicle or your
mirrors can't see any of the trailer so in that case you would you know if you
didn't see any mirror any trailer in either mirror as soon as you saw some in
one mirror or the other you would react with a steering wheel if you wanted to
go back straight second rule of thumb is many small corrections are way better
than one huge correction I mean it's better to wiggle that steering wheel a
hundred times and to put a turn or two turns on it once you get into that
predicament you kind of you're here you've gone out of control then if you
do get back where you where you need to get it's more by accident than by skill
which is you know the way you learn so there's nothing wrong with doing it over
and over and over until you finally get it and and then it doesn't become a
problem then it's just a matter of practicing the the basically you have to
get this big picture in your head back in is not easy and I'll tell you the
truth my wife probably doesn't want me to say this but she drove an 18-wheeler
for 23 years and she never got good at backing and you know in her defense I
did the majority of the backing just because it was easier and quicker and
there's a lot of people looking at you and you're in the way I mean when you
pull into a warehouse and and you're backing up you basically stop in traffic
in both directions and you got to do it further quick or people get pissed
anyway steer turn your wheel the opposite direction you want your trailer
to go in small minor adjustments are better than major steering wheel
adjustments hook your safety chains up make sure you tell lights work that's
just you know it's only right you have a little more responsibility when you're
pulling a trailer load your trailer right make sure you put a little more
weight closer to the truck then away from it and while I'm here I'll just
show you some of the things I have to tight tie stuff down with I drove a
truck for way over half my life and I saw a lot of stuff very expensive stuff
that was destroyed from coming out of a trailer and landing on the road and you
know smashed into a million pieces because it wasn't tied down enough so
when you're going down the road you not only have side forces if you're going
around corner or curve you have centrifugal force
you also have if you're on you know a major highway you have seventy mile an
hour winds that are trying to push what you've tied down off 70 mile an hour
winds I've seen people going down the road with a brand-new king-size mattress
set tied down with a string and it's not going to get there anyway here's what I
got plenty of chains and I have binders chain binders to me pretty much what I
use all because they don't give when you use rope you have to check it
occasionally if you're going very far and take the the slack out of it and I
have these u-bolts that I put on the top rail all the way around
I even have them on the bottom below my tailgate there I think I even have a
couple up here do I know I used to that's right I I put that there and I
had to remove them anyway if I can ever answer any questions about backing up
let me tell you it's one of the few things that do well so I'd be glad to
answer any questions