Re: Shocks / Spring Supports / Towing

From: Bill Pitz (dakota@billpitz.com)
Date: Tue Aug 26 2003 - 20:39:47 EDT


On Tue, 26 Aug 2003 18:00:07 -0400, michael9@michael9.com ("Michael
Quigley") wrote:

>
>Bill Pitz said:
>> A roadmaster kit would definitely help with that squatting... It's
>> whole purpose is to keep the rear end stable in various conditions.
>> You must have a pretty heavy tongue weight if it's pushing your back
>> end down that much. My truck hardly sags when I attach my trailer..
>
>The tongue weight is somewhere between 300 and 600 pounds. The trailer vendor
>designed it to have a heavy tongue weight to make it tow well at highway
>speeds.

That's a very big range. 300 pounds shouldn't even make the truck
blink -- tongue weight on my trailer is somewhere between 350-400 and
it doesn't cause my truck to sag at all.

>> Another thing you can do in the interim to keep the trailer level (for
>> safety) is get a bar with a lift of a few inches. When I bought mine,
>> I randomly guessed with a 2" drop bar and it keeps the trailer almost
>> perfectly level.
>
>I could probably flip my ball mount over and get enough raise to keep the
>trailer level. I'm more concerned about damaging the truck springs and making
>sure the truck is set up properly to handle the tongue weight.

Yep, you definitely want to keep the truck as level as possible.

>> What stiffer shocks would help with is the bouncing/wobbling that
>> happens when you go over bumps with the trailer. (Of course, the
>> roadmaster system will also help significantly with that)
>
>Understood. So does the group generally have a good opinion of the Roadmaster
>system? And it will keep the back end of my truck from squatting so much?

I haven't heard anyone say a single bad thing about the roadmaster
system. I haven't gone for it myself yet, but it's definitely on my
list.

What I didn't think of, but Jon did, is a weight distributing setup.
That will definitely help you get some of that weight off of the rear
of your truck, which is generally better for the truck all around.

-Bill



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