Air Bag Question

[GCross]

I have had my truck for 6 weeks and am generally satisfied except for one thing, the rear suspension. Here in L. A. County we have a lot of concrete freeways with raised joints which make for a very choppy ride. I was thinking about installing Air Ride, but first I would like to hear from anyone who has done this. Is it worth the expense? How much better is the ride? I have reduced the tire pressure which helped some but I would like to improve it more. Any other suggestions?

 

[GregTaylor]

i live in thousand oaks and i know what your talking about i have tryed many tricks to remove the freeway hop. what i did was to remove 2 leaf springs in the back. the overload which is about 1/2 " thick and the second longest spring. then i installed 2 ranchos. this will reduce most of the sevear jiggle. but it means you cant haul the groceries. so i installed 2 rear airbags (each is rated for 5000#) this actually made the hop sightly worst but after messing arround with tire pressure air bag pressure and rancho setting i've come up with a formula that works reasonably well. or at least you can carry a conversation while your driving. . have you ever answered your cell phone when the hop is bad? you can't speak!!!. anyways heres the lateset settings

tires 80psi!

airbag 10 psi

ranchos level 7

set you speed at least for my long bed to exactly 70 mph. slower will hop and faster isn't safe... or any better

 

[timjones]

I use the siple trick of 500 pounds of sand at the tail gate, from home depot at $1. 15 a bag and 10 bags. and a 2x4 behind the wheel wells to hold it in place.

 

[sag2]

I'm similar to timjones, I carry 3-4 50# bags of water softener salt and a 2x6 in back of the wheel well to keep it at the rear. I have a Mopar toneau cover so it never can get wet. It takes the big bounce right out of it. I can really tell the difference if I pull them out.

 

[GCross]

Thanks guys, that gives me some ideas. Maybe I'll try the weight thing first since that's the cheapest.

 

[KHogan]

If you don't want to haul around bags of salt/sand and the fuel mileage penalties that come with it, try a reputable suspension company like T-Rex that mods the spring pack and uses Bilstein gas dampers. Bilsteins alone will improve ride and handling and will tame some of the hop or bump steer, but only slightly softer springs will really do the trick. Your wallet will definitely lighten as wel, LOL!

 

[KHogan]

I got your message... you're welcome. I didn't really answer your question about the air bags, though. My buddy has them on his F-350 CC DRW PS. He tows super heavy (near max GVWR), so he got them to level the rear. While I don't think they degrade the ride much (especially when empty and air pressure is low, as they only supplement the existing rear spring pack), they certainly aren't going to eliminate hop as they only serve to stiffen the supension, not soften it. Just my $0. 02. Hope this helps.

 

[y-knot]

Well the T-rex is to extreme and expensive, and I hate having half a truck, while the other half is taken up by the sand. So I looked to a few other areas. I have always liked the ride and ajustability of air bags, so I went with what I know. I removed the overloads compleatly along with their spacers, put a set of Air Lift (Firestone and Air Lift bags are the same) 5,000lb bags centered on the axle (like they should be) and Bilstien 5150 shocks in the rear. I had already installed the BFG toursion shackles some time before. You will need a air supply, I went with Quick Air II, and a holding tank as well as the gauges and switches for easy inflation from the cab. The ride on the Dodge trucks is bad, the jolt you get from small bumps and pot holes is punishing. The problem is the overloads slap their stops, as the trucks rear springs flex to cycle through the suspension movement. That results in a sudden stop of the rear axle as it goes through it's travel. The truck then takes the familiar hop over the bump instead of rolling over it. The removal of the overload springs elliminates the slap, there is nothing to bang into the stops. The Bags offer more then enough cappacity to allow the truck to carry it's load. They also allow it to carry the load level, but the gratest payoff is felt in the bottom of the drivers (all) seat. A smoother and much better ride loaded, but a very much better ride unloaded. The highway ride is excelent, out of our line up of vehicles, it is the best for on highway ride. The bags can be adjusted to your likeing, I run about 40psi and love the feel. The trick is to get just enough weight off the springs that the air bags take the load, but no more then needed so the ride is truely as if "riding on air". I have run this setup for some time now and have seen no down side or drawbacks. The expenses is not cheap but not out of grasp. Truthfully, I love it. But would not recomend anyone install the bags if they were not going to go ahead and install the compressor and all it's supporting hardware, the hassle would drive me nuts. The beauty of the system is it's ability to be easily adjusted while on the fly, to confrom to the different driving conditions. I also pull a tri-axle enclosed (36') GN that weights over 16K lbs, The bags work great and allow me to tailor the truck to the load, my pin weight is 3800lbs.

 

[GCross]

Once again, thanks to all for your suggestions. I may just throw some weight in the back for the short term, but will be looking at the other options for the long term. I sent an email to T-REX asking for information but suspect their system maybe overkill since my concern is only expansion joint hop and do not intend to run any Baja races.

 

[KHogan]

They have all different levels of suspension and do have a package for us freeway pilots. Do a search of this site for more info. If nothing else, Bilsteins alone will give you a better ride, and they are less than $200 a pair at a discount.