Just a Swaying.....

[GIT-R-DONE]

Truck: 2004. 5, 4 door, 3500 series, auto, stock.



Problem: Load camper in bed, sways likes she is top heavy going down the road. Weight of camper approx 1200 lb.



What are the best options, from all of your experience's, on how to correct the sway? Even sitting still you can go up to the side of it and rock it easily. Sway bars, air bags, . ?. ?... what works to correct the sway and what wont help the sway?



Ideas for solutions?



Thanks

 

[CLAYTON]

Buddy of mine had the same problem and threw on the Ride Rite airbags and it fixed the problem.

 

[DPelletier]

Everyone will tell you to use air bags, but in my experience (3217lb camper on '01. 5 2500 long box), air bags do little to prevent sway. My suggestions;

- heavier overloads or timbrens

- better shocks with heavy dampening (i. e. Rancho RS9000X's on level 9)

- load range E tires aired up to 80 psi.

- sway bar kit if the above still doesn't make you happy



Cheers

Dave

 

[Scooby]

My camper weighs well over 4,000 lbs. and my bone-stock 04. 5 3500 dually handles the weight surprisingly well. I'm assuming you have a SRW?



On my 01 2500 truck, I hauled the same camper but had Rancho 9000 shocks and airbags. The combination of the two will solve your problem for sure - and the great part is that they really aren't very expensive. (how often does that happen?!)

 

[Prairie Dog]

Air bags work well IF they're plumbed seperately. If your truck handles the weight w/o sagging then I think the biggest bang for your buck would be a sway bar kit.

 

[Iguide]

Humor

what font



Gir-R-Done



That Larry the cable guy offers a bit of different humor. Entertaining though.



:--) :-laf

 

[SSchang]

I have the same truck, and bought a camper 4 weeks ago. First, my camper dataplate reads 1840#. I weighed the truck, then the truck & camper combo on the certified scales at work. The camper really weighs 2640#.



Being a short bed truck, the CG of the camper must be slightly behind the rear axle. When I weighed the axles separately, I actually lost 100# from the front axle (see below).



Truck, Driver, Full Fuel tank:

Front Rear Total

4400 2800 7200



Truck, Driver, Full Fuel Tank, Camper w/ 1/2 full water

Front Rear Total

4300 5540 9840



Truck rating from door sticker:

Front Rear Total

5200 6150 9900



Although I also have the 3500, the camper squatted the rear end pretty good, and I bottomed out frequently. The sway was pretty bad as well.



I added the Firestone air bag kit (very well designed, and less than 2 hours to install). I played around with the air pressure on a couple short trips, and 50 PSI seems to be the best. It brings the truck back up near the unloaded posture, and helped quite a bit with the sway. We just got back from the Outer Banks & Asheville, NC (yes, we left the Outer Banks in the middle of the hurricane), Approx 1800 mi mostly at 70-75 mph. I'm comfortable with the handling, but wouldn't drive it through an obstacle course.



I'll probably add the Ranch 9000's next to help limit the sway some more.

 

[GFritsch]

Surprised that you would have that much sway with such a light camper. Our camper is about 4k loaded down(maybe more). As stated above air bags and upgraded shocks will make a big Diff. Pics of air bags and camper in readers rig. Next weekend I will add the Rancho shocks.



Have fun with the camper



Greg