Air Lift Jounce, off-road susp upgrades

Big-wheel wrote:
...is there something else I should look at to get the truck more stable?

Thanks,
Kevin

Torklift Stableloads are a good option, and far more affordable than airbags.

I do have something built close to the Stableloads, same idea.

Are off road travles are not quite XTC but we have pushed the campers to there limits. Just looking for idea that will work.

Put wedges between your lower overload spring and spring pack. I don't use my bags until I tow with the TC loaded.

Air bags can work if you fiddle with the air pressure for each road surface application. But, you will always get a 'rebound' effect with the bags. You increase the air pressure in one momentarily on the upswing and there is an almost equal but opposite pressure release the other way. It's Newtonian Physics. With coil springs we call it recoil. Only dumb old leaf springs have little recoil/rebound as the friction between the leaves molifies the rebound effect.
Arguably the best suspension for heavy loads on a pick up truck is the multi-leaf pack with many thinner leaves, not a few thick ones. If long enough, leaf springs will deliver a pretty good ride also, especially with multi upper overloads (secondaries). This is what I've done and gotten there by trial-and-error on many 4WD's. Look at the suspension on the WWII Jeeps. Many narrow, thin leaves. The Allies got a lot of mileage out of those ubiquitous critters. 4WD's up to about 1970 had a multi-leaf set up. About 20 yrs ago they experimented with a mono-leaf or two-leaf spring set up on the rear axle. Complete, dismal failure, IMHO. The only good thing was it was cheaper to blacksmith one leaf.
Search back on the TC forum for suspension upgrade ideas.
I see you are in Durango. I think this little guy lives down in the engine house:

jefe

Big-wheel wrote:
I just bought a Lance 830 to put on a 2000 F-250 7.3 and looking and doing some rear suspension upgrades. I do right now have extended overload drop downs. They do help but need more. I was looking about doing air bags any thoughts on the ones with the Jounce bumper built inside? We do some off road to get back to spots are air bags ok or is there something else I should look at to get the truck more stable?

Thanks,
Kevin

So far so good using the Air Lift bags with internal jounce bumpers. They are working great, and I love being able to run them at 0 pressure with no load.

jefe, is that your layout?

PJ,
yes, it has it's own PhotoBucket account:
clicky
Rio Grande Southern in HOn3 (1:87 scale)
in a dedicated 1200 sq. ft. building
The actual engine 42 lives in Durango
To keep this TC,
I found a cool 1:87 scale model of a 1956 Ford F-1 with a (looks like) small homemade truck camper for the back. I'll build it and post the pic on here.

jefe

Thanks everyone,

Jefe do you have any more trips planned down this way?

I discovered, the hard way, that the best results were achieved with the lowest possible pressure in the airbags that would get the bed up to stock ride height. Also we found that the best use of the airbags were for leveling side to side. For us with our pretty standard load of supplies, water etc. it is 55 psi driverside, 65 psi passengerside.

We have leaf springs fore and aft, I don't have any problems with rebound, that I notice. We operate often in the very soft sand at Assateague Island, Maryland and have done a good bit of off-roading.
Not to the extent that Jefe and Whazoo do, of course, but we did get back in de bush in several beautiful Alaska locations.