Does anyone here use air shocks?

Helper air spring are more durable.

Shock mounts aren't meant to carry weight. Now if the full size car or burb or suv needed help with leveling light loads then they may work in that situation.

Except for the Bilsteins made for the GM SUVs, most air shocks are lacking in the damping department. The Bilsteins are huge however, so they don't fit other applications. The more modestly sized air shocks make it all fit by reducing both chamber sizes, so they don't do either function very well.

That's my understanding as well... Shock mounts are not designed to be load-bearing, so if you go into this thinking air shocks == air bags, you will be sorely disappointed.

Don't think that they'd be all you need because, "it's only a half ton truck." Half ton trucks are the ones that need the MOST help usually.

The reason that I asked is that a family member has found a gooseneck horse trailer that is light enough to be pulled with an F150 but the gooseneck hitch is not compatible with air bags from what I have been able to find out. So my choices are no extra support, air shocks, Timbrens or Super Springs. Etrailer.com recommends Timbrens for use with the hitch. I like the adjustability of the air springs and am concerned that the use of one of the other type devices will make the empty ride too harsh.

Groover wrote:
The reason that I asked is that a family member has found a gooseneck horse trailer that is light enough to be pulled with an F150 but the gooseneck hitch is not compatible with air bags from what I have been able to find out. So my choices are no extra support, air shocks, Timbrens or Super Springs. Etrailer.com recommends Timbrens for use with the hitch. I like the adjustability of the air springs and am concerned that the use of one of the other type devices will make the empty ride too harsh.

I have Timbrens on my Ram 2500. I set up mine to set about 3/4" above the spring perch so under normal driving conditions they don't make contact. When I drop my 5th wheel in the bed the truck squats to make contact and they provide excellent helper support for my coil springs.

KJ

I would add a leaf long before I would trust an air shock with a heavy load.

I had them on a 3/4 ton conversion van that I towed a 6500 lb loaded TT with, and they didn't do the job. As other have said, shock mounts are not designed to carry weight.

Firestone makes airshocks for 3/4 ton front ends and I'd go with the Airlift bags on the rear. Have run them for years. I run about 15-20 lb ety and it takes the shock out of a 3/4 ton ride.

Well, it turns out that etrailer's advice that air bags don't work with a gooseneck hitch apparently does not apply to the Airlift 5000 bags with built in jounce bumpers so we are keeping the Airlifts for now. Putting in the gooseneck hitch was easier than I thought that it would be and the F150 seems to pull it well. We did use a 5" offset ball to give us a more clearance from the back window with the 5.5' bed. We looked at going with an offset coupler on the trailer but decided that the benefit would be minimal as that type of offset does not help much when the trailer is sideways.