Sheriffdoug wrote:
Sleepy, Great picture & commentary.
Just need to settle my weight issues, Eagle Cap 1160 is 4281 lb dry plus personals, fluids, groceries, etc, will be 6,000 lb, will that work on 2012 Ram 3500 diesel crew longbed, was going to add Super Spring 1700 model and upgrade shocks to Rancho 9000xl's.
What do you think? I think it will work, and yes it will be 700-100 lb overweight.
Knowing how regulators believe that everything should be rated at only half the actual capacity I personally think that your rig will be fine if it's half again as much as rated.
This is only an example:
Meaning if a truck is rated for a 4000 pound pay load it would probably haul up to 8000 pounds... of course you wouldn't want to do that...
But: If it were mine at the 4000 rating I personally wouldn't worry about an extra 2000 pounds.
And I think the the truck would haul the extra 2000 pounds without aftermarket devices.Choosing where the weakest point in the truck is is the trick... is it really the springs? or the shocks, or the brakes, maybe the tires...
How will you decide what and why to beef up something.... after all about everyone that has added "stuff" to beef up their trucks were guessing... often very expensive guessing.
Thats why I started with independantly controlled air bags... I guessed! I knew that the independantly controlled air bags could be easily pumped up with a bicycle pump and be useful to balance the load.
It turns out I didn't need anything else... my truck handled the Lance 1161 easily (and it was the biggest TC made at the time)
BTW... how did I know that the airbags helped the trucks ability to haul the Lance 1161? I let the air out of the Air Bags... well down to about 5 pounds... they were assisting the spings... and the caper wallowed slightly on crooked, uneven roads.... I pumped them back up... the T/TC combo settled down.
It's been 10 years... and I still have the original Airbags... with anywhere from 85 psi to 100 psi in them. NO other aftermarket devices have been added.
When you figure out why and what you are going to add I hope you'll explain your decision with us.
