Dexter HD Suspension & EZ-Flex Install (long w/ pictures)

[LAdams]

I recently purchased the Dexter HD suspension kit that comes with the new EZ-Flex Idler... I had installed a similar kit on my previous Nomad 27' TT and it worked quite well so I decided to install the newer kit on my 31' Nomad... Below is a picture of the kit I installed...






Now it's worth mentioning here that this type of job isn't exactly for the "faint of heart"... Basically what your going to do is to put your TT on Jack stands and rip off the suspension and install a new one... Your going to need a pretty good assortment of standard mechanics hand tools and an air compressor with a variety of air tools is also very helpful... I would also suggest that you buy the

Harbor Freight Ball Joint Tool

that you see in this post... It is used for pressing in bronze bearings and serrated bolts and works very well for this application...

You could just use a big hammer and beat things into submission, but pressing the bearings and bolts in is a lot more elegant and easier on the frame and also the installers hands... I also used an air operated impact (gun) wrench, an air operated ratchet wrench, demolition bar, numerous 1/2" drive sockets, 3 pound hammer, grease gun, assorted screwdrivers, vise grips and other hand tools...




Start the project by putting your trailer on jack stands on a good firm surface... I also used my 6 stabilizer jacks attached to the trailer to further aid with stability... Here are some photos of that...



















You should also have 2 or 3 hefty jacks, either the bottle type or floor type to aid in the installation... I use a 4 ton floor jack and a 12 ton bottle jack... The 12 ton picks up the TT effortlessly and is small and compact... Here are a few photos of them...



















Start by removing the standard OEM idlers and shackles... This is done by removing the lock nuts on the inside of the suspension components and then hammering the bolts out of the hangers... All the bolts on my OEM suspension system were serrated, so using the impact gun to turn them and remove them would have damaged the shackle hangers by reaming out the mounting hole... If I would have done that then the new serrated bolts would have no material to bite in to... Here are a few pictures of the old suspension components...









Here is the rear OEM bolt...









In this photo the springs have been removed from the idler and their plastic bearings have not yet been removed...









Once the old components have been removed, you can begin to install the new ones... When pressing in the new bronze bushings, it is a good idea to use a pilot bolt or installation bolt so that the soft bronze bearing does not distort or bend... Here is a bolt I used for that purpose... Note that I ground off the serrations... This bolt is also used to push out (hammer out) the plastic bearings...









Here are a few typical plastic bearings after about 6000 miles... Some were already showing signs of extreme wear...









Now we can install the bronze bushings in the spring eyes... Apply grease to the inside of the spring eye, the outside of the bronze bearing, and the inside of the bronze bearing as well... Then use the Harbor Freight Ball Joint Tool (HFBJT) to push the bronze bearings into the spring eye as shown below...



















Once the bearing is pressed into the spring eye, then we press the serrated greasable bolt into hanger using the HFBJT...









This isn't the spring eye but here we are pressing the idler bolt into the hanger the same way you would do it with the spring hanger...









Once you complete the spring eye ends, then you can install the EZ-Flex Idler... It is installed by holding the idler between the frame hanger, inserting the proper size bolt and using the HFBJT to press the serrated bolt into the hanger... In the picture below the EZ-Flex idler has been hung on the bolt...









In the picture below, the serrated bolt is being pressed into the hanger...









Once you have the EZ-Flex Idler mounted you can install the HD shackles for the front and rear springs... Here are a few photos of that operation... The photo below shows one shackle in place...









The photo below shows the second HD shackle being installed...









And this is what the assembly looks like when completely installed...









Here are a few photos from underneath the trailer looking at the inside view of the suspension components...














And here are a few extra views of the HFBJT in use... This tool was really a life saver... We used a similar tool that my buddy had at his shop when we did the previous trailer and I knew I would need a similar tool to successfully complete the installation of the HD EZ-Flex Kit...














And the finished product with the TT wheels again mounted...














It took me all day yesterday to install the EZ-Flex kit and HD suspension shackles on the curb side of the TT... I spent about 8+ hours on it but it was somewhat a learning experience... Today I installed the street side portion of the kit and I did that in about 4 hours... Not too bad for the first time although I don't plan to do another any time soon...

I haven't done a test ride yet - that will come in about 2 weeks when we attend another rally, but I suspect the HD Suspension shackles and EZ-Flex will be a big improvement just like the last one was, although my last one had a solid idler assembly, not rubber shock mounted like the EZ-Flex...

I'm having some problems getting grease to flow in the spring eye portions of the greasable bolts... I called Dexter Tech support and they suggested I reverse their direction... All the greasable bolt holes should run in a horizontal plane facing either the front of rear of the TT as opposed to pointing either skyward or ground ward... Dexter says the grease will not migrate properly if they are in the up or down position... So I reversed the direction of the leaf spring eye bolts and I still can't get grease into them...

I'm going to run the TT a bit and see if the bronze bearings loosen up to the point where they will take grease readily... I remember my last TT being like this and sometimes I had to jack the frame a bit to relieve pressure on the greasable bolts... We'll see what happens with this issue... There were no problems getting grease into the center idler and shackles...

Les

[exploringcaroli]

Installed the EZ Flex system on the Ollie:

Less than 10,000 miles on original Dexter parts:






Talking to a friend and he wanted to install Dexter bronze bushings and wet pins on his single axle Ollie:

He has trouble using his right arm, so made him a stand for the grease gun:







Installed 45 degree grease fittings:





Greasing with one hand:

[CaptRick]

In the process of installing these on my Toy hauler, no problem at all, I am working in short shifts each night after work before it gets dark.
It took me longer to get the wheels off and the trailer in the air than installing the first side. I just used a C Clamp to press the shackles on the new wet bolts.I also used the C clamp to press the new bushings into the leaf springs. Getting the old bolts off was assisted with a generous amount of PB Blaster the night before and I put the new bushings in the freezer overnight to simplify that part. I finished the install on the second side in a little over an hour.
Looking forward to taking it out for a test ride this weekend.

[Waunacamper]

A quick followup to my install noted earlier. I have taken 3 trips so far and it definitely makes a difference. We don't even feel trailer hitting most bumps. Now if I can just get rid of bouncing from these older concrete highways.

[JBarca]

Hi jerdew,

I may be able to help some in your situation. I had a similar sizing issue with my camper, 2 times no less. The first time when I converted to the EZ flex and then when I upgraded to 16" LT tires from 15" ST's.

To the first question "1. Are my axles undersized for my GVWR ?"

Well, the trailer manufacture picked 10,400# of axles to support a GVWR trailer of 12,400. Or 2,000# less axles then GVWR. They are "counting" on 2,000# of your GVWR to be pin weight and born by the truck. This is technically and legally OK. However I do not agree with it as it leaves you with out a lot of reserve rating on the running gear when you load the camper and start approaching the 12,400#. You have to watch your weights and especially the side to side camper weights. Floor plan drives where you can load gear and water tanks and you can real easy if your not watching it, overload one wheel or wheel set on one side of the camper. You should get the camper weighed with full towing water and cargo weight, axle by axle and left side and right side along with a pin weight. Only then do you know if you are at or under the ratings. This is a case for tire overload when you approach ratings or go over.

Your manufacture elected to size the camper to a set of ratings leaving it to you to make sure you have to follow all the fine print and not overload one side of the camper. For not much more $$ they could of upgraded to 6,000# axles, springs and then tires. But that cost them $$ in a very high competitive industry. If your VIN tag says 5,200# GAWR then the springs and tires have to meet that. I suspect you "might" have ST225/75R15 load range D tires, do you? That is another heads up to start understanding tires failures when you approach full axle weight


To this question

jerdew wrote:
Hole spacing on current equalizer is 6 1/8 wide, and 2 3/8 tall. I have some questions/problems:
1. Are my axles undersized for my GVWR ?
2. Which would be the correct Dexter EX-Flex kit for me? The K71-652-00 is rated for up to 6K GAWR, and would take 3/4 inch away from my clearance at the top of my tires. It also seems borderline as to the GAWR. The K71-653-00 kit supports up to 8K, but spacing is 7 1/2" on the bottom holes. Doing the geometry, this would mean that my shackles would be narrower at the top than at the bottom. I suspect this would be a problem.

Your thinking is correct, there are some problems to think through on how to over come the spacing issue. As far as load ratings, the Dexter small equalizer will handle the axle weights, again making sure to not overload one side of the camper. The Larger dexter is a beast compared to the smaller one and the spacing is bigger. It will work as far as capacity but fender clearance is the concern.

Regardless of which rubber equalizer you select, the trailer will settle lower then it did on the rigid equalizer. How much less, depends on your weights and the rating of the equalizer to start with. In my case, I had to move hangers down in order to get the rubber equalizer to not have a bump and rub clearance with the top of the tire and the inside of the fender well. And when I went to LT tires and 16" rims, I again had to deal with the equalizer.

These are your options for adjusting ride height.

1. Deal with the hanger height. Some times 5th wheels have multiple holes in the hangers to adjust truck bed rail height.

2. Change shackle length, There are different sizes that can help. I went heavy duty shackles and the sizes are limited in the heavy duty but there are at least 2 lengths.

3. Change brands of rubber equalizers.
- Dexter has 2 sizes. You know about them
- Trail-Aire has 2 sizes. In your weights, skip the small one, only consider the larger one. Trail-?Aire by Lippert
- Mor-ryde has a rubber equalizer. I have seen this up close and helped a buddy with his axles on his Jayco and I like this equalizer. Better then the Trail-aire in my opinion. Mor-Ryde equalizers Also Morryde sells longer heavy duty shackles then Dexter

See if those options help you. The Mor-Ryde equalizer was not available when I did my corrections and Lippert bought out Trail-Aire by the time I made it buying mine. The Equalizer is the same but the quality has changed or at least on the vintage I bought. I hope they fixed that issue by now.

These posts may help as they show the evolution of ride heights I went through.

PS. Make sure you have at least a bare bottom minimum of 2" fender clearance. Ideally this is 2.5 or 3" or more. Much less then 2" and your going to hit. Point: Starting at 2.25" with a brand new rubber equalizer can turn into 2" after a few hundred miles

ST225/75R15 to LT225/75R16 Conversion

Hanger stiffening

Part of John's LT upgrade post with other good links

ST Tire Failure Analysis (Long - Lots of Pics)

John's orginal EZ flex conversion in this Sticky post

[jerdew]

I am preparing to replace the equalizer/shackles on my 32' 5th wheel and have read this forum with interest. My GVWR is 12,400 and my GAWR is 5200 (from the VIN plate on the front driver side). Tandem axles with 33" spacing of tires. Also, my current equalizer/shackle setup is such that the shackles are only slightly wider at the top than at the bottom. Hole spacing on current equalizer is 6 1/8 wide, and 2 3/8 tall. I have some questions/problems:
1. Are my axles undersized for my GVWR ?
2. Which would be the correct Dexter EX-Flex kit for me? The K71-652-00 is rated for up to 6K GAWR, and would take 3/4 inch away from my clearance at the top of my tires. It also seems borderline as to the GAWR. The K71-653-00 kit supports up to 8K, but spacing is 7 1/2" on the bottom holes. Doing the geometry, this would mean that my shackles would be narrower at the top than at the bottom. I suspect this would be a problem.

BTW -- thanks for this excellent topic.

[Bobandshawn]

I don't see a need for any special tools to do bushings. I just banged the old bushings out with a piece of 1/2" shaft and to install the new bushing you can just use an old shackle bolt with flat washers on it so the knurled end don't bugger up the new bushing. A couple hits with a hammer and it's seated. Pretty simple job. My only issue was finding a place to do it and I had my jack go screwing on me.

[RDMueller]

Did this upgrade today on my 2015 Wildwood 28DBUD. First off, a big thanks to everyone who has contributed to this thread so far. I read thru every page and found the instructions with photos here much more informative/useful than the instructions that came with the kit. Thanks in part to knowing ahead of time exactly what to do, the project went very smoothly.

I basically did the whole thing in one afternoon. Figure maybe half an hour to get all set up and jack the trailer. Then about 2 1/2 hrs for the first side and 1 1/2 for the second side. I won't detail the project because it is already thoroughly covered, but here are some of my observations:

1 Definitely absolutely positively get the ball joint press. It was invaluable and made removing and installing the pressed bolts a snap. Some have reported that a big C clamp works too, but in my opinion, the ball joint press is a much better option. You can of course buy the HF version for a reasonable price but I just borrowed one from Auto Zone. For those who don't know, many auto parts stores will let you borrow tools. You pay the retail price as a deposit and get a full refund when you bring it back. How cool is that?

2 Maybe because my camper is only a little over a year old, there was zero issue removing the old hardware. With an impact wrench I had all 7 nuts removed on one side in about 1 minute. Then maybe 10-15 minutes to use the ball joint press to remove all the pressed bolts.

3 Removing the the plastic bushings was no issue. I used needle nose pliers and just grabbed at the bushing and twisted. They easily collapsed into themselves and pulled right out. Speaking of bushings, my camper has just under 7000 miles and they were already in poor shape. The worst ones were where the idler pivots. They were completely shot, metal on metal.

4 I was a little concerned with installing the new bushings. Some reported putting them in the freezer and heating the springs, others said they used a Dremmel tool to smooth and hone the opening. I don't know why, but in my case they just slipped right in by hand. They were certainly snug, but they went in with no tools.

5 Then it's just a matter of getting things lined up, pressing the bolts in with the ball joint tool and torquing the nuts down! I would say overall it was easier and quicker than I expected.

Tomorrow I'll go for a test drive and see how it drives. I'm expecting a significant improvement based on what I've read so far.

[_1nobby]

Renting the ball joint tool.

Genius.

[Waunacamper]

I just installed the EZ Flez w/wet bolts this weekend. A big thanks to LAdams for the step-by-step with photos and others with there suggestions. It took me about 6 hours from getting all the tools/jack stands together to cleanup, did it by myself. Tear down went well as my trailer is only 2 years old, so no rust issues. I used a hacksaw blade to cut the plastic bushings and then twisted them out. Was very suprised as they were in excellent shape, although my trailer only has around 5K miles. (Mostly short trips until retirement next year) I rented a ball joint tool for pressing in the bolts, worked great. Put the bronze bushings in freezer overnight and they slipped right in using an old bolt (without serrations), just light tapping from hammer. I test greased all bolts before install to be sure they would take grease. Installed them with the hole facing either 6 or 3 o-clock, depending on location. Basically had hole facing away from spring. Went together well and when done and resting on the wheels everything took grease. Short test drive and it was a noticable difference. Next trip in 2 weeks for real test. Again thanks to all posters for suggestions.

[_1nobby]

I didn't blaze any new trails, but I managed to install the Dexter EZ Flex Equalizer kit in 4 hours .

The cheapest ball joint tool I could find was $100 so I resorted to a C Clamp and various sockets to do the bolt release and the bushing install.

The only criticism is that my kit did NOT have the 2 equalizer hanger bolts. I got the nuts....but no bolts. It forced me to use the old bolts and nuts with some Loctite.

No biggy...but it would have been nice to have all new.

[stang233]

Just got done. Wow,a pain in the but. But hard. I pb blasted bolts for 3 days and the fine thread still stripped with the impact. I ended up loosening them by hand. Some very important things to look at. Make sure when pressing in the bolts make sure the collar on the backside is perfectly aligned in the hole. This is a job for two people. Also use a ratchet strap to help align the axles . Overall not bad. 4 hrs first side 1.5 second side with help. Make sure u have big breaker bars, put the brass and bolts in tje freezer. Putting the shackles in tje freezer made them worse.

[Bobandshawn]

stang233 wrote:
Shouldn't you not place grease on the brass bushing. The point of that business is to stay in place while the bolt rides on the bushing?

Correct. The bushing to spring eye fit should be dry.
I watched a video of some guy putting new bronze bushings on an old 2 axle non rv trailer. The nylon bushing were so worn out the spring eye was worn. He was just slipping the new bushing in. If you turned the spring sideways the bushings would fall out.
You want a tight fit no grease or oil. Press them in with a C clamp or use an old bushing bolt with flat washers over the knurled end to hammer them in.

[stang233]

Shouldn't you not place grease on the brass bushing. The point of that business is to stay in place while the bolt rides on the bushing?

[Bobandshawn]

stang233 wrote:
I have the Dexter 356 equalizer. If i went with the EZ flex would i lose ride height. I am unable to lose ride height.

What about the equaflex? Would I lose ride height with that?

I wish I would of measured before and after but I think my MorRyde 3000 raised mine 1-2 inches. Kinda like the trailer took a blue pill or something. I even notice it stepping up on the first step.

[brulaz]

stang233 wrote:
I have the Dexter 356 equalizer. If i went with the EZ flex would i lose ride height. I am unable to lose ride height.

What about the equaflex? Would I lose ride height with that?

The etrailer.com site has Q&A about the Equaflex versus the 356. There they point out that you would lose 1/2" in resting height. And when the rubber bushing is compressed you might lose more? The equaflex is also 1/2" less wide.

I had a similar height problem, and so just got the wet bolts and heavy duty shackles. Used the old equalizer. My trailer already had shocks so the ride was pretty good anyway.