2011 Ram 2500 suspension question

[bigorange]

Picked up my new fifth wheel yesterday and service guys couldn’t get it level. There are 3 plates under the leaf springs on the truck’s rear suspension they said they’d never seen before and are preventing the suspension from squatting at all. 2011 Ram 2500 Cummins. I’ll try to post pics later from PC instead of phone. Any ideas? They speculated it was some sort of overload since this used to be a ranch truck. Or maybe a lift kit even though it’s not a single block.

[Butch50]

I know I'm late getting back to this post but here is a picture of my moving the 3 spacers to the top of my axle to lower the rear of my Ram.

[bigorange]

Based on the diesel forum responses calling it a stupid question they must be stock and common knowledge to every Ram owner but me. I don’t crawl under other trucks often though. LoL

[goducks10]

PDX.Zs wrote:
Stacking blocks is generally considered a “bad thing” in the suspension world. So that’s pretty interesting to me.

That’s factory?

Are they locked together?

Don't all truck MFG's use blocks?

[BarryG20]

If they are like the previous models there are pins or stubs on the bottom of the plate and a corresponding hole in the top of the plate below that it fits into. Just like on the bottom of the leaf spring.

[PDX_Zs]

Stacking blocks is generally considered a “bad thing” in the suspension world. So that’s pretty interesting to me.

That’s factory?

Are they locked together?

[bigorange]

Thanks for all the feedback. Based on discussion here and on one of the Ram diesel forums I’m going to have my mechanic remove the spacers and see how it goes. I can always put them back if it causes issues or doesn’t improve the trailer leveling. I’ll report back in a few weeks after I tow a couple more times.

[bigorange]

goducks10 wrote:
If they're the OEM 3 flat plate spacers then you need to find a new dealer. They're clueless.

Not the dealer. This was a mechanic who admittedly doesn’t do a lot of suspension work and also the local off-road shop who I’ll speculate focuses mostly on lift kits and aftermarket shocks.

[lawrosa]

There may be spacers on top of the block but also sometimes the spacers are at the overload...

[Butch50]

I agree with the spacers have no inter action with the springs. They are nothing more than spacers to raise the rear axle up to clear the upper bolt on the calipers like Scott said. They will lower your truck about 2" without the trailer but the have nothing to do with any capacity of the springs.

[goducks10]

If they're the OEM 3 flat plate spacers then you need to find a new dealer. They're clueless.

[Greene728]

Grit dog wrote:
If they’re just spacers on top of the axle they aren’t adding spring rate. Yes the truck may be too high for your purposes with them but they’re not preventing it from squatting.

^^^This. That have nothing to do with “squat”.

[Grit_dog]

If they’re just spacers on top of the axle they aren’t adding spring rate. Yes the truck may be too high for your purposes with them but they’re not preventing it from squatting.

[Butch50]

I removed them on my 2017 and it dropped it down enough to allow me to level my trailer. I have a Reese Elite Airbourne Sidewinder that have an air bag in the pin box. This causes the pin box to mounted lower than what it normally would be. I have my hitch in the lowest position and I still have 9" of clearance now.

When we did it we just placed the 3 blocks on top of the existing spring pack that allowed me to reuse the stock U bolts. It lowered the rear of the truck by about 2".

It does appear that the upper bolt on the caliper is going to be hard to get out. It might need to have U bolts loosened and then raise the rear of the truck.

I'm not going to worry about that right now as my truck only has 1400 miles on it so they should last for years before I need to change them. I'm retired so I have to make a point of driving the truck once in awhile to exercise it some. We normally drive one of our other cars. The trucks main use is for pulling the 5er. So maybe check your rear pads and if close to needing changed then do it now before moving blocks.

I use my exhaust brake all the time also even when empty and using the down shift button on the gear selector I manually downshift myself to avoid using the brakes. It becomes a game for me to see if I can slow down enough with just a tap on the brakes for a final stop.

This is what worked for me and might not work for others.

[ScottG]

If you take any of them out, watch the brake caliper mounting bolts closely. On some trucks, taking out the spacers will make it impossible to get those bolts out without a lot of work.