Broken Frame on a RAM 3500
You may have seen pics of this truck and camper floating around the interwbez for the last few weeks. Here's an article about it that was published earlier today. Broken Frame on a RAM 3500
Forum Discussion
Groover wrote:
40 years ago many of the truck campers I saw had shock absorbers on the front of the cabover going down to the front fenders. The point of these was to absorb the frame damaging stresses that lead to fatigue and also control a bouncy ride.
If you read what Lance says about their shocks, they were to improve the ride. They made no claim that they helped with frame stress.
In any case, anything you can do to soften bumps/ride is probably good. When I bought my truck used, one particular bump on I-90 was pretty brutal. I installed Bilstein shocks and that bump wasn't very noticeable after that. I don't know how the stock shocks performed when new because I didn't own it then.
It's possible that the suspension added to the stresses on the frame. You can easily watch how much your TC moves when you hit bumps. Big movements compared to the same road without a TC are probably not a great thing.
While we are on suspension, I feel the right amount of air in airbags can also smooth out the ride, but nothing will smooth a very bumpy road other than slowing down.
