BoilerEE
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Re: Do all lightweight large TT's tow terribly, or just ours?
OK, so an update, finally! Sorry it took so long, but I had hernia surgery and was down for recovery for about 4-5 weeks. So, bottom line up front, thanks to everyone's input here, I'm very pleased now with the setup! The changes I made were: 1) Put one more washer in the WD hitch and also added the anti-noise pads on the L-brackets, which might equal another half-washer of pre-load. 2) Upgraded the tires to load range D so I could run 65 PSI 3) Fixed the slop in the steering column The primary fix I think was just continuing to add washers to add more pre-load to the WD setup. One of my biggest mistakes was thinking the number of washers/angle of the head would look anything like any other setup I've had with this hitch - if I'd gone into it with no preconceived notions of what I thought it should take, I would have just kept adjusting until it was right. Three of the tires needed replacing before the big trip anyway, so that was a smart upgrade and probably also helped reduce the squirrly-ness. Lastly, there was a tiny bit of play in the steering that I had initially just written off as being a vehicle with 80k miles on it, but it did really bug me. Play was less than 1/8", but still noticeable and annoying to me, so I found a lot of folks saying the intermediate steering shaft was the culprit. I got one of the re-designed ones for $60, but as I was installing it, I found that the bottom bearing on the upper part of the column assembly had slipped almost all the way out! Amazingly (for a 2015 model year) this is a known issue, and there's actually a TSB out on it - not sure how my '07 GMC managed to go 150,000+ miles without the steering column falling apart but a 2015 Suburban does. Anyway, I fixed that too, and it eliminated almost all of the play, which was also a huge help in making the towing way less work. Thanks again to everyone who pitched in with suggestions!538Views0likes0CommentsRe: Do all lightweight large TT's tow terribly, or just ours?
DownTheAvenue wrote: Hornnumb2 wrote: Just my 2 cents but that looks like a whole lot of trailer for 1/2 suburban. X2 It does look like it, but as seen in the pic it weighed in at 6,780# and the Suburban is rated to 8K ... thinking though that the wind and the leverage, particularly laterally don't care about the weight as much as the surface area. I didn't weigh the tongue separately, but even with the WD bars attached, I'm increasing the drive axle weight by 1000#, which seems like a lot. I wonder if the auto-level air ride system is giving it problems - I did try to set it up like the GM manual says and read a lot of threads on the subject. Wish there was a way to manually control what it tries to do. I'll measure from the frame next time I have it out, but it's no kidding level within +/- 0.5" across the whole span when I measure from the belt line to the ground - you can see the roof is level with the eave on the garage.401Views0likes0CommentsRe: Do all lightweight large TT's tow terribly, or just ours?
ScottG wrote: It's amazing how a little adjustment can make such a big difference. One washer may make all the difference in the world. However, I do believe that once you get up above thirty-ish feet, a fifth wheel handles better. That's my conclusion as well after one shake-down trip - this thing is 35' long and really, really light, so it's like trailering a sailboat with the sail up!142Views0likes0CommentsDo all lightweight large TT's tow terribly, or just ours?
Hello RV.net forums friends! It's been a while, but I'm back, and with a completely different rig now. We've had a couple of different large truck campers, a 42' Titanium 5th wheel, and multiple cargo trailers up to 10k# and 30', so I consider myself a fairly experienced RVer. Thinking I knew what I was doing, we decided to try an SUV/TT combo, and I'm happy that we're only trying it (will be driving back to Alaska for the summer so my wife and I can do our Guard/Reserve duty for the year and then selling the rig up there and flying home). The reason I'm glad is, it tows terribly!!! Here are the details: 2015 Suburban LTZ 2013 Passport Ultra Lite 3220BH 14K Equal-i-zer hitch (tried a 6K on the dealer's advice, and it was way too sloppy, so I just setup my 14K I had from previous setups, and it's better, but still floaty). So, I spent some time at the scales today and here's what I learned: Suburban is right at 5980# empty, with Steer axle 3080 and drive 2900. The height to the front wheel well unloaded is 35 1/2" I didn't run across without the WD bars attached, but the wheel well height was 36 1/8" with no weight distribution. With the Equal-i-zer adjusted, my weights are: Steer: 2840 (240# less than unloaded) and height of wheel well is 35 7/8" Drive: 3960 Trailer: 5960 Gross: 12760 I'm thinking I could probably put in one more washer to dial in a little more WD and get the Steer axle closer to the unloaded weight, but I'm wondering if not matter what I do the real problem is that I've got a ton of surface area and very little weight. Is this just the way it is with a light and large TT? Is there anything I'm missing? As you can see, it's dead-nuts level (which makes my OCD happy) -- I just wish it was as nice to drive as it is to look at! M%Eo6MepSZWYAax5bVlnXA by BoilerEE, on Flickr9.5KViews0likes46CommentsRe: Buying EC1160 - having weight anxiety ...
So after a couple more trips I've got a new thought on what my next truck will be, and I think I'm leaning toward Ram 3500. I was thinking about a Ram 5500, but after my recent success being able to air-down my LT tires for beach driving, I'm not too keen on the 19.5's. Plus, the new Ram with the 14k GVWR is darn near the payload capacity of the Ram 4500 ... probably higher real world since the 4500 would require a heavy steel bed of some kind. Anyone know if the '16 Ram is going to have an increase in GVWR? I see that the GCWR is going up by 1200# or so. I think the unloaded weight of it is about 8200, so with my rig + family would be right at the 14k, which is a heck of a lot better than the 2600# OVER I am right now!441Views0likes0CommentsRe: How low would you go......regarding tire pressure that is?
Great success last weekend on the beach at the Kasilof river! I was able to just lumber down the whole beach right to the mouth of the river, which is an area lots of people were struggling to get to with their unloaded 1/2ton trucks. Got tons of stares from people who couldn't believe I was bringing the behemoth down there! IMG_0113 (1) by , on Flickr Aired all the tires down to about 20psi - looks pretty sketchy on the hard pack (where these pics were taken) but it just floated down the beach like a dream, and that's with the tiny little 215/85-16s my truck has. IMG_0049 (1) by , on Flickr IMG_0048 (1) by , on Flickr IMG_0047 (1) by , on Flickr395Views0likes0CommentsRe: Buying EC1160 - having weight anxiety ...
OK, so here's the update - I finally got around to running the rig over the scale and it was eye-opening, to say the least! With me and my two young boys, full water, fuel, propane we weighed in at 13,560! Truck with me and the boys is roughly 8200, so the camper is 5360, which is darn near 1k heavier that I had guessed. I did end up getting the Hellwig BigWig sway bar last summer and it made a huge difference, but now that I know my true weight I will not be doing any towing and will start shopping for a Ram 5500.440Views0likes0CommentsRe: How low would you go......regarding tire pressure that is?
av8rds wrote: Airing down is not a problem. We do it at the beach all the time, TC's, Class A/C's...yep even the 19.5 guys air down...Beach length is about 4.5 miles. I usually go to about 25 on my current rig. But '02 F350 with my AF 860(about 1000ish pounds lighter) and in softer sand I'd take them down to about 18. Perfect info I needed - going on the beach down at Kenai again this year - was a near disaster last year, so hopefully with the tires aired down it'll work out better this year!395Views0likes0Comments
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