markeheiden
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Joined 21 years ago
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Rear Ramp Extension Springs
I replaced the corrugated aluminum on my ramp door with 3/8" plywood and smooth fiberglass laminate. It looks great but the door is now a little too heavy for the springs. I need to find a supplier for these Old style garage door springs. Garage door spring companies don't seem to have anything this large available. They are 39" long eye to eye and 2-1/2" dia with .290 wire. I would like to find springs the same length but with a little thicker wire. Anyone found replacement springs for their ramp?1.2KViews0likes1CommentRe: tire pressure on tow vehicle
Pumping up the air in your tires to the maximum rated psi is correct if your tires are supporting the maximum weight rating of the tire. Otherwise they will be under or over inflated based on your actual load. It's not rocket surgery but I hear "advice" that is simply wrong consistently so I guess it needs to be made simpler to understand. I took others' advice many years ago when I first started towing. I pumped up the 4 tires on my 7K pound trailer to the "max" 80 psi as suggested. The tires at this pressure can support over 12K pounds. The trailer (a 25ft toy hauler) was all over the road. I checked and adjusted tongue weight, sway controls, torsion bars etc. but none of this was completely effective at settling down the trailer. What solved it was dropping the air pressure to an appropriate for the load 60 psi. This toyhauler as with most is not equipped with shock absorbers and that's fine usually. However what happens with over inflated tires is the sidewall which is designed to flex and absorb some of the energy from impacts does not. This energy is transmitted directly to the springs and that transmits to the chassis with no shock absorbers to dampen these oscillations, every bump in the road is exaggerated. It can in fact upset the chassis to the point of instability which is what I experienced . These are LT rated radial tires and after lowering the pressure a bit they had a bit of sidewall bulge which is how a properly inflated radial looks. They do not get hot to the touch under any conditions which is the true test and the only real indication if your tires are under inflated. I also tow the same trailer fully loaded at 12K pounds and when I do I run them at the 80 psi maximum as recommended on the sidewall since oh yeah, they are then supporting the maximum weight as well. You can get away with over inflating your tires to "the max" on your truck because the shocks are able to dampen the excessive oscillations from the road and inflexible sidewalls but sometimes it's just unsafe on a trailer to run the wrong air pressure be it too low OR too high..517Views0likes0CommentsRe: Diesel vs gas......................
I do have one major gripe about diesel. I have on a number of occasions when driving a diesel been nearly out of fuel and desparately going from station to station to find diesel at 2:00 AM. This has never happened to me while in my gas Tow vehicle. This used to be even a worst problem, but in the last several years with the explosion in diesel personal trucks there are more stations with No.2.513Views0likes0CommentsRe: Diesel vs gas......................
Wicked long thread here!. I started with an 82' Suburban non-turbo diesel so I would be smog exempt here in CA no matter what I did. I towed my jeep ONCE with it and yanked it out. (Dangerous Slow!) It's all about the turbos, which by the way a turbo gasser wins the power game hands down. My wallet prevents me from buying a newer rig w/modern turbo diesel so I junkyarded a Vortec 454 and 4L80E in. With 3" exhaust, power module and cold air intake, the power is incredible. I tow 19,000 GVW and nearly stay with my partners 6.0 PS Diesel, same weight under all conditions. I do get 1/2 the mileage towing, but I would have to spend $400 every single month in fuel to make up the difference of a new truck payment. I figure a couple years from now, I'll go find a used diesel, but in the mean time, I just pay to play.512Views0likes0Comments
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