Camping questions

[wavery]

I have welded many shock mounts back on, all with air shocks. The little trucks I work on where old enough not to go to the dealer. I put a set of bags on my fathers new '85 F-150 because it was too lite to handle his 5er. In the next 190000 miles (oveloaded at least half the time) we wore out 3 sets of rear wheel bearings but the air bags still worked when I sold the truck to pay sales tax on my Dodge. The only reason I would put air shocks on anything is to hide bad springs while I found the truck a new home.

Well, I was also in off-road racing (years ago) and saw a lot of shock mounts broken off :p . They were mostly air shocks but we are talking about something quite different here. I doubt very much, if an air shock would break a mount any faster than a stock shock if the vehicle is not over-loaded or used on extremely rough roads (such as off-roading). This discussion has been about leveling a vehicle with an acceptable weight trailer that has caused the stock vehicle to become unleveled.

Your example of the '85 F150 is an example that I would have used air-bags as well (although I would never recommend it to others). The vehicle was obviously extremely over-loaded (with a 5er). Earlier Ford truck frames were very heavy. That seems a good match for THAT example.

However, as fuel economy demands become more and more stringent, the manufacturers are cutting down on vehicle weight tremendously (remember fuel economy rule #1. Total weight to HP ratio). When they do that, they carefully engineer the vehicle to accept loads in very specific areas and have (in most cases) cut down on the weight of the vehicles frame. I would not recommend drilling holes in the lightened frame of any 2001+ vehicle and adding a mount that is going to carry an extremely heavy load (as in your example). If you look around at the vehicles that most of the members have here, they are late model vehicles. Most members are very careful about not over-loading their vehicles (present writer accepted)

I will shut-up now because I am probably the worst offender of weight limits on this board and I'm starting to feel a bit hypocritical .

[AustinBoston]

The best solution is an equalizing (a.k.a. weight distributing) hitch, but the same things that contraindicate air shocks and air bags usually completely rule out a WDH, *plus* the trailer may rule out a WDH.

If the tow vehicle will allow it, and the trailer will allow it, a WDH is always the way to go.  But with pop-ups, that's often not the case.

Austin

[aw738]

Air bags are typically bolted to the frame and the axle. This puts forces in areas that may not be designed (at all) to handle those forces. I would feel MUCH more comfortable using air shocks than air bags. When air shocks are installed, they remove your standard shocks (which are dealing with that load anyway) and istall air shocks on the exact mountings. The load is put exactly where the manufacturer designed the vehicle to handle such loads. Think about it, when the air bags are inflated, they take the entire load off of the stock suspension and redistributes it to areas that were not designed to handle that load.

Shocks or their mounts are not really designed to carry the weight of a vehicle. They are for ride control. The vehicle springs are designed to carry the weight of the vehicle.

[Zagami]

Welcome to the forum.
 
This thread got technical real fast and it's all good stuff.  I wanted to jump in with another alternative that might be a good comproise if you don't exceed the weight ratings of your tow vehicles.
 
You may want to evaluate Hi-Lo and TrailManor units that fold down while traveling and lift up when you are in the campground, giving you a pretty good size trailer with all the amenities of a standard travel trailer.
 
You can do your research at:
 
www.hilotrailer.com
 
and
 
www.trailmanor.com
 
There are also many excellent, good size, folding camping trailers (pop ups) that include bathrooms with a shower, so you don't have to give up a few extras just becuase you go camping in a pop-up.  
 
Enjoy your research, and enjoy the camping experience and the new friends you have found here.

[NIAGARA05]

I might have failed to mention that I only installed the on the rear of the vehicle on the leaf springs  the shocks are still there it just aids the leafs springs so that they don't flatten so fast.  I guess there is good and bad with all of them.  The other advantage is that if you blow the seals on the shock the trucks rear could sink where if the bags blow you still have the full opereation of the shock and springs.

Mark '74
Susan '78
Marbles the cat 10yrs old code name missy

[Gone-Camping]

Don't let that Jeep worry you at all, it'll pull any PU made!! I have had 3 PU's and pulled them all with my Grand Cherokee, and I'm now pulling around a 23' Hybrid TT with the same ol' Jeep...

Grand Cherokee with the 4.0L Six has a 5000 lb tow rating, the V8 version has a 6500 lb rating. You'll be good to go with any PU on the market!! Fuel economy will vary depending on how you tow. If you turn OFF the Overdrive as recommeded you're engine will run at higher RPM's and burn more fuel, as well as the additional drag. I found that as long as I was on level ground I could keep the OD engaged and had very little loss of fuel economy. However, in the hills (any kind of hills) I had to turn the OD off to keep the tranny from searching (shifting up & down etc...burns it up fast).
 
With the Hybrid I can't tow it all with the OD engaged, and the huge drag from the large frontal mass reduced my fuel mileage to 8 mpg... Big difference than pulling the PU around!!

[springer02]

To the question of the Jeep: Depends on which engine you have to figure out how well your Jeep will handle the load. Our 99 Grand Cherokee has a 6 cyl 4L engine. It tows a 3,000 load well, but struggles in the mountains. Flat land towing is pretty easy. Mpg drops to 16 or so. Our 03 has an 8 cyl that has no problems at all and ends up with about the same mph towing.

The lesson is to remember that any trailer is going to affect things like acceleration and grade climbing. A bigger engine is less likely to get bogged down, driving down mpg.

Be generous in engine size and it'll drop your mpg less than if you're close to maxing out your engine.

[Azusateach]

If we look at a PU the one weakness to the plan is toilet and shower facilities.  The easy answer is campgrounds with the added extras.  When we tent camped we used the portashower bags and had pretty good luck.  Time rolls on and I may be required to provided an upgrade in this area.

I also noticed some of the PU's are now offering heated beds.  Anyone had any luck with the new mattresses.

Hi, Bob!

This is a great site.  Addicting, too!  I have a Rockwood 1950.  It's small (10' box), but it has the shower/toilet combo (you can get the cassette toilet out without popping up -- an issue in some models), AND it has heated mattresses!  Boy oh boy, what a luxury!  I've been in the mountains where the temp. gets low and as long as I have elect. I can plug those suckers in & sleep comfortably in a t-shirt!  It's hard not to gloat when I come waltzing out in the morning & see the faces of folks who were really cold because of all the cold air under their mattresses.  That being said, some people place an electric blanket under their sheets & get the same effect (I think).  I sure wouldn't trade them, though!

Keep looking, and I bet you'll find just what you're looking for.  And don't settle for less than what you want.  You'll regret it, and you'll never get your wife out unless you buy something really big!  

I just read all the posts above me.  I can feel the testosterone oozing out of the screen!  Wow, you guys!  You crack me up!

[MAC]

Has anyone tried Timbren SES on a minivan?