Trail air pin box

[richfaa]

Exactly what is a trail air pin box. What does it do. Does anyone have it and is it a good thing? Also trail air suspension system. I googled their site and it looks like something you just got to have.
There is so much I do not know..and so little time????

[syplace]

WE have the trail air pin and think it is well worth it. It makes for a smother ride, no jarring, and with the rear kitchen dishes don't move.
Also, the truck doesn't take a beating when going over bumps and holes in the roads. The Montana is a dream to pull compared to a travel trailer.

[Countryfolks]

We had one installed on ours. We've only pulled with it twice so far, but on roads we're more or less familiar with. It seems to smooth out the bumps in the road, they don't seem to be as jarring/sharp, which is what it's supposed to do. Many of them are still there, just not as bad. So far I'm satisfied with it. I don't know anything about their suspension system.

Skip

[Montana_3028]

What kind of cost our we talking about here???

[Dave e Victoria]

Rich
There are several posts in the archives on this subject. I will try to sumarize.

The trail air is intended to solve a problem unique to fifth wheel connections. The problem starts because fifthe wheel triler connections to the tow vehicle is vertically displaced from the tow vehicle axle. If you visualize the tow vehicle front wheels encountering a bump, the vehicle tries to rotate slightly around the rear axle. This causes the hitch point to move slightly aft. However. This movement encounters the inertia of the trailer which doesn't want to move. The result is a ofre/aft jerk felt in the seat of the truck.

This is a bit overly simplistic but helps visualize the effect when any of the wheels of the truck or trailer encounter imperfections in the road surface. normally, we would expect shocks and springs to damp the effects of such jarring. However, certain road conditions may actually excite the effect due to the dynamics of the system.

To counter this issue, the best solution is to introduce an elastic connection in the fore /aft connection between the truck and trailer.

Two low cost solutions are the trail air and the mor ryde hitch pins. I happen to have the trail air. Hwever, I consider the Mor ryde a more elegant solution.

The trail air has a sort of sissors action connection with a shock absorber and air bag. The geometry of the device converts fore aft motion into up down motion that is absorbed by the airbag and shock absorber.

By contrast, the Mor ryde device has a "rubber" connection between the trailer and the pin connected to the truck. The rubber joint is in shear and provides an elastic connection exactly in the direction needed to absorb the undesireable jerks.

Both devices can be installed by an owner. Al that is required is a heafty torque wrench, a breaker bar and some big sockets. Cost is about 800 to 1000 dollars. Mor ryde is about 100 dollars cheaper last time I looked.

Hope this helps

[CountryGuy]

richfaa,

We love our Isolator, if you do a search, I am sure you can find some of our past posts about it. Will never pull another 5er without SOME kind of hitch/pin box improvement such as the Mor ryde, Trailair or Isolator. Period!

[richfaa]

We did a search and came up with 24 pages to search through. We did look at the trail air web site, however your explaination(Dave) really helped.I will look for the unit on campers during our camping travels this season. I was told and I checked it out that Cardinal offers the Trail air pin box and the trail air suspension as a option on their fifth wheels, According to RV direct it is a 1295 (dealer cost) option.I hope Montana knows of this and will keep up.We will be purchasing a 2006 model and I would like to see that option on the unit.