Level towing?

[vipermanden]

I have noticed with my RAM 3500 dually long bed with air bags, that it seems like I am rear end low on the 5th wheel. So I lowered the B&W hitch to it's lowest position, and it still looks like I am tail low. I noticed on the Moreryde pin box, that I can raise it up 2" if I need to. My question is, is it better to be a little tail low or front end low?

[stengels]

I don't, but would prefer pulling a little tail low, if anything.

[rohrmann]

Our 3402RL tows a bit high in the front/low in the back, but at the pin box there are additional holes, but there isn't space between the top of the pin box and the fiberglass cap to allow it to move up. It hasn't caused us any issues, so we just live with it. We may eventually have the MorRyde IS installed, so if that happens, they will adjust the height of the suspension to make the rig ride level.

[DQDick]

That's were we are. We were a litle high at the truck until we added the IS

[JABURKHOLDER]

If you lower your hitch and raise your pin box, you may not have enough clearance above the truck bed rails for road undulation.

[artfuldodger]

How many pounds pressure in the bags? Let the truck squat a few inches. I keep the bags at around 35 to 40 #.

[1retired06]

Tail low

[vipermanden]

The air bags in my brand new 2016 RAM are all automatic. I don't have an option for adjusting pressure. I can lower just the rear end some, bit i don't want my front end of my truck riding higher than the rear?

[bethandkevin]

quote:Originally posted by vipermanden

The air bags in my brand new 2016 RAM are all automatic. I don't have an option for adjusting pressure. I can lower just the rear end some, bit i don't want my front end of my truck riding higher than the rear?

If you have automatic leveling of your air bags, there should be a height adjustment. I'm not familiar with your system, but there has to be a height sensor somewhere.

[kenneth e holman]

I thought i was riding fairly level until mor-ryde installed the IS. Mor-ryde measured the rv and raised the rv up 3'' so that now my rv and truck run very level. I have air bags on my truck and run them at about 40 psi. I also have the hensley air-bag hitch. All this was on the truck before i had the is installed. My truck lowers down approximately 2'' when putting the 3480 pounds of hitch weight on the truck. I have a combination of things to keep the rv level. Just be careful about adjusting your hitch as you want to be sure you have at least 6'' of clearance between the truck and rv. I have 8'' on mine. The only problem with running the front of your rv low is that means you have more hitch weight which is not good and the back to low then your front of rv catches more wind plus having more concern about underpasses. My front a/c is 13'5''from the ground which is what the booklet shows what the Montana is suppose to be from the factory.Level is always better if you can achieve it. Good-Luck.

[BB_TX]

Mine runs slightly nose high. And my pin box and hitch are adjusted as much as I can to get the nose down. But after many miles, I have had no problems and no difference in tire wear.

[Art-n-Marge]

My rig rides higher in front than back by only about 1 to 2 degrees. I don't know what's better (nose-high or rear-end high). I prefer nose high since that provides more clearance for my truck bed rails, but I thought I recalled long ago, I was told rear-end high was better so that there's more control by the Tow Vehicle, but I just don't know. I've been towing like this for over 10 years and not had any problems associated with this so I just don't worry about it.

As for the air bags, there is NO number one can use for all rigs. There are too many dependencies. The best thing to use is the distance from the top of the rear tire to the lowest point of the rear fender. Here's what I do. With no load in the truck measure the distance from the tire to the fender. Then, attach the rig and there will be some sag. Measure this distance. Then inflate the bags until the stance is about 1/2 the measured distances. I do this because our TVs sit at their highest when not loaded. Then you put a load on the truck and using only 1/2 the difference means the truck will be more level (and not high), so that if you have your lights on, they are not turned into highbeams. Using this technique I put about 50 lbs in my airbags. When carrying loads in my truck bed, I use about 35 lbs. I suppose if I was carrying a load of bricks I might need 80 to 100 lbs. It all depends on the load on the rear axle.

[Caniel]

Recently DW and I replaced our 2006 truck. I needed more clearance between new truck rails and trailer (2010 Mountaineer 295RKD, std OEM suspension) overhang. Raised BW Companion to max height. Still needed a bit more clearance, so I dropped the Trailair Air Ride 5th Wheel Pin Box down one set of holes. With this adjustment, I now have 7.5 inches of truck/trailer clearance.

Read through this thread and kept reading a couple/few degrees lower in the rear than the front comments. How does this translate to inches? After the above adjustments, the trailer nose now rides 1.75 inches higher than the tail of the trailer.

Questions: Does this nose/tail difference fall within the range others are experiencing/towing? Would this amount of difference shift too much weight to the rear axle?


Still, need to weigh the truck/trailer combination to see what's changed though.

TIA for your experienced based thoughts & comments.

[Texan]

It looks like you are pretty level to me at that little of difference. If you split the difference between the 1.75 inches then if you lowered the front 0.88 inches you would be level. Most weight you add to your rv except water would probably add more weight to the front. If you are going to be a little heavy on the rv then the front is where you need it to be. If you can lower the front to be level then great but I wouldn't loose any sleep over it as the vast majority of the rv's are running a little high in the front. The one thing I would do is measure the height of the rv at the top of the front a/c so as to know your height which should be no higher than 13.6''.

[Caniel]

Thank you for your response. I was kinda thinking I might be close enough, but it's nice to hear other opinions of more experienced people.

Thanks for the checking the height suggestion. If I can trust the asphalt being level I measured 12 foot 10 inches to the top of the highest point of the low profile ac over the bedroom. The first time I get to a concrete pad or parking I'm going to measure again just to be sure.