EcoBoostJake

Thank you for the advice. The biggest reason I liked the 3 ball hitch was just to protect my bumper. Although it was nice to have everything I needed to tow both our pop up and our motorcycle trailer without breaking out a big wrench and trading a ball.

Any brand/size WD hitch that you all swear by? I figure I need to know my trailer specs a little better before I actually buy, but pricing seem to vary drastically from $200-$800 and I don't want to cheap out and regret it, or throw my money away at something I wont use fully.


Also our trips usually mean driving at least 400 miles to get to someplace worth camping. Thank you Chicago for being contently located in the middle of nothing worth visiting if you are a nature person!

mass-hole

He is wanting to put a motorcycle in the back of the truck at the same time as the trailer is hooked up so regardless of a WD hitch, he is still going to squash the back. Just having a 500 lb ATV in the bed of my truck caused a few inches of squat requiring me to put air in the bags to get the headlights back down.

Air bags with a WD hitch are the way to go, assuming your motorcycle and tongue weight dont put you over GVWR. My guess is that it will though, I assume with a 7350 lb GVWR you are probably looking at 1200-1300 lbs of payload. Supercrew's with 6.5' beds are over 6k lbs, at least mine is.

EcoBoostJake

You are right 6.5' bed and I think I weight in at just over 6k without me or my tools in the truck.

If air bags do not increase my payload, would they truly help me safely haul my motorcycle and trailer? I know they will help level the truck, and that will be needed so I am not aiming my headlights at the sky, or worse other drivers. Thus I think I may need to add a leaf, add air bags, and get a WD hitch if I want to get everything done right?


As it stands my priority is a trip this summer without the bike, so the WD is top on my list now. Then maybe late summer or early fall I can increase my payload so next year I can bring the bike on our trip and get away from the family I love so much I am getting gray hair! (really do love them, just love silence too)

mass-hole

With a 7350# GVWR you dont have either HD or Max Tow. 5.0's did not have the max tow option, and HD Payload would have been an 8200# GVWR and you would have 7 lugs on your axles

mass-hole

Airbags wont increase your payload, you cant change that short of buying a new truck, but they would increase the spring rate of the rear suspension to help handle the payload you do have. Your leafs provide so much lifting force per inch of compression which is why they sag when you put weight in the bed. Airbags help by removing some of the work the springs have to do.

Say your empty truck puts 2000 lbs on the rear axle and the springs each apply 500 lbs per inch of compression, this means the rear springs are automatically compressed 2" just sitting at their natural state with an empty truck. Now you add 1000 lbs of cargo, the rear end now has to sit at 3" of compression to support the extra load. If you then put in air bags and pumped them up so you truck was at its original height, the springs would be back to applying 2000 lbs of lift again and the airbags would be holding the other 1000 lbs.

Now say you hit a bump. The springs compress back too 3", applying 3000 lbs of lift but you now also have the air bags in there applying more than 1000 lbs of lift since they are also compressed by the bump. Let just say that at 3" of compression, your springs and airbags are now applying 5000 lbs of lift instead of just 3000 lbs of the springs alone. If you didnt have air bags, your suspension would have had to compress to 4 or 5" to absorb that bump and you may have bottomed out or knocked the truck out of stability.

So the air bags act like a stiffer spring, or and add-a-leaf, but without the negative side effects of a rougher ride when the truck is unloaded.

mark waller

My guess is a trailer of that age and length would be in the 4,500-5,000 lb. range. I would first get a good WDH. If the trailer is 5,500 and a 13% for tongue weight would put you at 650lb. not counting propane and batteries. I could be high but better to error on the side of caution. So a 1,000 lb. WDH hitch, then air bags and maybe a rear sway bar. You will be fine! Good luck!

EcoBoostJake

Thank you very much Mass! I had always assume when someone was installing an additional leaf, they were doing so to increase their payload. However by your explanation, it sounds like they were doing it so that the truck would not sink as much while hauling a load.

Well I certainly cannot see myself getting a new truck, so maybe i will forgo taking a bike on our trips... =( My 97 softail weights in around 700 lbs. so it does not sound like we can stay within weight and still haul everything.

Also thank you Mark, i was thinking i needed a much stronger WD hitch, and was kind of bug eyed at the prices.

smokeywren

First, you must know the wet and loaded weight of the trailer, and the wet and loaded tongue weight.


If your trailer grosses more than about 3,850 pounds, or if your tongue weight is more than 500 pounds, then you must have a weight-distributing (WD) hitch. No ifs, ands or buts. Ford says any tongue weight of 500 pounds or more requires a WD hitch. And with average tongue weight percentage, then a trailer that grosses more than about 3,850 pounds is going to have tongue weight of 500 pounds or more. So cease fidgeting about it and install a good WD hitch.


A "good" WD hitch does not include the cheap hitches that use friction-based sway bars. Reese, Curt and Husky all make cheap hitches as well as good WD hitches. Good WD hitches included Blue Ox and Equal-I-Zer, who don't make cheap hitches. Be sure if you buy a Reese, Curt or Huskys, you get a Reese Strait-Line, or Curt TruTrack or Husky CenterLine.

After you have your WD hitch installed and properly adjusted, load both the truck and trailer with everybody and everything that will be in it for camping. Drive to a truck stop that has a certified automated truck (CAT) scale and fill up with gas. Then weigh the wet and loaded rig. If the combined weight on the two truck axles exceeds the GVWR of the truck, then you'll probably have headlights pointing at the stars. In that case, you need to install air bags to lift the rear end of the truck up enough to bring the headlights back down to earth. Those air bags won't increase your GVWR or payload capacity, but they will cure one of the main symptoms of towing while overloaded.

OilFieldCash

Did your trailer have a title, any registration papers, ect?
In Texas, The title will normally have the trailer weight and yearly registration does too.
I have a shop built / homebuilt 18' dovetail all steel car hauler, no weight indications at all, no paperwork, no VIN#, registration, or State Inspection.

This is what I had to do in Texas, not sure you will have to go through this stuff but maybe some of it will be useful.
I had to call the Dept of Motor Vehicles to find out what I needed to do. Trailers in Texas that are over 4,500lbs gross weight, they also have to be inspected, prior to the registration. It says they do not have to have a VIN#, if it is homebuilt.

I took my truck and trailer across the scales together to get a total weight of both. I disconnect the trailer and got the weights separately. Cat Scales have three separate scales in line so you can get each axle weight if you need to.
You can also leave the axle on one, tongue of the trailer on the middle one & drive your truck all the way off or onto the third one so it's off of the middle scale and get your tongue weight.
The print out will give you a value per scale, if you do a first weigh and do a re-weigh the reweigh is only a couple bucks. I think it was $12 + $2.

Feathermerchant

I had bags on my previous truck. I just ran the lines so the schrader (fill) valves doubled as my upper license plate bolts. They increased my roll stiffness considerably while loaded. I carried a compressor with me and put a power outlet in the rear of the bed. It doesn't take much volume to fill them so a small compressor will do. About 30 psi gave me a 3/4 ton ride.