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How big have you towed? w/Pics no tricks!

It's in my avatar...it is a fully restored 1937 John Deere D. The tractor comes in at about 5600 pounds.
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It is right up against the truck's capacity, but it works.

I have another antique tractor, and a compact tractor that I use regularly but both of those come in at around 2800 pounds so little trouble there.
 
Standard stock 5.7L with 3.92 gears. 37 foot sunset trail. 6850lb dry weight and 15,300lb total gross, water, food, people and fuel. 7800lb gvwr so only 100lb over the 7700lb sticker and 750lb tongue weight. I keep it at around 60mph and have been getting 11mpg.20230506_155557.jpg
 
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Needed to add the Timbren's to get rid of the rear squat but it handles my '03 Lund 2025 Pro V great now.
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Needed to add the Timbren's to get rid of the rear squat but it handles my '03 Lund 2025 Pro V great now.
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IMHO, Timbren's are a rough ride when unloaded and the axle makes contact.

Sumo Springs are a better ride, they're always in play.

Air springs even better as they're tunable for load. That said, I don't know what bag options are available for 1500's. For those that off-road in the 2500 HD's they're all using Daystar cradles to decouple the bags on the bottom end.
 
I believe Timbren's have an airbag kit for the 1500. ..but I've read it still makes the unloaded ride worse, even an the minimum air pressure.
 
IMHO, Timbren's are a rough ride when unloaded and the axle makes contact.

Sumo Springs are a better ride, they're always in play.

Air springs even better as they're tunable for load. That said, I don't know what bag options are available for 1500's. For those that off-road in the 2500 HD's they're all using Daystar cradles to decouple the bags on the bottom end.
I have Sumos. The directions said to use the 1 inch spacer for ORP, and they contact at unloaded ride height. The ride is drastically stiffer (worse), but I've haven't made time to "adjust" them yet. Sumo recommends cutting some taper on the end so it's engagement is softer. I imagine a big chamfer, like taking the second roll, on a belt sander would be a good start?

I've had airbags on a previous vehicle, and they were fine, but I can see how some minimum pressure could still increase the spring rate.
 
Roughly 4K lbs with trailer and Jeep on it. Truck handled it like a champ through the mountains to Kentucky and back, although I need to work on leveling the trailer a bit with this truck. Coming from Ford, i'm not used to a truck that can auto level it's fancy suspension even hooked up to a trailer.

Averaged about 12mpg the whole trip. Pretty much what I got in my 3.5 Ecoboost, but this one sounds way better 😁

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I was thinking about a bigger boat so traded in my Tacoma for the RAM in 2022 and exactly 1 year later picked up this boat. 24ft, I'm guessing it weighs 6000lbs


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Clearly not pushing the towing limits, this baby comes in at about 3000lbs total… but man are the end results worth it… LOL.

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IMHO, Timbren's are a rough ride when unloaded and the axle makes contact.

Sumo Springs are a better ride, they're always in play.

Air springs even better as they're tunable for load. That said, I don't know what bag options are available for 1500's. For those that off-road in the 2500 HD's they're all using Daystar cradles to decouple the bags on the bottom end.

I had a very poor experience with sumo's on my half ton for exactly that reason, they're almost always in play but, not always. On my truck I had about a quarter to half inch air gap which meant any bump on the road hit hard when the springs contacted.

The timbrens have more air gap, they'll probably hit hard too when they do eventually contact. But it depends on what you're towing, because on most TT's I bet the timbrens are always in contact so it's not jaring, and unloaded there is probably enough gap so that you never feel them.

If you find that perfect trailer/load where it doesn't contact until you hit a bump, still going to be annoying.

I tried the cheap air springs, the airlift 1000 and they also changed the unloaded ride quality until I had them at about 3 psi at which point they were squeaking and rubbing in the spring. They also don't lift anything, they only make the coil spring stiffer by making it harder for the coils to move up/down, whereas true air springs actually can lift the back end up.

In the end I ripped all that stuff off and I'm back to stock. I do get a tiny bit of sag but I no longer care, my truck is working and it looks like it as well, not concerned about it. And the funny thing is after moving to my anderson WDH I've actually fixed the problem I was trying to solve with the springs and air lifts (getting rid of the rear end porpoising).

Probably more then one solution here, better air lift systems or better coils/shocks would work too but I absolutely did not want to change my factory unloaded ride quality in any way.
 

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