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WD Hitch setup with air suspension - How does everyone do theirs?

Cmerkert

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I tried to hook up my travel trailer yesterday with weight distribution hitch. In reading the forum and I believe the manual, it states to put it in jack mode to disable air suspension when swtting everything up and then it would auto level. In doing so it permanently locked out the air suspension leveling and would not adjust the leveling. Has anyone been able to set up their truck with weight distribution hitches and larger travel trailers and get the auto leveling to work? There's a slight amount of sag on the back end that I would like to level out. My old Avalanche would auto raise the back with the airbags but appears the Ram is not able to because the air suspension is locked out.

I was wondering about putting it in off-road 1or 2 first and then connecting the trailer leaving the air suspension engaged. Has anyone done that? I can't try it because my trailer is in storage an hour away and it won't be another 2 weeks until like go get it.

How does everyone look up and level their trucks
 

Johnvan

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For the initial setup I put it in tire jack mode. Measured all heights at the wheel well, front and back.
I adjusted the ball height to be about half inch higher than the coupler. Then I connected the trailer and measured the heights at the wheel well again.
I then connected the WDH bars. Measured all 4 spots again and checked that the trailer was level. I compared the measurements. I restored about one third of the difference between the two front measurements.
After that I turned off jack mode and let the air suspension do its thing.
That's just for the initial setup. Now I just connect normally and don't pay attention to the air suspension.
 

Cmerkert

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I get an error message saying air suspension disabled due to payload and it will not air level. No way my tongue weight is over 1250 lbs. It's under 900 lbs.
 

jaymie

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Ive had a similar issue a few times with mine, id did not say disabled due to payload just gave a warning that it was disabled so I don't really know why. All I did was unhook the trailer re-start the truck and then re-hook the trailer and it worked again. This has happened twice in 20,000 miles, almost all towing. Id like to know what trips the air suspension to disable so I can avoid doing it.
 

TBM1953

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I tried to hook up my travel trailer yesterday with weight distribution hitch. In reading the forum and I believe the manual, it states to put it in jack mode to disable air suspension when swtting everything up and then it would auto level. In doing so it permanently locked out the air suspension leveling and would not adjust the leveling. Has anyone been able to set up their truck with weight distribution hitches and larger travel trailers and get the auto leveling to work? There's a slight amount of sag on the back end that I would like to level out. My old Avalanche would auto raise the back with the airbags but appears the Ram is not able to because the air suspension is locked out.

I was wondering about putting it in off-road 1or 2 first and then connecting the trailer leaving the air suspension engaged. Has anyone done that? I can't try it because my trailer is in storage an hour away and it won't be another 2 weeks until like go get it.

How does everyone look up and level their trucks
I hook up and truck and trailer is perfect level but as soon as I travel air susp comes on and I wind up hitch high. Also the front becomes light and steering is loose so I go home and read forums.
 

Zeronet

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I use jack mode every time I hook/unhook the weight distribution bars, no air suspension errors. I think if you don’t have jack mode on and jack the trailer up using the tongue jack the truck senses that the ride height has raised and will try to adjust the rear of the truck down. But it can’t get the truck to the set height since you have it supported by the trailer tongue jack, thus it gives an error message.

After the trailer tongue jack is retracted I turn off jack mode and truck returns to the set height. Ready to go.

840lbs tongue weight plus 80 for the hitch plus a couple hundred pounds of cargo in the bed. No issues.
 
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Zeronet

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I hook up and truck and trailer is perfect level but as soon as I travel air susp comes on and I wind up hitch high. Also the front becomes light and steering is loose so I go home and read forums.
On mine the air suspension doesn’t really “level” but still has the normal forward rake like it’s unloaded. So during initial setup, before hitching, I needed to set the ball height (by adjusting the hitch head) slightly lower than height of the trailer coupler with the trailer perfectly level. That puts the trailer pretty close to level when traveling.

In other words the ball height remains pretty constant both before and after hitching the trailer once the air suspension does its auto “leveling”.
 

Bay Area RAM

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I use jack mode every time I hook/unhook the weight distribution bars, no air suspension errors. I think if you don’t have jack mode on and jack the trailer up using the tongue jack the truck senses that the ride height has raised and will try to adjust the rear of the truck down. But it can’t get the truck to the set height since you have it supported by the trailer tongue jack, thus it gives an error message.

After the trailer tongue jack is retracted I turn off jack mode and truck returns to the set height. Ready to go.

840lbs tongue weight plus 80 for the hitch plus a couple hundred pounds of cargo in the bed. No issues.
Ditto..... put the truck in jack mode and use the trailer jack to bring up the rear of the truck and then I put on the distribution bars..... bring down the trailer jack until all the weight is back on the truck and take it out of jack mode and then the air ride does its thing. Perfect every time thus far....
 

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