Steve, I saw one of those this last summer at a campground in Gretna, NE. The owner was looking at my Trailair and made comment that he wished he had gone that direction. He did not pin down a real reason other than he felt it was not smoothing the ride like he thought it should have.

I understand that is purely anecdoctal and heresay, if you will. Personally I am not sure what major differences there would be in having the air bag on the pin or the hitch. Clearly there seem to be many more Trailair's on the road, but is that just better marketing or is it really better performance?

 

Steve I'm thinking the problem isn't in the king pin but in the trailer suspension because it only does it on not so great roads. What I have found is no or bad shocks will have a very negative affect on the towing along with worn parts. Another way to improve towing is replace the equalizer with something like the Mor/Ride SRE system to stop the sever osolations the the standard system has on rough roads.

Denny

 

I don't think the placement of the air bags likely makes much difference. The only real difference I can see if whether you can change the setup when you change trailers.

I am doubtful the gizmo I posted is as good as either a Trailair or a Trailer Saver, just a whole whole lot cheaper. I can't find any owner reviews on it so have no sense of how thrilled owners are with it. The movement looks pretty limited and with smaller air bags and no shock, I would expect only some reduction in chucking. I am always suspicious when someone starts selling something that is so obvious I just can't believe no one thought of it before. Even I thought of it before I found it on eBay and I am hardly one who designs hitches.

 

Denny,

I agree and am going to try to make sure everything that should work is working as well as it can before modifying anything.

Thanks,

Steve

 

Too bad you aren't closer to me Steve....you could easily put my Anderson on your rig to see it it does the trick....

 

I often times have same thought when someone posts something and I think to myself I bet I could figure that out in no time if they were closer.

For now I am just going to start with shocks on the fiver and work up from them. That way I have no big money in anything and shocks can't make anything worse.

Steve

 

re concerns about the trailair tri-glide pin box going with the 5er...

Just save the old pinbox and swap it out when it's time to change !

I know a good rv mechanic that can do that for you!

 

Gees, everyone wants to be a comedian!


Steve

 

I posted this a good while back, but wanted to wait to respond until I made some changes. First, as to my pin weight, I am at 18.5%, not perfect, but not awful. When I get the batteries installed for the solar panels, it will be right at 20% and that is about all the room this camper has where I can add weight. With small fivers compartment space is just about no existent.


Now to the shocks. I installed them. Man, what a miserable job. I was stiff for days afterwards, but the reduction in chucking is remarkable! I am not saying it is as good as the more expensive air pin boxes, but in comparison to past trips, it about 80% so the only time I really feel anything is when the road is really bad. I have about 1,500 miles on the camper since installing them. The Lippert kit is complete, but it requires drilling self-tappers into the frame rails to install brackets so you have to be able to have a clear spot on the frame rails and in my case I had to change the support for the fresh water tank. The frame rail is so hard I finally resorted to drilling a starter hole first than using the tapper, which made the job much easier and faster. What makes it so bad is trying to drill while contorted under the camper.


I have come to the conclusion that most chucking to do to the undamped movement of the fiver on its leaf springs. You can either use shocks to damp the movement or use an air pin box to isolate it from the truck. Don't know if it will work in every case, but it has eliminated my need to do anything further to reduce chucking in my case.


Steve

 

Good deal on the results, but yep, that sounds like work with a capital W just to crawl around under there, much less do work at the same time

Have heard good results on the larger trailers with these guys, but it's a large outlay for something you may or many not keep ?

 

Good write-up Steve... I will be checking the shocks on mine this spring and while I am at it I will be replacing the shackle bolts with the drilled grease bolts from eTrailer.

I am pretty **** about making things right and serviceable going forward. I fight like heck to get frozen bolts out and things like that - then when I reassemble, it gets anti-seize and Nylock nuts etc.. I may be just making it easier for the next guy - but I'm fine with that..

 

When you check your shocks be sure to remove one end so you can work them in and out. Before you install your wet bolts I would drill the cross hole all the way through so you won't have to take the pressure off them when trying to grease them in the future.

Denny

 

Yep, that's the only way I know of to check the shocks other than putting them on a shock-dyno which I no longer have access to.... Not so sure about drilling the bolts all the way across as that will weaken them more.. Although, those bolts are in Shear rather than Tension, so it may not matter.. I have grooved the bushings in the past... Might do that here also. We'll see...

Good tips Denny...

 

Randy - those wet bolts are pretty dang heavy duty for what they need to do. I was concerned about possibly weakening them by cross drilling when I did the now gone Titanium. Once I saw what they were, pushed the hole all the way through with the same size drill. What really upset me was the fact that out of all the supplied Chinesium made lube zerks, only a couple would take grease which then became a reason to install 90* versions. Also, putting the fitting on the inside also made it a bunch easier to grease (don't have to pull wheels) altho you do have to crawl underneath to do it

 

The problem that I have found is the hole gets plugged from junk that's from wear and they won't take grease even after taking the weight off them, with two ways for the grease to go it seams to work better over time.

Denny