Hello Everyone

For a year and a half I have been a minor participant in these forums and an owner of a 05 Eddie Bauer Ex. Prior to owning a Ford I had 01 Dodge Laramine with the Cummins and many dollar invested in it. However as my family grew (3 kids) and the requirements of my wife’s daycare grew I found myself searching for the only vehicle that could do all that and tow our 10,0000lbs, 35’ travel trailer. During that year and a bit my wife and I came to enjoy the spaciousness and comfort of the truck. Knowing that this truck was going to see many non-stop trips to southern California from Vancouver BC (29 hours with pee breaks) and be a tow rig I opted to upgrade features on the truck.

Within 7 days of owning the truck I sent it to my diesel shop ( PDR Diesel ) to have the standard failing parts of the motor dealt with prior to them becoming a problem. Many dollars later I had a bullet proof motor which consisted of:
• EGR delete
• New feed pipes (to avoid the cracking syndrome)
• Machined manifolds
• Machined heads
• Head studs
• Internal upgrades for oil related functions
• MPRB Stainless 4” turbo back exhaust
• A-pillar gauges for EGT and Boost
• SCT programmer set with the Jake brake and 65 hp towing mod

With the upgrades done we made our first trip to Cali and the truck drove great and averaged 19mpg on I5. So things we looking good! However, then trailering season came around and the happiness in the truck dropped including the rear end of the truck. It was clear 1000lbs on the ball with WDB bars was a little much for the truck. I immediately started reading the forums and due to price point implemented one of the cheapest fixes first. I installed Firestone airbags and that immediately resolved the sag in the rear. The bags needed approx. 60lbs of air to bring things all level.

I’m pretty **** about having my truck and trailer setup right so I adjusted the drop on the hitch, ensured the angle of the ball was set correctly, my load range E tires had a good amount of air (70psi in the rear) and went about on a few camping trips. Even though the truck ran level and had no sag, I still encountered some white knuckle driving going down the road at freeway speeds. It seems after about 80km\hr the truck hits a speed where rear steer \ wander became really noticeable. When I say noticeable I mean looking drunk going down the highway trying to keep the truck and trailer in the lines. I have ruled out the trailer as the problem because I had towed the trailer for 4 years already with my 2500 Ram without any troubles.

As I drove you could feel the rear of the truck kick left or right which required me to counter steer to keep things in line. All of this would happen without a big rig even going by and minimal to no cross winds. After our last trip into Washington I had enough and sent the truck to a spring shop to get the suspension dealt with (essentially going after a similar idea to the V\B (modded)). Before anyone jumps on the idea of not being spring related, all ball joints are upgraded in the front and things are tight!

For a while I thought I was just going to do a minor suspension lift (so I could get F-350 spring loads) like BDS or others until I found someone local that specializes in building and modifying springs backs. I met this guy Dave Bambrick at T & S Suspension and I explained what I have been noticing with the truck. His initial plan of attack was to:
• Add a main front spring off an F-350 to my front spring pack (this will give 2-3” of lift and add more capacity)
• Add 2 more degrees of caster to the front end pushing me to approx. 5 degrees. This should also help to keep the truck tracking straighter as well.
• Upgrade my track bar
• F-350 front Bilseins for a 99-04
• And add two springs to my rear spring pack
Once he dove into the job and got around to the rear spring pack he noticed that he could take a pry bar and move the rear springs ½” or so left to right in the hangers. Aside from being weak in the rear under load, the bushings were creating play which should equal my rear steer problems.

I felt the need to make this post to formerly introduce myself and comment on problems encountered driving the truck with and without load. So for those that are facing suspension issues, pay attention to spring movement within the hangers! I know there are tons of threads out there on suspension and if someone did mention sloppiness in the hangers, I clearly missed the comment. For a temp solution now, Dave made me spacers out of Denron to help limit the movement in the hangers and in the long run we will look to replace with urethane bushings.

Truck Prior to suspension work (In-laws trailer in the background)


Start of the job


F-350 spring being added to the main pack


Rear Spring back with a new heavier main and two additional springs added. The old main is one of the two additional leaves added.


Completed look of the truck. Front end went from 37.5” to 41.25” and the rear went from 39.25” to 42.75”


Thanks for the read and I truly enjoy reading all the knowledge of these trucks from this forum.

Jim

 

Welcome to the X club.

Essentially when some replace with new springs that also takes out the issues of the side wander in the bushings, as they come with new.

Good point tho, if you are reusing your old springs.


I was going to say, "no wonder you have wandering issues, your pulling a "Wanderer" trailer!

 

A good anti-sway bar hitch will help more than anything. Reese Dual cam is what I use for our camper.

 

Nice catch on the trailer; however that is my in-laws trailer and not mine so my driving is less in line with the trailer.

The one thing I do wonder about is when people are doing the V\B swap, would the bushing not be the same as what is on our Exs now? In the one picture above, you can just see on my rear spring pack that there is one bushing (on the right) that has a larger girth (which Dave was just fabricating) compared to the factory bushing on the left side. As well if you notice the springs under neath the bench, those are F-350 springs he has laying around and the bushing look the same. It appears at least my bushing were soft and the rear hangers had too much play available in them.

I will see this weekend if the spacers make a difference in towing.

I am current running 1000-1200lbs equalizers and a sway control bar. Tomorrow I will do a run with no air bags, no sway bar and just equalizers and see how the truck performs. Fingers crossed.

 

Got the truck and trailer out this weekend for a quick highway test and with the trailer on and the WDB on, the truck ran at 40.5" in height (rear fender). The truck is completely different now and is not a two handed white knuckle driver but a one handed relaxed driver.

I swung by the spring shop to have him review his work and he would like to add a 1" block to the rear to help bring it closer to level, then re-install the airbags to help with the remaining height difference. Dave isn't a fan of having airbags take care of roughly two inches of sag, so we will tweak the suspension some more.

 

Follow up after a 2400km trip with our travel trailer down the Oregon coat. Prior to going away Dave (my suspension guy) removed the 2" blocks on the rear axles and swapped in the Ford 3 5/8" block from a 99-04 Ford. With the blocks swapped I noticed less drive line vibration because the taller block helped to improve the angle between the drive shaft and axle. With that final tweak made my family and I were off to Oregon.

In the picture you can see on the drivers side the taller block inserted and another trick we were able to do to save my new Bilsteins was to rotate the bracket on the axle so the lower mounting point of the shock was higher up. This gave me more travel in the shock. In order to do this, a location tab on the axle had to be torched off; however once the bracket was rotated and cinched down, a couple tack welds were but on the bracket and axle to ensure it doesn't slip (same idea as what the old location tab did.



We live in Vancouver BC and opted to do a single drive down to Fort Steven (north west corner of Oregon) in one day so we could maximize the drive down. With no heavy winds, the trailer was one handed driving with no wander unless the pavement decided differently. It was night and day from the white knuckle driving I had experienced before. The drive down went 95% perfect until a hill climb out of Kelso WA on I30. We were 80% up the hill pulling like crazy at 1000EGT and 27 lbs of boost when there was a loud bang and my boost dropped right off. I was able to limp into a view point to find out a boost clamp off the turbo had broken apart. I have never seen this before and I don't over tighten these clamps. $7 later we were back on our way.

By the end of the trip, the truck was almost perfect for driving (aside from the wind moving us around, but I will address that later) and average 11.5 mpg.

Here is the clamp that let go:



Completed stance.

 

Great progress on upgrades, you didn't waste anytime making upgrades. and you posted pics!!

Sent from my Sprint PC36100 using IB AutoGroup

 

Join the crowd and like Mick Jagger says; "get your fair share of abuse".

You can't always get what you want 1969.

 

Man, that looks sharp with the wheels. I just bought my first travel trailer after always pulling fifth wheels hope I am happy how it pulls.

 

Get the bushings checked in the rear springs plus all typical items to check in the front end. Rear bushing were the greatest problem I faced with rear steer happening.

 

Excursion looks good right here. Stance and all. I do think the rear needs in channel visors though. Reps Sent.