I had read people saying it was bad to have your loaded truck riding on the overload springs. Not sure why.

As an example, here are my springs normally, no 5th.





Here are pics from the undercarriage with the Brookstone loaded today (basically ready to roll down the road).










Now, we just drove back from Bellevue to Charlotte on Battle Creek Hwy. This is a baaaadddd piece of 2 lane road. Again the TriGlide eliminated the horrendous chucking this piece of road used to give us. And the bounce was no worse than riding empty, probably a little better.

Is there any reason I need to augment my suspension based on how it is sitting with the 5th attached?

FYI 2013 2wd F350 DRW. 2011 Brookstone 15.5 GVWR. Weights as of last weighing:
====350 Ratings===Without Trailer== With Trailer
GAW-F ==5,250.======4,500==============4,540.
GAW-R ==9,650.======4,000==============7,340.
TRLR===15,500.========================11,240. axles 2x7000
TRLR===15,500.========================14,580. total
GCWR===30,500.========================23,120.
GVWr===14,000.========================11,880.
CCC=====6,151
PIN======3,340

Truck and trailer loaded with fuel, water 2/3 full (about 55 gal).

 

My thought would be don't fix what isn't broke.

Steve

 

You are in great shape !

Curious why someone would say you shouldn't USE what is on your truck for a reason

The overloads help transfer the weight to the normal springs is all they do...

IMHO, if you hit a big enough bump, you are going to be on the overloads anyway

Not sure how experienced you are with the trailair triglide,
but most have found airing the bag up to the line they suggest makes the bag too hard and it transfers the harsh ride right into the truck...
In my simple mind, if it's too hard to move, then it's not absorbing any road shock !

Personally I drop my psi on the trailair down much lower and the shock rides lower than the line...
mine rides about where this pic shows, BUT mine has a twin airbags, not this single

makes for a much smoother ride in our case - nice to watch the upper hitch bobbing and weaving and the truck just floats along !

 

I would not listen to the hoax, you are fine.

 

Thanks for the input fellas!

And JD, you are right. When we first got our 5th, it had a Trailair on it and set to 90lbs. I noticed it didn't move at all. What good was that?

After much trial, it seemed about 70lbs was good.

I since replaced the Trailair with the Triglide. I checked mine after we got back today. It was about where your picture is, maybe a little lower. It was at 50lbs.

I think for our set up, about 60 to 65 lbs would be best.

That will vary by setup, hitch, and weight on the pin for everyone else.

I bought a $6 12volt air pump at HF and wires to hook to my trailer battery and add a bit of air when camping. They tend to lose air quickly.

 

What I have found on our unit is that when going down our nice Michigan roads that when we hit a bump it would bounce for awhile. Went with air lift and put in 55 lbs and don't have hardly any bounce. Wife appreciates that. figure the overloads compressed then gave us a bounce effect when hitting large bumps.

 

Years back you did get a bounce with the 5ver when you where on the overloads, our 2000 DRW was bad until I installer air bags. When we got our 2013 I installed bags and compressor(a set I had) before I even pulled the trailer and it was a big was of time and energy, Ford made some major changes on the DRW rear suspension and it holds the weight and calms the rear suspension down under load but at some lose of empty ride over the 2000 but I'm not complaining. We run between 3200 to 3400 lbs on the pin.

Love the color combination we get a lot of complements on ours but it's harder to keep it looking clean compared to our old white truck

Denny

 

I'd call lippert about the air loss, the one on our previous 5er lost air with each tow and thought it was the nature of the beast, but this 5er's triglide rarely loses air...

another thing about the tri-glides... have you greased the zerks ?

Mine was bone dry from the factory (among MANY other issues from the factory )

first time I towed with my rear slider window open all I heard was CLANG every start and stop as it slid back and forth...

got and
then carefully squirted a bit into each of the 3 zerks inside underneath the rollers, then topped it off with just a bit on each of the outside 6 zerks...

took if for a test tow and it helped a bit, but even after enough to 'spread' the grease out, it needed more, so added a bit more and towed a bit more, etc... until it quieted the slamming down...

It ended up taking much less than 1/2 a tube as I was very careful not to blow the seals with too much grease nice a quiet now and only on the WORST roads will I have an issue...

 

Thanks Denny! It is almost as hard to keep clean as our previous black truck.

JD, this one loses air just like the first. About 5 lbs a week.

From reading about the triglide before purchase I was aware of the zerks. Just didn't know how tough it is to get to the front roller.

We had it installed at Lippert. The tech there said it was greased at the time and he recommended, based on our usage of a couple hundred miles a month (unless a big trip), to grease every 6 months.

But I had read anywhere from 500 to 1000 miles. So I will grease it more often.

It is the grease that makes it work, I was told. The following was posted elsewhere, said to be a response from Lippert:

your tri glide pinbox is a comfort ride component. the zerks should be hit at 1K intervals or anytime you feel it trying to "slap" as the bottom plate will become loose when it needs to be greased and is one of those products that you cannot over grease. there are no seals to blow out. any type of lithium grease will work. pump it until you see grease coming out of the tube and or it stiffens up.


I wanted to verify that bolded statement and called Lippert. They verified. There are no seals to blow out. It is designed to just pass excess grease. Just keep pumping.

 

ok then -
just will make a mess then when it quirts out the sides the first time you stop or start