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I have a brand new set of hellwig air bags I bought for my f350 that I ended up selling, They fit 1999-2010 f250-f350 My EX has ATS C code springs in the rear but when I hooked up my toyhauler today it dropped about 3 inches, The tongue weight is just shy of 1600 lbs, since the spring swap put me almost exact height as my f-350 I am wondering if the hellwigs will fit? I really like the design of the hellwig vs firestone or airlift plus I already have them.
Don’t the hellwig bags attach to the axle housing ? The bump stop tang is in the way if you are using the factory block, but other then that I don’t see why they wouldn’t work.
also, if your tounge weight is 1600 lbs and your Ex squats 3” that would mean your spring rate is only 266 lbs inch which is not likely considering the stock Ex is 410 lbs inch. Me thinks you have more tounge weight then 1600 lbs.
1600 lbs / 3 inch’s = 533
533/2 springs = 266 each spring pack.
I just used my brand new tongue weight scale to weigh it, I'm not sure it was 3" but it dropped quite a bit, my 09 f 350 used to squat a bit too, I'm just wondering if the top bracket is different between excursions and super duties, I've been looking at pics of both and they are different.
Was the 3"-ish squat with or without your WD engaged? With the WD tensioned the hitch shouldn't be seeing all of that 1600lbs as some will be going back on the front axle and some back to the TH axles. What WD setup are you using with that tongue heavy TH? Are you still using the factory EX hitch?
Our TT has 1800+lbs of tongue weight, my Hensley Arrow has the 1400lb spring bars, the largest it can use, so the EX does get a bit of squat when loaded, I think air bags are my next mod. I noticed that my factory hitch was flexing a little when hitching up so I upgraded to the very beefy Torklift SuperHitch 20K, it's a great hitch, expensive but you aren't going to hurt it!
Have you compared the tongue weight scale to what a Cat Scale shows for tongue weight? Cat Scales are certified regularly and will make their calibrations and certifications available to the court for any legal issues for the truckers that use them. Portable tongue weight scales, like the Surline scale need to be used with the toungue at the exact same height as when fully hitched or the reading can be off some. If I had one I would definitely verify its reading with a certified truck scale to be certain of the accuracy. They are a handy tool, especially for a TH or cargo trailer where the load can moved around a good bit.
Was the 3"-ish squat with or without your WD engaged? With the WD tensioned the hitch shouldn't be seeing all of that 1600lbs as some will be going back on the front axle and some back to the TH axles. What WD setup are you using with that tongue heavy TH? Are you still using the factory EX hitch?
Our TT has 1800+lbs of tongue weight, my Hensley Arrow has the 1400lb spring bars, the largest it can use, so the EX does get a bit of squat when loaded, I think air bags are my next mod. I noticed that my factory hitch was flexing a little when hitching up so I upgraded to the very beefy Torklift SuperHitch 20K, it's a great hitch, expensive but you aren't going to hurt it!
Have you compared the tongue weight scale to what a Cat Scale shows for tongue weight? Cat Scales are certified regularly and will make their calibrations and certifications available to the court for any legal issues for the truckers that use them. Portable tongue weight scales, like the Surline scale need to be used with the toungue at the exact same height as when fully hitched or the reading can be off some. If I had one I would definitely verify its reading with a certified truck scale to be certain of the accuracy. They are a handy tool, especially for a TH or cargo trailer where the load can moved around a good bit.
I did have the WD bars engaged they are my old setup 1400lb curt, I do have a 1400lb Equalizer setup I will be using and yes, I do have a super hitch which I will be installing this weekend. I didn't think about the angle when I weighed the tongue it may have been slightly downward. The trailer is an 04 weekend warrior fs3000 (30 ft) triple axle with aluminum sides and there were two quads side by side (about 800 lbs) at the back of the hauler, fuel tank (behind axles) about 1/3 full and about 60 gals of water. I was expecting about 1400 lbs tongue weight, I was planning to go to the scales anyways as I'd like to know what the trailer weighs, even though it has had some frame re-enforcements, 2nd a/c (maybe that added tongue weight) over the front bedroom, I can't see this thing weighing more than 14k fully loaded. I haven't towed it with the Ex yet but towed it for years with my 09 f350 v10 and my 06 gmc 2500hd duramax without issue. I am planning on a trip at New Years so I'm getting it dialed in I've only owned the Ex 4 months but so far I've added: V/C springs, Hellwig rear bar, 275/65/20 LRE tires, it has rancho 9000's, will be adding the super hitch, air bags and I have a set of landyot radius rods that I'm not sure I need.
I have a set of landyot radius rods that I'm not sure I need.
not sure why you think you would “need” a traction bar but know the design of the landyots is seriously flawed in its design and the marketing used to sell it is total nonsense.
if you really need a traction bar i’ll point in in the right direction to a properly designed unit, fwiw the factory traction bar is suffeciant for forward travel, where it lacks is panic braking but assuming your driveshaft is the correct length that is really not a big deal
I actually bought them before I even had my excursion, everything I read made me believe that all excursions wandered excessivly because of axle wrap, once I got it it had no wander at all even with the stock 144k springs, now I know the weak rear springs were mostly the culprit. I have built many early mustangs and always used cal tracs and they worked extremely well, I can see where the geometry is a bit off on the landyots, I still think they are a good concept maybe not perfected. I have them and can't return them now. So I may just sell them.
The rears psprings ron excursions are not “weak” and have never been the cause of wander. That is the therory put forth by Landyots to sell his lame product and it is in fact wrong.
the main culprit to the excursion wandering is that it came from the factory with marginal caster dialed into the axle, because of the geometry of the Ex flat front spring when they sagged ( as all springs do with age ) it looses caster. Too little caster is what causes wander in any vehicle but with the Ex is was problamitic due to the front leaf design.
Dialing in more caster either by alignment bushings, wedges or positively arched springs is the cure to wander.
The fault in the lanyot design is that it does not have enough provision to allow the spring to get longer as it flattens out, it relies on compressing that rubber bushing and binding the suspension.
Look at your rear leaf spring, as it flattens out the shackle moves backwards allowing the spring to get longer, a traction bar affixed to the axle housing needs to do the same.
a common design that works without binding uses a shackle at the front mount.
well the hellwig f250-f350 bags physically fit BUT they are very large in diameter and they rub on the upper spring retainer plate, bummer because I like the design of the hellwigs as they can stretch 13" so two options out there firestone or air lift? which are the better of the two ? I don't want to limit suspension travel, the air lift with internal jounce look interesting.
Thanks yes I have seen those, pretty neat idea. One thing I have not done is fine tune my WD hitch, I have not tried my Equalizer hitch yet, I'm thinking maybe I should try tilting the head back towards the trailer to get more spring tension, basically I tried the same setup I used with my f-350 as the ex is almost exact height at the rear now, I forgot the f350 had top overload springs, so maybe I didn't even have them set right in the first place.
12-10-2018, 10:56 PM
