Suspension upgrade questions/towing

[Donskee]

Hi,
I've been reading old posts about trailer towing, and would like to ask a few questions.
I have an 02 AC 2wd. I plan to carry a pop up camper, and tow a small jet ski trailer. The Truck will be right at the GVWR, including the camper, people,gear, tongue weight of trailer. The trailer only weighs about 1000.lbs, so I'll be way below GCWR.
I've already added air bags, Helwig rear sway bar, and poly bushings for the stock front bar. Right now I'm trying to decide on shocks and new springs for the front. I don't want to lift the truck substantially,I just want to firm up the ride.
When the camper is not on the truck, I have an appx. 500 lb Leer shell, and I regularily carry 300-500 lbs of tools and materials. I keep about 15 lbs of air in the air bags, but the front end bounces alot, and is always bottoming out. My thoughts are to go with the Red/blue Bilsteins (5100 series-I think) and then go with either the TRD of road springs or Wheelers version of the same thing(although Wheelers has a larger wire diameter, which should translate to higher spring rate).

Any thoughts or feedback would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Don

[H2O_MAN]

Originally Posted by Donskee

When the camper is not on the truck, I have an appx. 500 lb Leer shell, and I regularily carry 300-500 lbs of tools and materials. I keep about 15 lbs of air in the air bags, but the front end bounces alot, and is always bottoming out. My thoughts are to go with the Red/blue Bilsteins (5100 series-I think) and then go with either the TRD of road springs or Wheelers version of the same thing(although Wheelers has a larger wire diameter, which should translate to higher spring rate).

Don, I would go with the TRD off road front coils from a V8 4WD truck, HD Bilsteins (basically the same as red and blue just le$$) and custom Alcan rear leaf springs to finish what you have started.

The ride will be smooth, level and controlled.

Others will chime in.

Good luck.

[RockyMtnRay]

Originally Posted by Donskee

Hi,
I've been reading old posts about trailer towing, and would like to ask a few questions.
I have an 02 AC 2wd. I plan to carry a pop up camper, and tow a small jet ski trailer. The Truck will be right at the GVWR, including the camper, people,gear, tongue weight of trailer. The trailer only weighs about 1000.lbs, so I'll be way below GCWR.
I've already added air bags, Helwig rear sway bar, and poly bushings for the stock front bar. Right now I'm trying to decide on shocks and new springs for the front. I don't want to lift the truck substantially,I just want to firm up the ride.
When the camper is not on the truck, I have an appx. 500 lb Leer shell, and I regularily carry 300-500 lbs of tools and materials. I keep about 15 lbs of air in the air bags, but the front end bounces alot, and is always bottoming out. My thoughts are to go with the Red/blue Bilsteins (5100 series-I think) and then go with either the TRD of road springs or Wheelers version of the same thing(although Wheelers has a larger wire diameter, which should translate to higher spring rate).

Any thoughts or feedback would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Don

A front end that bounces and a rear end that bottoms out means there's simply too much weight behind the rear axle. Weight behind the rear axle has two really bad effects:

First, it "unweights" the front suspension through a teeter-totter like action where the rear axle is the pivot point. When weight is taken off the front suspension, the front of the truck becomes very bouncy and the front floats and bounds across rough roads. Whether you realize it or not, that reduced downforce on your front tires has greatly reduced the effectiveness of the front brakes and diminished your steering effectiveness in an emergency maneuver.

Second, the weight that comes off the front suspension is transferred back to the rear suspension...which makes the rear even more prone to bottoming out than if the weight in the back of the truck was directly over the rear suspension.

When you add the tongue weight of the trailer (probably 100 to 150 lbs), you just make this situation even worse because tongue weight is applied way behind the rear axle.

Beefing up the rear suspension with air bags or whatever really isn't going to solve most of the problem...it might keep the rear of the truck from bottoming out as badly but the front will still be really bouncy because air bags/overload springs don't fix the real problem...they just hide it.

The only way you're really going to solve the problem is to load your camper so as much weight as possible is in the front of the camper (way ahead of the rear axle) and as little weight as possible is in the back (way behind the rear axle). Always remember that loading weight behind the rear axle (including trailer tongue weight) is a very bad thing.