Suspension Upgrades for towing.

Personally I'd add some leafs to existing & I'd also dump the overload... & increase some dampening by way of shocks...

 

Blue Ox weight distribution/Sway bar hitch has always been my go to. Used it with my 09 silverado 1500 I had along with the tundra towing a 25ft. stupidly over built enclosed car hauler. Haven't had any of the issues you've described through your other thread though. My tundra road like butter once the trailer was hooked up. Is your TT a triple or double axle? Whats the current hitch setup that you have, or are you just hooking it up to a standard receiver and heading out?

 

I just went back over your thread. Your rig is certainly bigger than mine. Weight wise, probably close to the same once it's loaded up with a car. Check out the 3500lb system from OX. Their anti sway receiver works pretty damn well. Best one I've used yet. However I did get a chance to compare the tundra to a new chevy 2500 and it was no question which performed demonstrably better.

 

What you see pictured is a set I put together for a 2nd gen Tacoma that tows relatively heavy & often, I've rebuilt springs for about 200 Tacomas on another site...

 

Sure no worries.... When I build a set of springs for towing , I look for springs that are slightly thicker & have very little ARC to them, these are what I'd use for donor springs to add to stock leafs (usually off early Chevy/Ford trucks) I get these at the local wrecking yard. Since towing a trailer puts a lot of down force on the shackle end of the springs, I'll cut & configure my donors accordingly to reinforce & stiffen up the shackle end, this stops a lot of pitching & diving ("swimming" of rear end) while turning at speed & stops the wandering of trailer whilst maintaining a straight trajectory down the road/freeway/expressway/etc;..

Here's a link to my spring thread on another forum, it may help clarify what I'm talking about....

http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/suspension/194386-tacoma-spring-refurbishing.html

 

Is that a euphemism?

 

Shit, I probably missed the whole point to your issues dude, I'm sorry.. What's up with front end...??

I don't think this man dreams about his rear, so I'd say , no, not a euphemism...

 

Thats some funny shit right there....

 

If your sure your numbers are right...But gotta say, with that kind of wear it sounds like too much camber...

 

& do you trust your alignment shop of choice ?? Reason I say that is next time you get it aligned, make it a point to look & see if your cam adjusters on LCA's loosen up for alignment purposes, I got a feeling that their froze up & if thats true, no proper legit alignment can be done until the froze adjuster issue is resolved, wouldn't be the first time a shop BS'd the customer....

 

This is so damn true! +1 for 4wd guy knowing his stuff.

 

Thats good you have a legit/honest shop looking out for ya, they are getting harder to come by...

 

I still say it's your LDH.....

 

So what did you end up going with?

 

Been bouncing in and out of you threads for a while now. I tow a 29' Jayco TT that when loaded is probably near 1,000# on the tongue. I wanted to get some miles under my belt before I weighed in.

This past August we did a 5,000 mile trip from MI to Yellowstone and a bunch of other places. The truck did well but here is what I learned.

- The rear of the Tundra is under built for the towing capacity that it is advertised. My hitch bent but more on that later.
- The Tundra's powertrain is one of the best I have used in the sub-HD truck world. It is defiantly the best of the half ton world.
- I love the 4.30 gearing.
- The factory brake control is GARBAGE!

I believe your biggest problem is that your WDH is not adjusted properly. If your rear is sagging that much with helper springs you are not moving enough of the weight to the front the the truck.
I believe that the front of your truck is bouncing a lot because it lacks weight. Your TT is wagging the dog (up and down). You were feeling this in the rear bump stops and with that fixed you are now feeling this with the front end moving up and down a lot.

Now, back to the story of the bent trailer hitch.

I have a Rigid CenterLine hitch. I adjusted it so that the front was at the same height when loaded as it was before I started. The rear of the truck went about 2" (the truck sat level).
Things were great till we started running two-lane roads in Utah, Wyoming, Colorado. There are some significant dips in the road there that at 60 mph will find your bump stops. Never once did I feel out of control. In fact I felt like the truck did a little too well for its own good.
When we got to Dinosaur National Monument I noticed that the truck was no longer level but rather squatting about 2". The front of the truck was up a little and it did not drive as well with a lighter front end (kinda bouncy). At this point I re-adjused the hitch and figured all was well.
From there we continued east through Rocky Mountain National Park and eventually we stopped in Kansas. All this time I watched the back of the truck continue to sag more and more. I triple checked the hitch, cussed a little but we were on the home stretch so I pushed on.
When we go home I took my hitch and put it next to a brand new unit. Nothing bent and nothing out of where it should be.
I went to my local Toyota dealer with my hitch to find out that in my truck the hitch was twisted up about 3 degrees. They stood there with their jaws on the ground.
Toyota declined to replace my hitch at first claiming that I had overloaded the truck. Eventually they replaced the hitch and sure enough all was right with the world again.

The long and the short of this story is that you don't want too much suspension travel when you have a WDH hooked up. As the rear of your truck moves down the bars load up significantly (5x the rate you loaded them to level the truck based on my measurements). This is the problem.

I installed a set of airbags. I set up the WDH exactly like I had it before and then add 25 psi. This brings the back of the tuck up about an inch but like any airbag adds significantly more force as the suspension attempts to compress (my truck sits nearly the same with the trailer connected as it does without). This eliminated the deflection of the rear suspension over large dips in the road.

My experience and my two cents. Feel free to tear it up.

Mike