Suspension Question

[Desertboater]

If there's another thread out there on this topic (and I feel like there probably is) I apologize for a redundant post and would appreciate a point in the right direction. That being said, I've got a 2005 Tacoma with the Standard Dakar leaf-pack and an Eagle. If the camper is empty and dry, there is not a whole lot of sag, but it's noticeable, however when it's full/wet, there's a good bit of sag. I see three different options that everyone is using to address this problem, and want input on all three.

A) OME AAL (D6XL or something) - I like this option as I generally have something in the bed of the truck, and it seems like it would add the most amount of versatility. I might lose some ride quality when empty, but that's not very often. This is also my cheapest option.

Timbren Bumpstops - This is probably my second choice, as it wouldn't affect ride height or quality when bed is empty (which doesn't happen very often) and keeps the back end bolstered up when loaded. It seems like it would still have to allow for some sag of the springs once loaded so that they could be actively helping to carry the load...

C) Airbags - I like the idea of an adjustable system, I've just heard a few too many stories of them blowing out at inopportune times and potentially sketchy places. I'm more interested in doing work myself, and am not confident about putting the whole system together.

Thoughts, comments, amusing anecdotes?

Cheers,
West

 

[brp]

I have got a 2011 Tacoma, same version as you, with Firestone RideRite air bags. I have the 4 leaf TSB from Toyota, might be similar to the Dakars in terms of capacity. I have got an ATC Bobcat. I have the air bags set-up so that I just use a bike pump to fill the bags, easy.

I have only had them for a year or so, but they carried my camper for a few thousand miles, including some tough trails in Death Valley, Moab, areas near Zion.

I have had no issues with them and enjoy the adjustability of them. I have always heard good things online as well.

I installed them myself, took a while, but not difficult. Fire away with questions.

If the bags fail, you would not have an immediate problem really. In the field you could easily repair a leaking connection and you could patch the bag with a tire patch kit I would think, or even use Fix-A-Flat, all of the connections are Schrader (? spelling? ) fittings.

The finish on the brackets was not great out of the box, so I cleaned them and added a few coats of black spray paint.

 

[mtn-high]

I bought timbrens for my Tundra after going the "Super(spongey)spring" route. With the Supersprings I kept bottoming out on the frame on speedbumps/driveway entrances/dips in the road.

Rock solid with the Timbrens. No real sway....no more road "bouncing"....highly increased stability.

I liked em so much I put a set on my wife's Tacoma for hauling firewood.

good luck with your decision

mtn

 

[Stan@FourWheel]

I have heard of, and seen many customers install air bags over the past 10 years.

The Firestone Ride-Rite Air Bags seem to be the best one out there (from the all of the reports we get back).

Usually when I see a post on-line of someone that has an air bag pop or leak, I think it has always been another brand.

We don't sell or install air bags, but if we did, the Firestone Ride-Rite would be our preferred choice.




.

 

[brp]

I will say that my Tacoma handles "different" than when unloaded. I drive a lot more carefully, make lane changes more smoothly, etc.

I am not sure of the RideRites could be bettered, I just assume that a small truck with a camper is going to handle quite differently and need to be babied a little.

To those with Timbrens, do you need to drive more carefully and watch the handling? Are the Timbrens touching the chassis when the vehicle/camper is stationary?

 

[5444]

Check out http://www.activesuspension.com/home.html

I put these on the other day,30 minutes tops. Did not effect the ride quality empty at all. The bed of my truck sits approximately 1.5 to 1.75 inches higher than before. I was dead set on air bags until I read Valkraider's post on them from expedition portal. They were very pleasant to deal with and actually called me right back when they were unavailable. Supposedly the owner of FWC has a set on his truck, maybe Stan could comment how he likes them if this is true. I really want to buy a FWC, but momma says I have to wait at least a year. Well, 10 months now. I plan on stopping by Go-Anywhere in WI to look at a few. I hope Sean still has some in stock in June.

This is what Valkraider had to say about them:

They do help with the ride height, mine is not squatting completely when I set them higher at the 50% range. In fact, when I first put them on the truck before we had the camper, the 25% range raised my rear nearly an inch measured at the frame. However, they will not completely prevent all the squatting as they are simply progressive springs that help the stock leafs. I still sit down just a smidge off of the overload leaf - at 25% I was solidly on and starting to compress that overload so I bet bumping it up gave me a good 3/4 to maybe one inch.
IMG_1858.jpg

What attracted me is a few different factors:

1. I don't like that airbags put pressure on the frame in a place where there was not designed to be pressure. I have friends who have cracked their frames using airbags, and I have read of many bent and cracked frames in forums like these. All anecdotes, sure - yet it happens.
2. I have known people who have had maintenance problems with their airbags. Either leaking, or brackets bending, or whatever you can think of.
3. Airbags are not really *suspension*. They don't do well at absorbing shocks and bumps.

Some people love airbags, more power to them!

This is just my opinion: Opinions are like butt-holes, everyone has one and it usually stinks!

What appealed to me about the roadmaster springs is that you still use your stock suspension setup, all the weight is still on the places that the manufacturer designed to hold weight. Your suspension still goes up and down, and absorbs shock and bumps. What these do is help reduce squat, and almost completely eliminate the bouncy-bouncy-bouncy that can happen when the rear is heavily loaded. That is my personal experience, now at the 50% range I have none of that continuous bouncing on the highway, feels like empty with regard to suspension (although the center of gravity change from the camper is still noticable). Sure, the Raodmaster marketing stuff lists all kind of maybe-true-maybe-not benefits, so I don't know what to tell you there. However, before choosing I did a *lot* of searching around, and there are TONS of happy roadmaster customers with all kinds of uses on all kinds of trucks. This isn't one of those products that you only ever find their own marketing material when you search - with this thing you find all kinds of people using them on everything from small trucks to heavy duties. (Of course, they *could* be astro-turfing - but I have spoken directly with the owner of Roadmaster and a couple of his head guys and none of them sound computer-saavy enough to even know what astro-turfing even is).

These Roadmaster springs just add progressive nature to the normal leaf springs, to get rid of bouncing and bottoming out.

These pictures are with the 50% range on the roadmasters. Not the best angles because my driveway is not perfectly level (sloping towards us) and I was backed up against the house and couldn't get more distance away from the truck.
IMG_1860.jpgIMG_1862.jpg

However, I will probably get a little more squatting fully loaded with gear and people - although the camper is "wet" right now, and does have about 50% of out gear in there as is so it's a pretty good indicator.

This is all just my opinion and experience. Your mileage (or squattage?) may vary.

I am going to work on weight too - trying to keep my weight down or more forward (anyone know where I can get a composite truck wheel to replace the steel spare? That alone would save me 20 lbs behind the axle.)

 

[Hittheroad]

If there's another thread out there on this topic (and I feel like there probably is) I apologize for a redundant post and would appreciate a point in the right direction. That being said, I've got a 2005 Tacoma with the Standard Dakar leaf-pack and an Eagle. If the camper is empty and dry, there is not a whole lot of sag, but it's noticeable, however when it's full/wet, there's a good bit of sag. I see three different options that everyone is using to address this problem, and want input on all three.

A) OME AAL (D6XL or something) - I like this option as I generally have something in the bed of the truck, and it seems like it would add the most amount of versatility. I might lose some ride quality when empty, but that's not very often. This is also my cheapest option.

Timbren Bumpstops - This is probably my second choice, as it wouldn't affect ride height or quality when bed is empty (which doesn't happen very often) and keeps the back end bolstered up when loaded. It seems like it would still have to allow for some sag of the springs once loaded so that they could be actively helping to carry the load...

C) Airbags - I like the idea of an adjustable system, I've just heard a few too many stories of them blowing out at inopportune times and potentially sketchy places. I'm more interested in doing work myself, and am not confident about putting the whole system together.

Thoughts, comments, amusing anecdotes?

Cheers,
West


I would start with 10 ply E tires. Then Timbrens. I have both and am very happy both on and off the highway. More important so is my wife. No sway like we had with the old Tacoma and supersprings but no E tires. Loaded or unloaded the truck rides well.

 

[mtn-high]

With the camper on...and it's always on.... the Timbrens are touching frame/leaf spring (depending on mount). With that much weight, they should be. When the camper has been off (once to do the front end recall from Toyota...which I put off for 2 years because I just never wanted to take the camper off and they wouldn't do it with it on), there's a 1"+ gap.

With the winters we have here, I didn't even think about airbags. Just too much gunk/road slop/ice IMO for moving parts or sensors or etc..etc.etc. for that kinda stuff here.

Not only is the ride much improved and the sway/bounce eliminated while driving, but there's a big difference in stability while you're inside the camper as well.

I'll second the E-rated light truck tires (LT) as well. Huge difference with 6 or 10 ply and more tire pressure....

mtn

 

[Stan@FourWheel]

Over the years we have tried a several different things for rear suspension upgrades.

SuperSpring

Hellwig Over-Load Springs

Air Bags on a couple of our delivery trucks

Roadmaster just reciently


In the end it boils down to personal preference for part of it, and truck size for part of it.

Each truck I would probably recommend something different.

If you want to go with an over-load spring (not air bags) on a full sized truck like the Ford F-150, Chevy 1500, Dodge Ram 1500.

The SuperSprings have been bomb proof, excellent, and NEVER gave us any problems that I can remember.

Or if you want to do the air bags instead, the firestone ride-rite bags seem to be an excellent choice.


Then their are all the other trucks out there, and each truck I would probably have slightly different recommendation for.

We are no longer installing the Roadmaster springs.

They just did not add enough payload / truck leveling capacity for what we need and wanted.

When the truck & campers were together some of the truck were still "squatting".

You can tighten up the spring, but when we did it looked like there was SO much tension that something was gonna snap.





.

 

[BobD]

BRP, what pressure are you running in the air-bags? I'm in the same boat as the OP, just ordered an Eagle to nest in a 2010 Tacoma DCLB. I'm looking at an OME system but not sure on the overload options.

 

[valkraider]

We are no longer installing the Roadmaster springs.

They just did not add enough payload / truck leveling capacity for what we need and wanted.

When the truck & campers were together some of the truck were still "squatting".

You can tighten up the spring, but when we did it looked like there was SO much tension that something was gonna snap.



I find this comment interesting as you seem to also recommend air-bags.

When I googled for weeks trying to chose what I wanted to do, I found tons and tons of airbag horror stories (especially on Tacomas).

Bent mounting brackets, cracked or bent frames. Serious stuff. All over the place.

I never found someone snapping a road master spring.

Perhaps it just boils down to airbags being more common so there are more people posting details. Yet there are lots of tutorials about how to beef up the Tacoma frame so airbags don't break it...

I am not advocating one or another. Like I said - people swear by the choices they have made.

I just can't reconcile the fear of snapping a roadmaster yet endorsement of a product which has tons of anecdotal evidence of damaging the vehicle.

I only have a few thousand miles on my road masters loaded with the camper. We will see how they do. If they aren't good enough I will actually put beefier leaf springs on. Airbags just don't sit well (punny!) with me because they put weight on the frame where it was not designed to hold weight.

As a side note I saw a truck last weekend in Oregon that had a huge hard side slide in that was way too heavy... The truck was a late model truck and the camper looked used but not old. This guy must have been bottomed out full time, and they were fully loaded heading out to camp, bike racks and luggage boxes to boot! I stress over my tiny Raven...

 

[MarkBC]

As a side note I saw a truck last weekend in Oregon that had a huge hard side slide in that was way too heavy... The truck was a late model truck and the camper looked used but not old. This guy must have been bottomed out full time, and they were fully loaded heading out to camp, bike racks and luggage boxes to boot! I stress over my tiny Raven...

Yup -- that's how we like it in Oregon! When it's bottomed out full-time there's no bouncing -- much more stable ride.

 

[Roger]

Over the years we have tried a several different things for rear suspension upgrades.

...

Hellwig Over-Load Springs

...


In the end it boils down to personal preference ...
The SuperSprings have been bomb proof, excellent, and NEVER gave us any problems that I can remember.

Or if you want to do the air bags instead, the firestone ride-rite bags seem to be an excellent choice.




For your consideration, I had hellwig 1500# on my Toy T100 and they were great; no sway and great ride with the camper on, but a stiff ride (ox cart like) with no camper. I have to say off road with the camper on, it was 4/40; at 4 mph or 40 mph, on a washboard road,it was the same, smooth... at 5mph or more or less than 39 it was a bumpy ride.
For whatever reason: I have airbags on my 2012 tundra 8 foot bed (same bed length as the T100) and I do notice less stiffness with the camper on and no airbags. There is an OEM ride with out the camper with the bags at 8 lbs. With the camper on I've had to air up to 15 lbs (on city roads) to keep the "top sway" down; but it is not as "stiff" as the hellwigs in the T100. I do notice some "top sway."
The T100 did sag in the rear loaded out.
The Tundra does not sag in the rear loaded out.
I still need to take the Tundra off road for a test, so your mileage may vary!

I guess, pick your poison?

Roger

 

[Stan@FourWheel]

I understand.

It is not an easy topic and everybody has their opinion.



Air Bags have their potential problems.

Stiff over-load springs make for a bumpy ride when the camper is off the truck.

If you don't any any suspension then the truck will sag / squat when the camper is loaded.

I don't think the roadmaster springs will snap, it just looked like there was TOO much tension on it when things were loaded up and tightened all the way.

If we didn't tighten them all the way, they just were not helping to level the truck all that much.

The best solution would be to add another 1 or 2 factory leaf springs, but if you do that then you might get a bumpy ride too when the truck is empty ?

Or get a 3/4 ton truck ?

I wish I had the perfect solution.

The customers should probably do their homework, ask lots of questions, and then decide on the product that they are most comfortable with.




.

 

[Desertboater]

Just for reference, what Firestone Airbag part/model numbers are everyone using? Having looked more in depth at the airbag option, I'm actually leaning closer to that direction now. What setup do you use with regards to airbags?

Again, for me, it will be on an 05 Tacoma with an Eagle. I already have Dakars in the back. No water tank (water in cab), kayaks on the roof, and a hitch mounted bike rack.

Cheers,
West

 

[MarkBC]

Just for reference, what Firestone Airbag part/model numbers are everyone using?...What setup do you use with regards to airbags?

I'm not sure of my model number, and since I have my RideRites on a Ford F250, it would probably be a different model... But as for setup, are you asking how much pressure?

I originally got my RideRites in order to level the truck front-to-back and side-to-side, so that it didn't squat in the back and lean towards the heavy left (driver) side. (It also makes it more stable on curves, but that's not why I got them originally.)
So I set the pressure to whatever it took to make the truck-camper level -- front-back and side-to-side. My camper is always on the truck (I've removed it once in 6 years), so I keep the pressure at that same level all the time.

 

[Smokecreek1]

Well I'll add my 2 cents, gave up on my air bags, kept blowing out (See earlier threads about that and whether to spend $500.00 on new springs or 50,000 for a new truck). I went to a place in Red Bluff that was recommended by my local ford dealer (have a 99-F150-4x4) and had special made 3/4 ton springs put on the rear of my truck-and I am real happy, my truck handles great on the HW and in the back country, seems to run faster now and I'm real happy and I leave the FWC on all the time! I think like all things, everyone has different experiences but I sure love my new springs!

Smoke

 

[Idaho]

I have had the Firestone Ride-Rite Air Bags installed on my 09 Tacoma. We have driven up to Alaska and down to the Baja, have spent over 150 nights in the camper and have been on some rough roads. Never had a problem with them. The only problem I have had is ripping the tie down bolts at the front of the camper off. My Truck is usually 100 to 200 pounds over what the truck is rated to haul.

 

[Walldiver]

Installed the Roadmasters on my Silverado 1500, no regrets, no sag, no sway, rides great without load and rides great with camper installed wet plus towing a 3000lb+ 18ft boat.

 

[gandhii]

I've got timbrens on my 2007 tacoma (stock standard 2wd 4 banger) and have had the fleet model 83 fwc on it since I bought it in August. Handles fine. You definitely feel the weight, but I don't think that has anything to do with the suspension. Just a little top heaviness going on. Timbrens were cheap and simple to install. I would totally use them again. They were so easy to install that I actually spent another hour, after the 1o minutes it took, trying to figure out what I did wrong since I couldn't quite believe that it could be so easy. Before I got the camper there was about an inch of space between the truck and the timbrens. With the camper the axle sits on the timbrens and depresses them about 0.25 to 0.5 inches, depending on load. Leaving plenty of room for those nasty bumps. Of course, I drive like Grandma with better sight, so I expect that helps as well.