Would adding air suspension help???
 

Our 2008, 3500 died and rather than pour more money into it, we bought a new 2014, 1500 Ram V8 with the 3.92 axle ratio so that we can tow our small 5000 lb bumper pull trailer. This truck is all decked out, and the dealer had added a leveling kit and really huge tires (got a really good deal on it). We hitched up the trailer and even though we are using a weight distributing hitch the trailer really goes down in the rear and we cannot realistically raise the ball more than it is. (I meant to say that that the truck goes down quite a bit.) The tongue weight of the trailer is less than 500 lbs. I am finally getting to my question- would adding an air suspension kit help out in this situation? Any other recommendations?:icon_tinykitball:

Bag it...

What would help the most if towing is your priority would be to go back to stock sized tires and ditch the leveling kit.

I was thinking that too when I posted, but I know how important lift is to some. I went with bags on my 3rd gen 1500 because a 4" suspension lift leveled the truck and 35" tires made it a bad tower. My equilizer was air bags, 4.56 gears and about 100 HP/ 100 TQ in mods, LOL...

Get the correct hitch setup for it. I tow a 6,000pound camper with 800 pounds of tongue weight and the rear of my truck still sits higher than the front. I have a Blue Ox weight distributing hitch on it.

If the rear of the trailer is too low, you need to lower the ball, not raise it as your post says

More information about aire bag question!
 

I messed up - the rear of the truck is rather low not the trailer. The front of the trailer is a bit low. We are using a Husky weight distributing hitch which is rated for a 1000 lb tongue weight. We don't want to raise the hitch ball any higher than we have because that would put the front trailer jack very high in order to get the ball under it.
The leveling kit is not something we would have put on but it is there. The tires are big, and they are brand new and are there.
The specs say that the truck should be able to tow over 10,000 lbs (yes, I do understand GCWR) but our trailer is only 5000 lbs loaded.
Will putting an air suspension kit on there help?:icon_tinykitball:

The bags will keep it from squatting and harshen up the ride. 5k is no big deal even without WD. I tow a boat that weighs that much, however the back of my truck sits 2-3" higher in the rear unloaded and when the trailer is attached you use up the soft progressive part of the spring. In your truck, that part of the spring will put you 2-3" below level. If the tires fit in the rear with the trailer on then just remove the leveling kit and they should still fit in the front.

Or bag it, which is fine but really a band aid for the problem that the person who installed the leveling kit caused.

yes, air bags would help. It seems to me that the WDH is not set up properly. The height of the truck really doesn't matter as long as you have the right shank and the WDH is set up correctly. If do put on air bags but do not set up the WDH right, the towing experience will be no fun.

I had the same problem but I was towing an 8,000 lb trailer. I bought air bags that sit inside the rear coil. I bought Airlift 1000 series bags on Amazon for $75, 2 days later and about an hour the bags were in. I run about 10 lbs at all times and 25 lbs when I hook up to that trailer. Rides better and sits level.

I think that we will go with the Airlift 1000. As far as I know we have the WDH set up properly. We have used one of these on two different trailers in the past and never had a problem towing. We will see what happens when we have the airbags installed.
Thanks for all the info.

if you have the WDH set up properly, the truck should sit level without the airbags. The purpose of the WDH is to transfer some of the tongue weight to the front axle of the tow vehicle and a small amount to the trailer axle. Hell, if you set up the WDH to an extreme, you can almost lift the rear wheels of the truck off the ground.

WDH wrong?
 

We put on the hitch so that the ball was at about the same height as trailer coupler when the trailer was level. We backed up the truck and put the trailer onto the truck. The truck kept going down and down and down as the trailer jack was retracted. Could not put the chains high enough to lift the trailer to the level position. We raised the ball position and repeated the process. We were able to use the trunnions on the last safe link to lift the truck. The trailer is still not level - the nose is down a bit. We did not dare to raise the ball position again because that would mean that the trailer jack would have to be extended to a height that just did not seem safe. Are we doing something wrong?
Also, the WDH instructions say to only inflate the air suspension system to it's minimum when setting up the WDH. Does that mean that once the WDH is installed and set up, the air suspension can be increased? That does not seem correct. Won't that push the back of the truck up?
This whole problem is driving us crazy. When we had the 3500 dually the back of the truck did not even go down when the trailer was hitche, and we had to buy a 6" drop down hitch to make the trailer level!:icon_tinykitball:

You have your ball set too low on the truck. You don't set it so that it is level with no weight on it, you set it so that it is level at loaded weight. Try raising it at least 2 "

To answer your question, yes air bags will help. They will help to level the truck and eliminate any porpoising you may encounter while towing.

We actually offer the 1000 and 5000 series for your application. https://www.airliftcompany.com/vehic...m-1500/2014/#l

Let me know if you have any questions!

You are going the wrong way with the ball. If you lower the ball, then by definition, the truck goes up. I was going through the same thing and it finally dawned on me that I was going the wrong way with the ball. Believe me, try it and you will see. By putting the ball higher, you are making the trunions work harder than they need.

Just get the Airlift, inflate and watch the problem go away, also you will get better handling when towing as the back of the truck will not bounce around so much. The Airlift system I bought was amazing, easy to install and love the fact that I can lift or lower my truck within seconds.

I have already ordered the AIRLIFT 1000 but it won't be installed until tomorrow. Let me see if I have this right - you are saying that if the truck is going down a lot I should lower the ball. That seems counterintuitive. We can certainly try it.
The Husky WDH instructions say to minimally inflate the Airlift when setting up the trunnions. If you then level the trailer with the WDH and then inflate the Airlift more won't this change the levelling???

Just out of curiosity, how did you kill a 2008 3500? That's not an easy task, considering almost 80% of Ram HD trucks built since 1993 are still on the road. Most of the guys I know who really work their late 3rd Gen HDs consider them just now broken in, LOL...

Yes it seems counter intuitive but that's the way it worked for me. I was having the same issues as you. I kept cranking the jack to the max and set the trunions to the max that I could manage but when I lowered the jack, the truck ass was sitting lower than I wanted and the front higher than I wanted. I got to thinking and I figured out that If I lowered the ball a couple of inches and then crank the trailer jack to the max, that I would be able to get the trucks ass up higher when I set the trunions (basically, the ball was at the same spot as before but the truck bead was up higher by about 2 inches and the suspension was also extended about 2 inches). It worked and now the back and front of the truck are level and the trailer is level. Another benefit was driving was more secure as the front wheels had more of the load and the steering was steadier. Just try it and report back.

My motivation was that before I got the WDH set up properly, I used the air bags but they were bouncy and I didn't like the feel. On one extended vacation, I got a leak on one of the bags and it was a real PIA for the rest of the trip. Now I don't put any air in the bags.

Installed an Airlift 1000 yesterday on my new 2015 EcoDiesel just like I had on my 2009 Hemi. It solves the problem.

while it may solve the sag issue problem, it does not solve the weight distribution problem.

Take your truck with the trailer hooked up to the scales and see how much weight you have on your axles. This is the only way to know if your are putting too much stress on the truck axle and tires.

How did we kill our Dodge - well, it started at the end of July, 2012. The truck was bucking and shaking so bad we thought the engine would fall out. Took it to the dealership, and it ran perfectly. Dealer wouldn't look at it because there was no engine light on. On the way home the bucking started again and engine light came on. Dealer now said that the turbo was completely clogged. Dealer "cleaned" it. Truck ran great. Exactly 1 year later to the day (2013), the same thing happened. Dealer "cleaned" it. Almost exactly to the day in 2014 the exact same thing happened. This time it cost us almost $700. The local Cumins shop said that these cleanings were only bandaid fixes by the dealer, and we should probably have been offered a new turbo 3 years ago when we were under warranty. This July (2015) the same thing happened, only this time the dealer told us that not only was the turbo completely clogged but the entire emission system was filled. We asked how this could be since we never got a regeneration notice on our console. The dealer said that it was too far gone to regenerate. Bottom line was that we were told that the entire emission system and turbo needed to be replaced. This was going to cost approximately $3000 dollars. We were also told that replacing the system did not mean that the root cause of this repeated problem was fixed. We were told that they would need to determine what was causing the problem and this would cost additional monies at almost $100/hour labor. After reading info on the internet about this Dodge and talking again to our Cummins dealer, we concluded that this was a design flaw in this particular Dodge. We also needed 6 new tires. This Dodge also was modified to suit our needs when we fulltime RVed, and it had no tailgate. no backseat and no rear seat belts or rear window motor. Would have been a difficult Dodge to sell. We decided that getting rid of it was our best option.
That is how our Dodge died. PS: We repeatedly asked the service people what we could do to keep the turbo from clogging. We were told to run the truck with the exhaust brake on, make sure we took the truck for a high speed 30 minute drive every week and to make sure we let the turbo cool after driving. We did all of these things and it did not help. What would you have done?)

Not second guessing since I've known more than a few folks with issues with their late model pre DEF models.

I may have taken the truck to an independent shop and maybe gotten the repair cost down (new turbo and exhaust). The tires are just maintenance to me so I don't consider them in the equation. I'm not familiar at all with these engines and most of the problems I've heard of are related to the HP fuel injection system - $8K to fix.

I'm surprised you stuck with dodge though. Good luck!!

I would have deleted it myself for about $2000 total and driven it till the body fell apart around the Cummins, if it were mine.

Thank your government for making diesel truck makers rush product to market to meet emissions. That's why the 6.0, 6.4 & 2011-2013 6.7 Powerstrokes, LLY, LOL & LMM Duramax and '07.5 - '10 6.7 Cummins all suffered from varying degrees of failure. Luckily, unlike the Fords and GMs, the Cummins doesn't need major work to make reliable. Just a simple delete.

BTW, I agree cleaning the grid, intake and turbo is a band aid, but so is replacing the turbo. Would have gotten you a couple years, but due to the EGR it would have caked up too.

Actually, the Cummins CP3 is very reliable. It's the CP4 that's found in the GM/Ford diesels that have the bad rep. Not to mention Furds stance not to warranty repair their HPFP systems, always citing "bad fuel" even when a fuel sensor has never registered bad fuel at the filter.

If you get a CEL on a 6.7 Cummins, it's almost always emissions related, just like the OP experienced. Lots of people had/continue to have the same problem with the EGR coating the turbo. Nothing an EGR delete and cooler bypass won't permanently cure. A lot of "over the road" drivers keep their exhaust brake on and it keeps the turbo & grid heater at the intake clean enough not to have problems, but those short haul people really have no choice but to delete or at least ditch the EGR on the pre-DEF trucks, although I hear the 2011 & 2012 pre-DEFs aren't nearly as bad as the first 6.7s...

I would like to thank everyone that wrote in to help me with my trailer set up problem. We just came back from our first camping trip with the new Ram 1500 and everything went just fine. We had the air suspension put in and inflated the bags about 3/4 of capacity. We lowered the hitch ball and reset the trunnions. The trailer was completely level and towed just great (although I will say that the 3500 was a great tow vehicle when we had the big 5th wheel). Thanks again.

I'm glad you got it right. As counter intuitive as it seems, it works. I think many people make the same mistake.

I love my Timbrens SES suspension --Timbren vs. Air Bags: Which is Better?

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http://www.sdtrucksprings.com/timbren-vs-air-bags