taylor.coyote

Wow, You guys are really good. lots of great ideas... after digesting your coaching, let me give you more information. facts: 2" factory bulldog / all hitch bolts tight/solid tires are inflated hard on the trailer (70 lbs) and truck (70 front / 65 rear).. i plan to make adjustment going forward per your coaching trailer is very near level in all applications all hitch parts of solid on the trailer F250 has stock springs with towing package and no air bags or helper springs the current drop is 2" and the f250 has stock 18" wheels I will not toss out the issue is to do with the truck entirely but i think our focus needs to be on the trailer. I'm choose to focus here because I have now towed the trailer with two trucks. One is a Tundra and the other is the f250. The surging /tugging is much more evident with the Tundra (with Anderson hitch) than the F250 but is clearly present with both trucks. The Tundra had a tight fit with the 2" receiver / ball insert. The f250 (no Anderson hitch) has a 2.5" receiver and using spacer to shim to fit a 2" ball tongue. the f250 does have some "play". So let's talk about the trailer's history. The trailer has been towed across the country on a couple of long trips plus a few regional trips. The trailer sit on the original factory Michelins that have almost all of the the original tread depth. It was mostly towed from RV park to RV park with very little if any off-pavement action. The trailer has been in mothballs in a barn for the last two years (wife did not care for the trailer travel much). Evidence of this was antifreeze in the water systems and dry / dead battery cells. The trailer is incredibly clean (body glass and throughout the inside). All of this said, when the owner prepped the trailer for a 600 mile trip for him to deliver the trailer to me, he discover the rubber bushings at the bottom of the shocks had been installed from the factory without washers between the bottom of the shocks and top of lower bushings. The shocks had wedged themselves almost the way through the lower bushings. I promptly took the trailer to a suspension shop to have the bushing replaced/installed correctly and the shock checked for damage. The shocks were deemed to be good shape and all of the bushings were replaced plus the bearings were repacked. At this time we did not know about surging/tugging and did not have concern about the suspension and did not call out for a full inspection. This said, the tech that did the work to replace the bushings had his hands all over the other suspension components when replacing the bushings. I would think he would have noticed if anything was damaged or not normal. I don't know much about suspension but I just went out and put my hand on all of the suspension parts. All are solid and in apparent good condition. The springs are properly sprung and solid. The shackles have not flipped. One observation was both equalizes are tilted forward with then front of the triangle lower than the back making the shackle angels less than a 90 degree angle to one set of axle springs and more than 90 degrees on the other set of axle springs. I'm assuming they move dynamically and this position is normal based on the trailer sitting on a forward sloping slab with the front jack up high to level the trailer. The springs and shackles do have some modest corrosion but nothing that would be of concern. The suspension looks like it could use some grease but i don't see any grease zerks My equalizers are just metal triangles w/three bolt holes without any bushings and no apparent place to grease or service them. They do not look like the image of the equalizers that have rubber bushings that on the Oliver website.. regarding the brake grounding. I had an auto electric shop review all the wiring including the ground as the next stop for after the shock work. this said i will double check the ground wire per the link that was shared. Nothing appears to be damaged or loose and all seems to be in good shape and the wiring has been inspected. The trailer has been towed with by two trucks/ two brake controllers with basically the same poor towing experience. I have yet to tow with lower the tire pressure and double check the ground wiring. Aside from this, do you have other ideas or do you think i have wrongly overlook any of your suggestions? Montana is calling and I might get sea sick towing this tub.

This is my first post. I recently purchased hull #124, a gently used 2016 Legacy ll. We took a short 300-mile two day round trip as s shake down first outing. The advice i seek is to improve the towing ride. I’m towing with a 2019 F250 diesel 4×4 short box, standard 18″ wheels/rubber with a tow package. The dry empty trailer hitched to the empty truck sits with the rear of the trailer about 1/4 – 1/2 inch lower than the hitch. I attempted to set up the hitch to be slightly lower that the rear with a variety of different combinations of drop balls but this always resulted in the hitch being two or more inches below the rear. Thus, decided upon the before mentioned set up of the hitch 1/4 – 1/2 inch higher than the rear of a dry trailer/empty truck. I’m towing with a standard hitch although tried to use an Anderson weight distribution hitch. The truck’s anti-sway automatically “defaulted to on” every time the truck is turned off and re-started. Each time the “on” default needed to be manually turned off. This is a pain and a possible safety issue when the truck’s anti-sway corrections are fighting the hitch’s corrections. Now that you know the background and set-up: The issue I’m experiencing with both the Anderson and the standard hitch is the trailer bucks more than I think it should with a truck this size. The bucking does not push the truck around but is a noticeable and annoying up and down “tugging” on a frequent basis when traveling over dips and rises in the road. I don’t know the hitch weight but the hitch’s weight makes my truck squat an inch+ when dropping the trailer on t0 the ball. Additionally, I moved most everything heavy that was in the trailer into the closet midway through the trip thinking the hitch might be too light. Moving the weight forward did not improve the “tugging”. The trailer wet and loaded for the trip weighed 5,200 lbs (trailer hitched to truck with just the trailer wheels on the scales). After reading how well Olivers tow, I was under the impression that we would hardly know we were towing a trailer with truck the size of an F250. Clearly, we know the trailer is attached every time it makes an annoying “tug”. This feel a lot like too much weight behind the axle or exceeding the GCWR or payload. I’m sure the load is well within the truck’s capabilities and 95% certain the hitch weight is ok but have not actually weighed the hitch. Is this normal or are my expectations too high? Have I missed something on the set up? Your input will be greatly appreciated