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bstark

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  • Location
    Fergus, Ontario, Canada
  • Interests
    Motorcycling, fishing, reading, touring.

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  1. If it were me, I'd be praying to the dialectic grease gods and targeting those connectors already mentioned but for good measure disconnecting every connector (especially those Low/High sensors on the Ac/dryer) and gooping them full of that grease so they "ooze" when reconnected. I had an International repair tech tell me to spend a Saturday afternoon, remove batt cables and go over every connector I could find and thusly treat with this stuff. I crawled over, under and through that truck with a tube of that stuff, a handful of "Q" tips and never had another issue with contact erosion/resistance issues after doing so. My first problem was with a spanking new 04 International that lost it's A/C while we were on our way back from a winter in Az and experiencing 100 degrees in the shade in Tulsa Ok. The little round pins (.020" dia ) of the A/C dryer sensors had rusted and broken off. The tech explained they're often the first to go due to the constant hot/cold cycles drawing humid air past the weather seals of the connectors. Goop 'em full of dialectic grease ....no more problems.
  2. Well that video sorta drove a stake through the heart of that pinbox! That's too bad but perfectly predictable given Lippert's design and quality. I knew Dale Fenton the original owner and designer of the Trailair pinbox first and second iteration and remember well a conversation we had when he showed my his new Triglyde before it was shipping to retailers. His original design used a parallelogram set of links with cushion blocks dampening fore and aft I gave that thing a good looking over and told him he should not attempt to cushion fore and aft shocks using, at that time the pin-weight of the trailer to center the plate at the bottom of an arc. The shear forces expected to be handled by composite blocks would amount to more than what a MoreRyde Suspension was handling with their far larger shear blocks. Lippert has dumbed it down to just another pivot point with a rubber pad thinner than the gap to give it some allowed rocker motion. Dale's original design would not result in the tipping forward of your trucks hitch head to match the tipping of the pin plate. That's giving you a lot of fore and aft stuff going on. My opinion was asked for due to me buying the last copy of Gene McCall's AirGlyder made and seconded to Dale to pay for some work he had done for Gene in the past. I loved that hitch! Four air bags with shock dampening of both vertical and fore and aft movement. As a general machinist the first thing I did to that hitch was bore out the pivot blocks and installed bronze bushes and zerks to them. Now here's the thing with those pinboxes: they didn't have any zerk fitting for lubing the bronze bushes so I removed the lower jaw of mine and drilled and tapped from the rear of the upper box into the tube for the huge pivot shaft and installed a zerk, then after re-assembly used my air-luber to fill that cavity until the lube showed at the shaft ends. Even Dale's Trailair suspension system had steel on steel pivot points and after a year of use those things were squawking like all get-out from being dry. I don't know what the design guys are drinking who come up with these ideas of handling heavy weights with steel on steel pivot points. You are about to deal with Lippert and their well known response of "it's functioning within it's design parameters" which translated means: "it ain't worth crap, which is the way we designed it". I believe, from watching your vid, under certain trailer loading conditions and taking your rig over a few of those gully wash whoop-de-doos in Az. you might experience contact of the top of the pinbox to underside of front cap. Another inch of daylight there would be ideal. A thought; if your lower jaw main frame is virtually identical to that of an older design non slipper-plate Trailair; would removal of that stupid plate's mounting and cushioning stuff and welding it directly to the lower jaw without all that other junk hanging under there between it and the jaw proper serve to give you what you need in both reduction of fore/aft along with additional lowering of your trailer's nose height? That would duplicate the older Trailair design that worked well for most of us. I hate it when some silly basic design flaw screws with a perfectly good dream.
  3. CC; not doing this any more but when we were, it was with an IH 4400 530E full air, ten spd, a Gearmaster, 3:08 rearset with a GeneMcCall AirGlyder hitch with a Trailaire Pin box and if memory serves about 3400 lbs pin weight from a 38' Mobile Suites. Running both the Trailaire and the Airglyder never once caused me any cyclical bouncing or dampening conflict. I had a Voyager two camera system with one camera mounted on a tall light tiara built behind the Harley barn on our truck looking down at the hitch area and it was a marvel to watch the trailer floating along sedately while the truck was giving our kidneys a beating, You have a triple axle set up which should help mitigate "chucking" but that new design air pin-box looks like the arc of travel of that floating underplate would be about 6" from the pin to the center of the cross pivot bolt. I'm thinking that braking events would cause the trailer to forge ahead with that plate pivoting rearward along with your pivoting head of your truck hitch tilting forward making for some extra fore and aft movement until trailer brakes take charge. Not desirable with front cap so close to Jeep. My other concern would be to keep a very jaundiced eye on your goose neck framework. Long-snout pin-boxes put enormous leverage on framing of heavier pin weight frames. A Go-Pro Camera is going to give you very useful info indeed for future decisions. Mounting a flexible fiberglass stanchion screwed to a good plate magnet at the point duplicating your jeeps furthest rear point and mounting your Go-Pro to the side so it can see the interplay between the trailer and that stanchion while you put your rig through it's paces with curb, parking lot, driveway, transtions etc., might avert a later disaster. PS. mounting the Go-Pro so it can view the gap between the top of your pin-box to underside of trailer cap might just cause you to assess the amount of frame flex going on under there as well. Just to be careful and pre-emptive. Nice build-up and very enjoyable to read about. Good luck.
  4. is it just in the Southern hemisphere or have all the Open Road forums ceased? I notice all of them have been down for a while

  5. Dbl.E; Whew, that was close, don't go big without the Jake, they are even more useful due to the additional weight of the truck itself. DO NOT take an exhaust brake in lieu of a Jake either as it ain't anywhere near as effective! I know from experience.
  6. R-dub: Gongrats on the good news of Alices re-locate to her home area. That, at least, is a positive improvement and hopefully everything just gets better and better. Best wishes.
  7. R-Dub: Not good to hear. We hope the therapy does the job and your wife is up and hopping in no time. In the mean time we're sending up a prayer for Alice. Good luck.
  8. BobT: Thanx for the heads-up, ya gotta love this forum for just this example. I'm thinking of the time and agro' saved arguing for my deposit fees back at the check-in desk.
  9. Jim: We're leaving Canada Nov. 15 heading south for the winter, going to be back at Yuma at Del Pueblo (same site you saw us at) again for Dec 1st thru to Mar. 1st. After that we think we'll try to get into Blazing Star in San Antonio for a few days at least to motorcycle tour the area. Then we're going to wander.
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