First Time Hook-Up

[Rhyph]

Well, I got past our next milestone is setting up our 5th wheel to tow with our Sportchassis.  Today's activity was to take the Trail-Air kingpin off the 5'ver and put back the factory solid king pin.  Got through all of that fine and hooked up to look at how the trailer sits.  Unfortunately is seems to be a bit nose down.  I made sure the Trailersaver air pressure was adjusted to the white line at the side rail on the hitch, per the manual.  Air suspension on the Sportchassis was aired up.  The trailer is however sitting nose down enough that the front landing gear are at about 10" off the ground when fully retracted, and overall the trailer looks like its putting a bit more pressure on the front most of the three axles.  Looking at the trailer from the side, it doesn't look too bad...

I don't know what to do to get an more pin height out of the trailer.  I put factory king pin back on where it was when we got the trailer new from the factory, which is set at it's lowest bolt holes.  How concerned should I be about this in general and the ground clearance on the front landing gear?  

[Chad Heiser]

You want the trailer to ride as level as possible to evenly distribute its weight across all axles.  If it is nose low, then the front axle will hold more weight and if it is nose high, then the rear axle will hold more weight.  This can and will place more stress on the respective axle and could even overload the axle.

i don’t know how your trailer saver is mounted, but I had a similar issue with mine.  My hitch was mounted to a one inch plate that was set on the bottom lip of the frame rails.  This put the hitch head too low and made my trailer ride nose low by several inches.  I determined how much height I needed to get the trailer to ride level and then went to a machine shop and had them build a box out of the appropriate height tube steel.  The box now sits on the one inch plate and the hitch sits on the box.  I have grade eight bolts through all three pieces holding everything together.  It has worked very well and was a relatively inexpensive fix.

[chiefneon]

Howdy!

If your maxed out in the pin an have a TrailerSaver TS3 they use to sale a spacer to add height to the hitch. Unknown if they still do. I purchased my TS3 before they sold out to the new owners.

” Happy Trails”

Chiefneon

[Alie&Jim's Carrilite]

46 minutes ago, chiefneon said:

Howdy!

If your maxed out in the pin an have a TrailerSaver TS3 they use to sale a spacer to add height to the hitch. Unknown if they still do. I purchased my TS3 before they sold out to the new owners.

” Happy Trails”

Chiefneon

He had a Trail Air pinbox- The alternative to the MoRyde Pin.  

Chad's idea is probably your best bet if you can't lower the pin box on the RV any.  Most machine or welding shops can easily do this.

[Darryl&Rita]

2 hours ago, Rhyph said:

 I made sure the Trailersaver air pressure was adjusted to the white line at the side rail on the hitch, per the manual.  Air suspension on the Sportchassis was aired up.

He had both.

[Rhyph]

12 hours ago, Chad Heiser said:

You want the trailer to ride as level as possible to evenly distribute its weight across all axles.  If it is nose low, then the front axle will hold more weight and if it is nose high, then the rear axle will hold more weight.  This can and will place more stress on the respective axle and could even overload the axle.

i don’t know how your trailer saver is mounted, but I had a similar issue with mine.  My hitch was mounted to a one inch plate that was set on the bottom lip of the frame rails.  This put the hitch head too low and made my trailer ride nose low by several inches.  I determined how much height I needed to get the trailer to ride level and then went to a machine shop and had them build a box out of the appropriate height tube steel.  The box now sits on the one inch plate and the hitch sits on the box.  I have grade eight bolts through all three pieces holding everything together.  It has worked very well and was a relatively inexpensive fix.

Ok, this is what I was afraid of and suspected.  There was some part of my mind that wanted to deny it lol.  The Sportchassis comes from the factory set-up with a plate that is pre-drilled and set on the top of the rear frame rails ready to accept mounting of a TSLB2H.  So, there is no direct way to gain height by moving the plate on the frame rails.  

This is the Trailersaver on install day a few weeks ago.  I don't have a good picture handy that exposes the plate it's bolted to yet, I can try to get one when the rain stops and we have some decent light.

The box idea is intriguing, any chance you might have any photos of your set-up laying around you could share for when I try to find someone to build this, so I have something I can show them for reference?  I think I'm going to need somewhere between 2-4", and I'll measure to get more scientific before having something done.  Do the bolts run through the entire assembly to "sandwich" it all together (eg. 3"+/- long bolts) in one go to the plate?

This is the freshly reinstalled factory king pin on the trailer itself.  I don't know if anyone can tell for sure, but I'm fairly certain it can not move down at all.  If I moved it down, the rear most lower bolt, and front most lower bolt would not have a hole to grab.  I assume that's a showstopper. I also assume there's not drilling the trailer side mounting flange, despite there maybe being just enough to get another hole through it for various metal fatigue and safety reasons. 

The whole reason we went back to this kingpin was Lippert telling me I could not use the Trailair with the Trailersaver hitch.  This is the Trailair having been freshly installed back around June 2016.

 

[travelinbob]

What came to my mind first is that can you lower your trailer. Some come with a 2" riser to raise the trailer so it can be towed with the higher bed 4 wheel drive pickups. ???

[Chad Heiser]

My hitch is mounted very similarly to yours.  The plate it sits on is down low just like yours.  The box I had built was made from 4” square tube steel.  The tube steel was cut into two short pieces and two long pieces and then welded together in the shape of a rectangle.  The rectangle was sized to fit directly under the hitch mounting holes.  The long pieces run the length of the hitch.  The welder welded some ends on the long pieces to keep stuff from getting into the tubes. The bolts run through the hitch, tube box and plate and sandwich the whole assembly together.  It has worked quite well with no issues at all.  It was much easier than trying to modify things on the pin box side.

Here is what my hitch looked like originally:

This is what it looks like now:

It is hard to get a picture of the tube box because it is down in the tunnel under the hitch.  This is the best I could get:

[Alie&Jim's Carrilite]

Lippert doesn't understand all the dynamics of 2 air type parts working together.  

On the RV, if you reinstalled the Trail Air pin, and remembered to air the bag to its max inflation- probably 100psi, it wouldn't move much is any.  That would allow the TrailerSaver hitch to do its job to cushion the ride between the truck and trailer.  The Trailersaver airs up until the sled is at the white line regardless of the psi needed.  If you need 75+psi though, the 3rd airbag under the swing arm is needed.

[Rhyph]

Awesome, thanks Chad, and everyone else for all the additional information so far.  I went back to our storage facility yesterday and this time I did a full hook up and pulled the trailer out into the open; over to where I could find as level an area as possible.  It looks quite different having it out compared to where it was sitting, and I took some more photos, plus brought my 48" level with me (largest i have in the tool shed).   

You can see in this picture the trailer looks fairly level to the eye.  The area I was in, made it near impossible between opposing structures at my back and the sun nearly dead ahead in this shot to get a good, clean straight-on image.  I also can't get one from the other side, there is a large retention pond on that side and a protective fence about 10' away.   This is the most level area of the lot that I have to work with, everything else is graded down slope to this area, hence the retention pond on the other side.

It is hard to see it in the above photo due to the shadow, but it looks a ton better here, and if I'm visually nose low at all, it's maybe an inch to the eye.  Even the landing gear have much better clearance sitting here.  The bubble level tells an interesting story as well.  This photo is inside the forward living area door.

This is inside the rear garage door.

In addition to the level showing center bubble, maybe just touching the rear line at both front and rear, I also checked the level on the ground along the trailer and it was sitting bubble touching the forward line, but still nothing out of the markers.  I also measured the front corners of the trailer from the lower skirting to the ground.  This surprisingly did have the most variance which puts me right back on the fence, but I don't know if I should be too concerned.  Front to ground measured 24", rear to ground measured 28".   It sure doesn't look that far off to the eye.  I also have nothing in the back of the trailer.  Normally we carry a custom 4-seater golf cart with us and that's not in there at the moment.

We are itching to take it out on a trip, I might do something close by for a long weekend and pull more measurements as things settle in after actually having it out on the road a bit along with having the golf cart in the back.  

17 hours ago, Alie&Jim's Carrilite said:

Lippert doesn't understand all the dynamics of 2 air type parts working together.  

On the RV, if you reinstalled the Trail Air pin, and remembered to air the bag to its max inflation- probably 100psi, it wouldn't move much is any.  That would allow the TrailerSaver hitch to do its job to cushion the ride between the truck and trailer.  The Trailersaver airs up until the sled is at the white line regardless of the psi needed.  If you need 75+psi though, the 3rd airbag under the swing arm is needed.

Interesting!   In all of the above, we found getting to the white line took about 78PSI, according to the gauge in the truck (who knows how accurate that is).  I also tried 80, and 85, and that took the line to about 1/2" above the rail on the hitch, which according to the manual is recommended max just for comparisons.  My assumption was riding somewhere between 75-78psi per the gauge would have been about the right starting point for pressure and adjust as feel/ride dictates when on the road?

[Chad Heiser]

I have three airbags on my trailer saver.  With my Montana Big Sky, it ran at about 40 psi to get the hitch at the proper level.  With my DRV, it runs at about 60 psi to get the hitch at the proper level.  The DRV has significantly more pin weight at just over 4800 lbs than the Montana did at just under 3800 lbs.

With only two air bags in your hitch, they are getting pretty hard at 75-80 psi and probably aren’t providing as much cushion as they should.  I would look into adding the third air bag.

[Alie&Jim's Carrilite]

11 hours ago, Chad Heiser said:

I have three airbags on my trailer saver.  With my Montana Big Sky, it ran at about 40 psi to get the hitch at the proper level.  With my DRV, it runs at about 60 psi to get the hitch at the proper level.  The DRV has significantly more pin weight at just over 4800 lbs than the Montana did at just under 3800 lbs.

With only two air bags in your hitch, they are getting pretty hard at 75-80 psi and probably aren’t providing as much cushion as they should.  I would look into adding the third air bag.

I'm with Chad on this.  Adding the 3rd airbag will cushion better.

Technically you are 2" out of level in XX(44?) feet.  That isn't much difference at the axles.  If you measured to ground at the front of the forward axle and at the rear of the rear axle, it would be minimal.   

If you had Moryde IS suspension then it does matter, but with any of the leaf spring/shackle setups, it's more forgiving.

[ms60ocb]

On 2/17/2018 at 5:02 PM, Chad Heiser said:

  This put the hitch head too low and made my trailer ride nose low by several inches.  I determined how much height I needed to get the trailer to ride level and then went to a machine shop and had them build a box out of the appropriate height tube steel.  The box now sits on the one inch plate and the hitch sits on the box.  I have grade eight bolts through all three pieces holding everything together.  It has worked very well and was a relatively inexpensive fix.

When I ordered my FW, I was driving a Ford 4x4 so it suggested I get the 2 spacers under the RV to tow level.  I traded trucks and ended up with the problem Chad mentioned. In shopping around it seems the only economical solution is as Chad described . I haven't had anything build yet but will removed the hitch to ensure the box is flat before mounting.

On my Trailsaver 3-Bag hitch , I run a air pressure of 62 (truck gauge) for a pin weight of 5,000#

Clay  2015 FL M2 106 Sport Chassis and 2016 DRV 38PS3