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Horrible towing experience with 2020 Ram 2500 6.7L Cummins

I've always lifted the rear of the truck also - its the only way to get the springs to do their work. I looked at Reese hitch manuals this evening, and they also say to raise the rear of the truck.
H3LZ...are you sure you're reading these manuals vs. just looking at the pictures?
 
roegs said:
I've always lifted the rear of the truck also - its the only way to get the springs to do their work. I looked at Reese hitch manuals this evening, and they also say to raise the rear of the truck.
H3LZ...are you sure you're reading these manuals vs. just loking at the pictures?
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Shh. He can’t read that’s why they put pictures
 
roegs said:
I've always lifted the rear of the truck also - its the only way to get the springs to do their work. I looked at Reese hitch manuals this evening, and they also say to raise the rear of the truck.
H3LZ...are you sure you're reading these manuals vs. just looking at the pictures?
Click to expand...
Maybe more of a skim through but i have never had an issue without raising the truck
 
I have an almost identical setup, trailer is 6 inches and 500 lbs smaller. I also had the same problem with needing a longer shank for my WDH, except I couldn't even reach the tongue.

I'm going to say a lot of the bounce had to do with using the WDH head and I assume the 2.5 inch sleeve, so you were cantilevered pretty far out and those sleeves allow ALOT of up and down play within the receiver. When the torsion bars are in place it will slam it against the top surface and stay put, without I would guess you are getting 2 or 3 inches of flop out at the ball.

A possible source of the bounce is concrete roads. They aren't flat, they have waves between sections that will porpoise a trailer. But with the hitch setup it could have been anything being amplified.

My advice is to not use your WDH without bars. It's a terrible setup. I use plain old Reese Class V drop shank ball mount in town (you can buy this off the shelf at most auto parts stores) and a WDH with 8 inch drop shank fully setup for out of town towing. Zero problems and I drive some bad roads.
 
H3LZSN1P3R said:
Maybe more of a skim through but i have never had an issue without raising the truck
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I have a Reese Pro Series and I'm no weakling. The first time I tried securing the chains without lifting the truck I bent the cheater bar they give you. Maybe you have different gravity.
 
Frank said:
I have a Reese Pro Series and I'm no weakling. The first time I tried securing the chains without lifting the truck I bent the cheater bar they give you. Maybe you have different gravity.
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How many links were you trying for my curt has never needed more than 2 links when i had my 1/2 ton and i did it plenty fine without lifting the truck.....
 
H3LZSN1P3R said:
I have seen enough bent trailer aframes from people doing this as your taking the weight of the truck and putting it on the a frame never have the trailer lift the truck at most you should only be taking the weight off the ball slightly
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I've been lifting the truck with the trailer to make it easier to set the bars or chains for 66 years. I've never bent a trailer frame nor have I ever heard of it happening. I'd be interested in the circumstances that caused the "enough bent trailer frames" you've seen.
 
The Fastway E2 has you "V" out the combo pretty high too for getting the bars on. Mine is a sleeved 2" x 8" drop shank. I'm going to pull the TT with just my B&W 2.5" x 7" drop next time and see if the WDH is better left at home.
 
All shanks for sure have a little play in the receiver as well as the 2.5" sleeve in the receiver, but I would think with the weight of the trailer on the hitch there would be little movement except for side to side? Anyway I didn't want a 2.5" shank so I shimmed the sleeve tight with sheet metal shims, drilled a hole through the bottom of the receiver into the sleeve, threated it and used a grade 8 bolt with Loctite, that's flush with the inside of the sleeve. I did this after I lost the first sleeve that came with the truck when I forgot to remove it when I removed the pin! Our secondary highways here in northeast AZ are in terrible condition, and there is so much tar or whatever they put in the cracks its almost like being on a washboard dirt road in some cases.
 
John Jensen said:
I've been lifting the truck with the trailer to make it easier to set the bars or chains for 66 years. I've never bent a trailer frame nor have I ever heard of it happening. I'd be interested in the circumstances that caused the "enough bent trailer frames" you've seen.
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To be fair the majority are aluminum but i have repaired about a dozen steel ones over the years
 
Of course you need the proper shank. However Air Suspension would have also been a great add. It keeps my trailer perfectly level and make for a great towing experience. Good Luck!
 
H3LZSN1P3R said:
How many links were you trying for my curt has never needed more than 2 links when i had my 1/2 ton and i did it plenty fine without lifting the truck.....
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The question doesn't make sense because the angle of the head is adjustable. I hook to the position needed to distribute the proper amount of weight to the front axle. Getting it up and over the point where it snaps in place takes more force than just the amount of weight you are moving. You can only use so much bar because the ground is in the way to start. A properly adjusted hitch ought to be pretty difficult to hook and unhook without the tongue jack taking pressure off.
 
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Frank said:
The question doesn't make sense because the angle of the head is adjustable. I hook to the position needed to distribute the proper amount of weight to the front axle. Getting it up and over the point where it snaps in place takes more force than just the amount of weight you are moving. You can only use so much bar because the ground is in the way to start. A properly adjusted hitch ought to be pretty difficult to hook and unhook without the tongue jack taking pressure off.
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I clearly said the ball had no pressure i just dont lift the truck with the jack
 
Rockcrawlerdude said:
Why are we arguing about a WDH setup on a trailer that has 700 lb of tongue weight?

that is not enough to need a WDH. It’s not even enough to squat the truck an inch.

put the WDH back in the box. Put it on the shelf and pull the trailer.

my truck rides better with 700lb of tongue weight.
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Agreed. Towed the humvee on my car hauler trailer the other day, according to the CAT scales it was just under 10,000 pounds with about 1,500 pounds of tongue weight and it towed like a dream without any kind of sway bar control or weight distributing hitch... even doing 85 mph down the highway.

Humvee on trailer.jpg
 
here is a curve ball... What's the best way to raise your WD bars with air bags... hook up the WD bars as mentioned above, then to almost level to within an inch. Then add enough air to bags to further raise the rear of truck and hitch another 1" to level, Depending on tongue weight of course, should be about 30 to 40 PSI of air.
 
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