I have been reading this thread for a long time. The info here has answered many questions. This is my 1st entry at this thread. While putting on new brakes, i noted that the springs seemed flat and had somewhat of a negitive bend. Found a shop that spealizes in spring works. A tech looked at the springs and confirmed they should be replaced. He pull out this book and determined, the 4 leaf springs on the trailer were rated for 1500 lb. X 4=6000 lbs. The dry weight of my camper is right at 10,000 lbs. He explained that a 6 leaf spring is rated at 2500 lbs. X 4=10,000 lbs. Difference in price was $10 each. The trl now has 6 leaf springs, sets better and pulls better. Does this sound like i got took or is it as i hope, a good thing.

 

It sounds like he did a great job! My Dexter 5200lb axles had 2600 lb springs (each) that were flat in the center area, unloaded, and didn't have much upward travel - it bottomed out easily and launched the rear recliners into orbit. I looked at new 2600 lb springs and they were also flat in the center and I figured, why even bother with the same thing. That should have been plenty of springs for a 9600 gvw 5er but I put in 3k lb springs with more arch and that fixed the ride big time. Then new shocks was icing on the cake! Craig

 

I agree, he probably is a keeper. I added Air Lift 5000 bags on both my truck and 5th wheel. It took a little "field engineering" to get the bag mounts adapted to the trailer axles but I am very pleased with the results.

IMO, the OEMs seem to always undersize the springs on RVs. Heck, for that matter, they don't do that well on the tires either.

 

When you added bags to the trailer, how did you allow the bags in the front axle work with the bags in the rear axle? Are they plumbed together? Does this effect the equalizer operation yet?

 

He did the right thing for you - both myself and a buddy have jayco 305 eagle 5ers with a slide out exact same model year and on both units our springs were junk.

We both replaced them with a larger spring pack . Those idiots installed thin stock 4 leaf #2500 springs on them with 10" breaks and 5200lb 5 bolt axles 205/15" rubber.

This is on units 31' in length with a GVW of 12,400

Even if you had a pin weight of 2k or 20 percent which would be 2480lb i think they should have been shot for pushing things that bad.

 

dieselengineer, I plumbed each side together and installed restriction between the two sides. Equalizer operation seems fine, been running this for 2 years and no problems detected. I can look in the mirrors and see smooth isolation between the axles and trailer when crossing bridges and bumps in the road.
Geezer

 

Thanks for the info, I was planning to plumb each side separate so before disconnecting I could do some side to side leveling. Thinking of using the wirelessAIR to control each side. What pressure are you running awhile towing? How much lift over without the bags does the trailer ride awhile towing? Have any pictures of your setup?