Towing dread!!

[59toaster]

Originally posted by JeffandSuzanne
I found a cure for the "washboard" syndrome found on I-20 in Louisiana and on I-30 & I-40 thru Arkansas. . .DON'T GO THERE!!!

I had to run between Atlanta GA and Dallas TX on I 20 a few years ago. From the time I hit the Louisianna state line till the time I hit the TX line it was miserable. What a mess that road is.
On the way home I was traveling at night in a 88 Trooper I use to have. I had a guy I was pacing about a 1/4 mile back letting him find Joe law. We were humming along just a wee bit over the posted. All of a sudden he's all over the road. Tail lights dancing I figured he had fallen asleep and ran off the road. My ex wife asleep in the passenger seat. All of a sudden I came up on the problem. No less than a 6 inch lip at a bridge. I know that truck got air born hitting that at the pace we were going. My Ex had reclined the seat so the belt wasn't in the proper possition. She was woke up about the time she came into contact with the roof and ended up just about in the back seat. Warped both front rims.
Yeah I hear all the roads are like that in Louisianna. Just plain avoid the state if at all possible.

[Chas]

They have been working on I-40 from the OK/Ark state line east the last couple of years. Redoing it in asphalt for the most part so those cursed expansion joints are disappearing. It was so bad in most places it felt like you were going across a 300 mile wide cattleguard! I made the trip back in 99' with a bumper pull flatbed with a Ford 4000 farm tractor on it. It almost beat me to a pulp!!. Next time, again with the tractor in tow, I had rear airbags on my F-250, pumped them up and made a world of difference!

Chas

[femuse]

If you don't like the roads in the South and Mid West, you should love the ones around New York City.

About 15 years ago (towing a pop-up, luckily, not an AS), we had to go through the Tapanzee Bridge that seperates New York and New Jersey. If you go below 65-70 miles an hour in the 55 zones, you will get killed.
They had made "temporary" repairs to the surface across several lanes, just getting on the bridge, rows upon rows of 2" thick metal plates connected with bolts: heads sticking up 1.5 inches high !!!
We stopped after the bridge to inspect our tires, a trucker doing the same, shaking his head: never had seen anything that criminally stupid. We mentioned that to the toll-taker who said "heeuu? whatch you mean?"
This road was the only one we ever considered when going from Philadelphia to say Massachussett. That's the best one they have to offer to go around NYC.
Now, we make several hundred miles detour by taking I-81 instead.

So, just count your blessings. Like everything else in Texas, I see you have the biggest whiners.

Chantal

[wyhjr]

The first time we experienced the rough road syndrome was a couple years ago when we headed west out ot Boseman, Mt. I thought for sure we had blown a trailer tire and stopped the rig on the shoulder with motor running to check the damage. BIG MISTAKE, after finding no flat tires or other visable problems, we went back to the truck to find two grinning pug dogs, who in their excitement had locked us out. No amount of encouragement could enduce them to hit the unlock button. Finally, my wife noticed one of the windows open a crack and opened the doors with a handy twig poked thru the crack.
I try to think of that funny experience every time I'm suffering from an interstate pounding.

[uwe]

I took I 40 in 2001 from Ca to Nashville. It was smooth sailing until I left New Mexico. I lost 2 tires, a rear A/C vent pipe, 1/3 of my headliner, and put appr. 6 million miles of wear on my front suspension during this trip to Tennessee and back to California. I will never go this way again, even if I have to travel an extra day or so to go around.
I10/I20/I30 to Dallas seems like a perfect ride, though. I have not gone past Dallas on either one of those roads.

[Gene Wissink]

davidz71
I did some surfing and ran accross another hitch at http://www.easyriderhitch.com/hitch.html , it seems that the advanced air ride manufactor was a dealer for them and tried to reinvent the hitch, in his last email Steve said that the advanced hitches were breaking and they were coming to him for help in fixing them. I have been in contact with Steve and he is sending me information on his hitch. I think I will have to start over with the hitch because the dual cam set up will not fit the old bars from their looks.

[femuse]

I see you are trying to track down better hitches to improve the ride.
I have started a thread in "Axle, Brakes, Wheel & Tire Forum" called "tire balancing ... one more time"
It has degenerated into Air hitch and similar devices that could solve our problem.
I don't really know my way in this forum story, but I think it could be a good idea to put our researches & questions together on that topic.
Can they be merged, or maybe we should start a new thread specifically on air ride, DMI hitches and anything else we may find on that subject?

Chantal

[davidz71]

Gene,
I ran across the easyriderhitch.com site also but somehow lost it before I could send you the info. Glad you found the site.

[davidz71]

Chantal,
wyhjr started the thread complaining about a rough stretch of road and was wondering what adjustment he could make on his hitch or if there was a better hitch out there to solve his problem short of replacing his vehicle for a better ride. I was researching at the same time a hitchbar that dropped my ball platform a little lower to get my rearend up (trailer's). The advanced air hitch showed up during my search so I added the site for an alternative and wondered at the same time if anyone had tried one. How the air hitch made it to the other thread may have been because a trailer can pop rivets from a bad balance job as well as a vehicle with heavy suspension or suspension overkill. Not only is road shock transmitted to the trailer from the tires but the vehicle transmits shock to the tongue and into the frame. The air hitch by either company would seem to be one way of lessening stress from towing vehicle to trailer so the question now is who is going to try it?
The threads may have merged but they started as 2 separate ideas. If someone used the search for hitches or wheel balancing, they might find posts from each thread. That is what makes the search feature neat sometimes.