Red or blue bags

Simple ... ring Hayman Reese.

I use airbags on my cruiser fitted with a hayman reece set up and towing a 3t. phoenix, no trouble to date and the rig tows beautifully.
Cheers Nev.

As i said I have both Polyairs and progressive springs and tow full time at the moment.
As I also said Airbags only lift the load above them.
They do NOT help level the vehicle when hooked up to a trailer.
That is what the WDH is for
It is no different to having a lift kit in the car.
If you lift it you just drop your adjustable hitch down a notch to keep the vans A frame at the correct height.
just rememder to pump them up BEFORE you load the vehicle
I run mine at about 7lb empty and had I rmembered would have pumped them up to about 20lb before leaving on this trip.
I would doubt that they make any difference at all to the hitch apart from raising the rear of the car a bit

Definition of an Expert.

One who has learned more and more about less and less and now knows everything about nothing.

LOL from a satisfied user

Seems some confusion is afoot , the whole point of the polyairs or firestone [ red or blue ] is to help with weight and to LEVEL the vehicle , Scene 1 : you load up your vehicle and note how much the rear end had dropped , by the "book" you now unload the vehicle and pump up the airbags to maximum , reload vehicle and then release air until vehicle sits level ,,nothing to it ....

Scene 2 : you have your vehicle loaded and level , hitch up the van / ct / whatever and the rear end drops lifting the front ,, same ole same ole , unhitch , pump airbags to max , hitch up and check level of vehicle , let out air from bags as necessary untill vehicle is level ,,,,,,,

Scene 3: Cant get vehicle level hitched and loaded , use your Haymans AS WELL.

I strenuously disagree

Airbags do NOT level up a vehicle after hitching up a van.

All they do is lift the back of the car and do NOT transfer ANY weight to the front wheels.

This subject was in a long thread some months ago.

If you hook up a van and take the weight on the front wheels and then the rear, then do it with the bags pumped up it will be the same.

If you dont even have bags and do the same and weigh it after fitting your WDH the front weight will be greater than it was before using the WDH.

The act of hitching the van creates an effect similar effect to a seesaw.
Put weight on one end and due to the axle in the middle the other end goes up . If you lift the springs you are only lifting the pivot point.
When you pull up your WDH you are straightening the rig and that transfers some weight to both the front wheels and a little to the axles on the van.
Its elementary really and the longer the distance between the rear axle and the towball the greater the effect of the weight put on it.

Think about it.

The fact is that air bags are there to lift the rear of a car with a heavier load than normal and situated ABOVE the bags.

U may think that they do what you seem to think but the facts are that they dont and can be proved by weighing as I stated.

The car may appear to be level after what you do but the weight will still be off the front.
Its a scientific fact that if you add extra weight at the one end of a piece of apparatus (the tow bar). that has a pivot point(in this case the rear axle) that you will remove weight from the other end ( the front axle).

This cannot be corrected by lifting the pivot point.
It can only be corrected by something like a WDH which transfers some weight by straightening the rig to do so.

Whatever you think it is a scientific fact so I will continue to use my WDH and hope I dont run into you on the road when your steering goes light unexpectedly.

A good example is a guy near where i lived who didnt use a WDH and has a big Coromal on a Patrol. It has airbags and no matter how hard he pumps them the front still stares at the sky.

I wouldnt drive it around the block let alone around Australia as the front wheels are barely touching the ground.
He reckons he doesnt need a WDH.

If you pump the bags up you must be lifting the rear or there is no point in having them. You say yourself that when a bag blew the rear dropped so it must have been raised or as you say levelled which is the same thing.
By lifting the rear or levelling it with the bags you do not transfer any weight forward which is what you need to do when towing a van as the springs and bags can only push one way. Straight up.

With what you say it certainly appears to level the rig as by raising the back before you hook up it will appear to be level with the weight on it but it will do that by also lifting the front to match.
Run it over a weighbridge and you will see.

A WDH works on a different principle as by lifting the connection between then car and the van it straightens the rig up and thereby transfers the weight across the pivot of the rear axle back to the front axle.

It works the same whether you raise the vehicle with bags or springs or whatever
My van has a ball weight of 305kg and airbags really are a waste of time. Ive only got them cos they were cheap and I thought I would try them.
The progressive springs are far better and cheaper as well.

I have the WDH set up so that I can pull it up to have the rig dead level whatever the load in the car.All at matter of proper setupand with the springs dont need to worry about blowing a bag.
Hopefully someone with better engineering knowledge than me will back my description up. If I am proved wrong I will aplogise but dont think I need to worry.

And you dont get the fact that no matter how high or low your rear springs are if you place a substantial weight several feet behind them you are going to lift the front of the car. Its a simple matter of action and reaction. Exactly as I said with regard to the seesaw.

When I hook up tomorrow I will measure the height of the guards without pumping up the bags.
Then I will jack the rear of the car and pump them up and remeasure .
I bet the differences will be the same.

Perhaps we should agree to differ as this is getting nowhere and is far away from the subject of the thread


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