Pinkpanther
New member
Hello everybody,
Because I'm new here, I'd first like to give some short information about me and my truck.
My Name is Urs, I'm from Switzerland. Unfortunately English is not my native language, so I hope you forgive me all my mistakes.
For some years I've been dreaming about my own camper, but here in Europe it was hard to find an appropriate and affordable truck for my needs. I was then told about the US-trucks..to make a long story short: Back in 2012 I then bought a 2011 Chevy Silverado 3500HD LT, single cab, SRW, 6l Vortec, snow plow package.
In the past few years, after some work on it, here the result:
The tires are slightly wider, 275/70 R18 instead of 265/70 R18, that just because the stock size isn't availlable here, not really worth mentioning it. The rest of the truck itself (suspension, drivetrain, frame...) is still stock. Fully loaded for the hollydays it now weights roundabout 10200 lbs, Axle weight estimated 4000/6200lbs front/rear. The truck GVWR: 10700 lbs, GAWR front/rear 5600/7050 lbs.
My camper is still far away from beeing finished, especially inside it needs a lot of work (most optical improvements) but despite that, I've been using it during the last year for a few trips. Despite the weight and size I am amazed how well it performs both onroad and offroad. Of course it is far away from a rockcrawler but that was never the designated target.
Even if I am very happy with my camper there are still some things I'd like to improve. First of all the suspension. On highways it works great, not to hard, not to soft. Also on paved mountain roads, no excessive sway or roll. But there are three things I'd like to change:
1. Especially while driving over speed bumps I get some rumbling noise from the rear end. Not sure, but I think that are the two upper leaves (helper spring?) hitting the stop. Probably normal operation. At normal ride high there is a small gap betwen the leaves and the stops:
The picture shows the suspension at riding level, the weight of the vehicle is on the axle.
2. Because of the additional weight, the rear hangs a little down. This is more an optical problem, but if it can be improved...
3. Most important point. Think about the followoing situation: One wheel is driven over quite a big rock, then at one point the wheel slips down to the ground. This hit causes a side to side roll...so far normal...but unfortunately it takes up to 4 or 5 right-to-left cycles until it stops and in my opinion there is far to much roll.
Unfortunately, we have lots of laws restricting changes to the truck. Said that, it is nearly impossible to do big changes to the trucks suspension. That includes Air-suspensions, additional helper springs and so on...actually everything not factory-looking is probably not road legal, except it comes from GM or it comes with a here accepted special manufacturer guarantee (is unfortunately rarely the case on US suspension parts).
As for the shocks we have a few more options. As long they work correctly we can throw in there nearly whatever we want.
Unfortunately I don't have that much of experience with suspensions. Said that please let me know if my following sollutions I've tought about are complete bulls***t. I hope the professionals here can give me some advice what i could do to improve the above mentioned 3 pionts.
Point 1 and 2 could maybe be improved with "bending" (not shure how the correct english expression for that is) the stock leaves a little more so the main leaf spring keeps the truck level and the upper two leaves support a little earlier (taking away the gap I have right now at normal street level). Maybe adding an additional leaf could be an option but I think that would harden the whole suspension. If not needed I'd like not to harden that to much because I am very happy with the highway ride quality how it is right now.
For point 3. I was thinking about new adjustable shocks. But there are so many ones around...Ranchos for 100$ up to King and Fox for 600$ and more. I was looking at the Fox with dual adjuster, but I've no idea if they would be worth the money and really be better adjustable for my needs than the much cheaper Ranchos. Hope you can give me some advice.
Thanks a lot
Urs
Because I'm new here, I'd first like to give some short information about me and my truck.
My Name is Urs, I'm from Switzerland. Unfortunately English is not my native language, so I hope you forgive me all my mistakes.
For some years I've been dreaming about my own camper, but here in Europe it was hard to find an appropriate and affordable truck for my needs. I was then told about the US-trucks..to make a long story short: Back in 2012 I then bought a 2011 Chevy Silverado 3500HD LT, single cab, SRW, 6l Vortec, snow plow package.
In the past few years, after some work on it, here the result:
The tires are slightly wider, 275/70 R18 instead of 265/70 R18, that just because the stock size isn't availlable here, not really worth mentioning it. The rest of the truck itself (suspension, drivetrain, frame...) is still stock. Fully loaded for the hollydays it now weights roundabout 10200 lbs, Axle weight estimated 4000/6200lbs front/rear. The truck GVWR: 10700 lbs, GAWR front/rear 5600/7050 lbs.
My camper is still far away from beeing finished, especially inside it needs a lot of work (most optical improvements) but despite that, I've been using it during the last year for a few trips. Despite the weight and size I am amazed how well it performs both onroad and offroad. Of course it is far away from a rockcrawler but that was never the designated target.
Even if I am very happy with my camper there are still some things I'd like to improve. First of all the suspension. On highways it works great, not to hard, not to soft. Also on paved mountain roads, no excessive sway or roll. But there are three things I'd like to change:
1. Especially while driving over speed bumps I get some rumbling noise from the rear end. Not sure, but I think that are the two upper leaves (helper spring?) hitting the stop. Probably normal operation. At normal ride high there is a small gap betwen the leaves and the stops:
The picture shows the suspension at riding level, the weight of the vehicle is on the axle.2. Because of the additional weight, the rear hangs a little down. This is more an optical problem, but if it can be improved...
3. Most important point. Think about the followoing situation: One wheel is driven over quite a big rock, then at one point the wheel slips down to the ground. This hit causes a side to side roll...so far normal...but unfortunately it takes up to 4 or 5 right-to-left cycles until it stops and in my opinion there is far to much roll.
Unfortunately, we have lots of laws restricting changes to the truck. Said that, it is nearly impossible to do big changes to the trucks suspension. That includes Air-suspensions, additional helper springs and so on...actually everything not factory-looking is probably not road legal, except it comes from GM or it comes with a here accepted special manufacturer guarantee (is unfortunately rarely the case on US suspension parts).
As for the shocks we have a few more options. As long they work correctly we can throw in there nearly whatever we want.
Unfortunately I don't have that much of experience with suspensions. Said that please let me know if my following sollutions I've tought about are complete bulls***t. I hope the professionals here can give me some advice what i could do to improve the above mentioned 3 pionts.
Point 1 and 2 could maybe be improved with "bending" (not shure how the correct english expression for that is) the stock leaves a little more so the main leaf spring keeps the truck level and the upper two leaves support a little earlier (taking away the gap I have right now at normal street level). Maybe adding an additional leaf could be an option but I think that would harden the whole suspension. If not needed I'd like not to harden that to much because I am very happy with the highway ride quality how it is right now.
For point 3. I was thinking about new adjustable shocks. But there are so many ones around...Ranchos for 100$ up to King and Fox for 600$ and more. I was looking at the Fox with dual adjuster, but I've no idea if they would be worth the money and really be better adjustable for my needs than the much cheaper Ranchos. Hope you can give me some advice.
Thanks a lot
Urs
