Air Ride on the 2500 RAM?

bvanderberg

bvanderberg

Adventurist
We traded in our Rebel recently for a 2500. It's great so far, tows and hauls well, comfortable, etc. The air ride keeps everything level and comfortable, makes hitching ridiculously easy, and does everything I want - on road. However, I haven't found much out there on the air ride in off-road situations. What little I have found says it's not preferred and not to over-extend it flexing. The Rebel had a different air system and I actually liked it off-road despite its obvious limitations.

I'm doing some tent camping and running the Bradshaw trail next weekend with maybe a few easy side trails. Guess I'll find out the hard way. Anyone have any first-hand knowledge with systems like this off-road? Thanks in advance.
 
Limit straps are the simple solution to prevent over extending the air bags. Air bags can be bouncy on rough terrain, quality shocks with a little more rebound dialed in well help.
 
Cool, thanks! I don't want to lift this, but some really good shocks would be totally doable.
I'll do that next and will keep the straps in mind if I start wheeling it more seriously.

Just ordered some 18" wheels to replace the 20's that came on it and a set of slightly bigger KO2s. Hoping that will help with the ride when aired down.
 
bvanderberg said:
What little I have found says it's not preferred and not to over-extend it flexing.
Click to expand...

First off congrats on the new ride, the HD Rams really are nice (that's why I bought one) :D

Second, I'm afraid that the OEM air ride system on these is very much a pavement-biased system by design. You should be fine running the length of Bradshaw and many side trails though, just remember to keep your suspension system in mind if you get into a cross-axle situation.
 
As you said, the truck did just fine on Bradshaw. The sandy washes and rocky, rutted roads were no problem at all.
I avoided the side trails however, fearing it would be too big/heavy/poor breakover angle/etc.
The whole time, I wished I had a Jeep or bike to be able to go see 'what's over there'.

It's the vehicle I want for towing our Airstream to Sedona/Yosemite/Yellowstone/etc, but not the vehicle (for me) to explore with.
That set me on a 2 week search for something that fit with this combination.
In order for it to fit in the bed with the tailgate up, I'm going to have to rethink storage. The saddle box just eats up too much bed space.

Long story short and to answer my own question - the air bags are outstanding at getting us and a bunch of gear and a trailer to most campsites. I love that it will adapt to any load I'm likely to throw at it, but I'm gonna do my exploring from camp on this.

Thanks for the feedback. It's great to hear from people who've been there before.

See ya out there.

IMG_0462.JPG
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom