Air Shocks or Air Bags

[HANCYW]

97 Ram 1500, 318. I have the truck now ready to tow my camper. Had to get rid of the ford expedition... cost was not worth it. The camper is a lite aluminum frame with fiberglass walls 28'. When I hook-up, the truck sags some until I use the level bars on the camper. Problem is the camper still is not level. I noticed over the years I had to flip my 2" drop hitch over to be a 2" lift hitch when pulling a 16' flat bed. Is this normal for the Dodge rear to sag over time? i have 58k miles, thus I figure I may need shocks soon, but never heard of the shocks causing this.
Since I may need shocks soon, I was thinking of putting on air shocks to help pull the camper. I was told since I am not bottoming out helper springs won't help. Well I am not bottoming out yet, I haven't towed with a fully loaded camper yet.

Since cost is an issue, what would help the dodge from sagging? Air shocks, helper springs or air bags?

[chubbysdad]

If the pickup is dropping that much, the camper might be on the heavy side then. We have a 24' lightweight camper and use a 2000 durango 5.9/392 and it doesn't drop at all.
Well when I had my ford flareside, I used both air shocks and air bags. I would use the bags again if needed. The shocks blew out robber grommits alot and the bags were perfect. Easy to install also. Put the compressor right behind the seat.
Good luck with whatever you choose.

[HemiGottaLuvIt]

You didn't specify the actual tongue weights involved with your given trailer loads.

Springs will lose their arch over-time. The interesting thing is that from my experience it is TIME that is more of a factor than LOAD. I had a 75 Chevy Nova with springs that were so toasted the car was a tail draggin' ghetto wagon nightmare. I initially cheaped out and just had Fallsway Spring & Equipment Company re-arch the leaf-springs. I later purchased new springs from them after an axle swap.

I digress, check out your leaf-spring bushings. They will tend to fail well before you springs. They may have enought slop in them to reveal a noticeable 'sag' when the truck is under load.

For what it's worth, I'm slapping some suspension air-bags on the rear of my 04 Ram as soon as I can shake $500 from my money-tree!

[BleedDodge]

Even adding one more leaf goes a long way...