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My '87 Freightliner used to be an old Maverick truck. They pulled flats, but I pulled vans. I had to set the air ride down to get a 4 foot fifth wheel.
I'm not pulling vans anymore, so can set it back up. I'm wondering how critical the drive shaft alignment is. It's the early Freightliner Airliner suspension, and it really rocks the axles on the front pivot bolt when it goes down - or up.
I'm guessing I should just measure the angle on the back of the transmission and duplicate it on the front rear. Right? How critical is it?
Fred Schrope - Upland, IN
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| there is a minimum / maximum amount of interrupted angle thatyou can have. but if it worked fine for them and worked fine for you and you haven't changed anything from the way they were running it then you should be ok. was the normal fifth wheel height adout 50 or 52" if so that would have been the factory setting I would think. we have a chart in the library I think, that shows the range of optimum running angles .
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| Fred, If nothing else has been changed, find out what the proper setting is for that suspension and set it back to factory ride height specs.A decent freightliner shop should still have a book that list the height and shows where to measure.Glenn might know too, Im sure he set a bunch of them. When it was built new, the ordered fifthwheel height was set by using the proper base or trees to get the plate height right after figuring in the height of that suspension.The engineers built it as a package, you just cheated when you dropped it down,lol.Set it back where it should be and you'll have the same driveline angles it left the factory with.John
_____________________________________________ John Costley ATHS Online Division Charter Member Sabattus,Maine
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I should know that but i have forgot and have no info here. Yes i have set many of the ride height and i say it is inportant. If i tryed to guess then i would mess you up. I would call freightliner with yopur vin # and they if they will have a website trhat has ever thing and with that vin it will tell what you have. I had the website here untill i left the job and they pulled my pass word. I was on the website one night and some how i found some stuff on their website that i did not need to see.Whish i had not looked at it or was that another website.I wish i could remenber all the info i have used but it is a load to remenber how to come home anymore.
glenn akers
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Thanks guys. I'll see if I can find anything out from Stoops Freightliner. Their help has changed over the years and I really don't know any of the guys in the shop anymore.
I never had any trouble with it when it was set down, so if I can't find out the factory specs, I'll just guess.
Is a 50 - 52 inch fifth wheel setting considered about standard for trucks pulling flats? It seems that 47 1/2 is standard for pulling vans.
Fred Schrope - Upland, IN
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| You can't set a suspension height by 5th wheel height. There are different mounts used to adjust the 5th height, and different tire sizes will effect it as well. Each 5th mfg has at least 3 different mounts depending on height needed, some have many more. Get the suspension spec and do it right.
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