Procrastinator
Southern Illinois
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Today I took my new set up to a cat scale. The main reason for weighing was because I am getting ready to order a tuner for the truck and I wanted to have a fairly accurate weight of our combo to order the correct tune(s).
Here are my weights from today:
Truck 8130 lbs (me, wife, 3 year old, 3/8 tank of fuel)
Trailer 8190 lbs (bedding, pots pans silverware, toys, but no clothing, water, and food estimating no more than 1000 additonal lbs more when fully loaded)
At the scale:
Steer axle: 4180 lbs
Drive axle: 4840 lbs
Trailer axles: 7300 lbs
Gross weight: 16320 lbs
This run was not to set or check the hitch set up, but to order the correct tunes. But now that I have the information I was wondering what the wise minds here recommend to start getting the hitch dialed in better.
As for how it handles towing all I can say is "it is not my 3500 dually with a tuned Cummins and a 6 speed."
My wife did not think it was bad but I was uncomfortable today as I am used to towing with dually's.
Thanks,
James
2003 Ford Excursion 7.3 diesel
1984 Avion 34W triple axle no slide
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donn0128
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I suspect that with the trailer weighing more than the TV you are going to have a lot of tail wagging the dog effect to deal with first. Second, unless you plan to upgrade the rest of the drive train you could be opening up a whole can of worms that you may not want to go toward.
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Golden_HVAC
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If you have polyester sidewall tires, they can make the rear axle feel a bit mushy when descending a hill, with the trailer pushing the rear of the truck into the curves. The stiffer sidewalls of all steel tires tend to resist that push a lot better.
Your weights look OK, the rear axle is able to support 6,000 pounds, however you do know that the GVWR of the Excursion is not much over 9,000 pounds, so you are somewhat close on the GVWR. I was surprised that the Excursions GVWR was not at least 9,900, and really could have been rated at a bit over 10,000, especially with the diesel engine and it's 4,200 pounds on the front axle, and the rear axle capable of carrying over 5,500 - 6,000 pounds. This should have lead to a 9,900 pound GVWR at least.
Yet Ford bowed to Green pressure, and stopped making it's largest SUV, and did not upgrade the GVWR when it upgraded the trucks in 2005. To bad, it is a great tow vehicle, and the only one with a diesel engine, unless you go way back to the inept non-turbocharged 6.2L Suburbans of the 80's.
Fred.
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Gunpilot77
Killeen, Tx
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donn0128 wrote:I suspect that with the trailer weighing more than the TV you are going to have a lot of tail wagging the dog effect to deal with first.
What?????????????? Quite a few, perhaps more than 50%, of every combo on this forum has trailers that weigh more than the tow vehicle. I only have owned one 5er that weighed less than my duelly and regularly pull TTS that weigh more. No tail wagging the dog here. The OP has a triple axle trailer, the most stable of all!
OP, you have less than 9% of you trailer weight on the hitch. Load some stuff forward of the axles and I think you will feel a lot more comfortable.
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Lantley
Ellicott City, Maryland
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As a former Excursion owner I highly recommend a Hensley or Propride. When I towed with the X I started with a Equalizer which was adequate. However after lots of adjusting weighing etc. I was never satisfied until I purchased the a Hensley Hitch. My old TT was 9500-10K loaded.
Once I purchased the HA all my towing issues were resolved.
Interestingly I towed the same TT with my dually for a year and a half and the dually was certainly and improvement over the X. However the X with the HA hitch was a rock solid combo.
I am now towing a fiver which tows very well however. My initial feeling is that my HA towed my TT as well as a fiver. This opinion may change over time.
But I can say the HA delivers a fiver like tow with a TT.
I will also add while I enjoyed my X and it is a tow beast it will never tow as well as a dually. Save yourself the heartache and look into a Hensley or Propride hitch.
I must admit I was skeptical as you maybe, I was also very reluctant to spend the money. But in the end I took Hensley up on their 60 day money back guarantee. Well I never returned it. It may an incredible difference. I highly recommend the HA it will resolve your Excursion tow issues.
Feel free to PM if you care to discuss tuners. I had a 2001 7.3 PSD X. It was an awesome truck. If it could tow a fiver I would still have it.
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mosseater
Dillsburg, PA
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Gunpilot77 wrote:donn0128 wrote:I suspect that with the trailer weighing more than the TV you are going to have a lot of tail wagging the dog effect to deal with first.
What?????????????? Quite a few, perhaps more than 50%, of every combo on this forum has trailers that weigh more than the tow vehicle. I only have owned one 5er that weighed less than my duelly and regularly pull TTS that weigh more. No tail wagging the dog here. The OP has a triple axle trailer, the most stable of all!
OP, you have less than 9% of you trailer weight on the hitch. Load some stuff forward of the axles and I think you will feel a lot more comfortable.
+ 1 ! My 7300 lb truck pulls my 8000 lb trailer fine. I suspect this is the norm. I agree, more tongue.
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Turtle n Peeps
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The X is going to have very soft suspension compaired to the Dodge 3500. It's just the way it's going to be. Your weights look ok to me. If you can load the WD a little more it may help a bit. I would also load more tongue weight as has been said by other posters.
donn0128 wrote:I suspect that with the trailer weighing more than the TV you are going to have a lot of tail wagging the dog effect to deal with first. Second, unless you plan to upgrade the rest of the drive train you could be opening up a whole can of worms that you may not want to go toward.
What is this nonsence all about? So what if the trailer weights more than the truck?  What about OTR tractors that weigh 25K and the load weighs 60K? Does the tail wag the dog there also? 
Quote:Yet Ford bowed to Green pressure, and stopped making it's largest SUV, and did not upgrade the GVWR when it upgraded the trucks in 2005. To bad, it is a great tow vehicle, and the only one with a diesel engine, unless you go way back to the inept non-turbocharged 6.2L Suburbans of the 80's.
Wrong. You can get a diesel in a Burb all the way up till GM made the D-max in early 2000's.
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SoCalDesertRider
SanDiego, CA, USA
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You can replace the Excursion rear leaf springs with F250/350 rear leaf springs to stiffen up the rear end. You can also add the F350 rear upper overload springs and frame side bump stop brackets and rear sway bar, for a complete load carrying spring package for your Excursion.
Other things that will help the handling are to replace the shocks with good heavy duty shocks, such as Bilstein, Rancho or KYB, and replace the stock rubber front sway bar bushings with stiffer polyurethane bushings from Prothane or Energy Suspension. The other important change is to use E-rated tires instead of D-rated tires. The stiffer side walls add to the lateral stability and handling of the vehicle.
* This post was
edited 02/01/12 10:02pm by SoCalDesertRider *
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Red Ramrod
Monroe, WA
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I tow heavy with a Ex and it handles extremely well (now). Our previous TV was a 2003 Dodge Cummins quad Cab Dually so I know what you are used to. When we switched from the Dodge to the Ex we had a 33' trailer weighting around 9000lbs with 1100lbs TW. With the dually we were using a simple sway set up and it did well. First pull with the Ex and I could see I needed to upgrade the hitch. Went with a Reese dual cam hitch and it was handling extremely well. When we sold that trailer we sold the hitch along with it. We upgraded to a larger trailer and went with a propride hitch on it and it is a rock solid set-up in all towing conditions. Here is a write up I did of my first experience towing with the propride - link
The Ex suffers from a soft suspension. It may need some tweaking for optimum towing performance. The first question would be how does it handle without the trailer? Does it track straight or wander as the Ex's are known to do? If it has any of these issues they need to be resolved first as towing will only amplify them. You can find tons of info regarding the Ex and suspension upgrades on FTE forums in the Ex forum - link Here is a thread with hours of reading about the wandering issues - link If it is handling fine empty you will want a good WD sway control hitch such as the Equalizer or Reese Dual Cam for good performance or hensley or propride for excellent performance. Getting the TW into the 10-15% range and adjusting the hitch will help a lot.
I am not up on power upgrades for the 7.3 but you can get all the help you will need on a forum more specialized in this combination like this - link I think the weak link on the 7.3 is the transmission so you may want to be careful with it if you start to bump up the power.
Good luck and feel free to PM me if you have any questions for me.
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Procrastinator
Southern Illinois
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Thanks for the replies.
As far as the Excursion goes I am driving my second Excursion now. I had reseached many hours of their postives and negatives and I am aware of the suspension problems from the factory and how to correctly address them. My previous non towing Excursion had the V code front springs and F350 block swaps which eliminated any of the problems. Since this Excursion is doing double duty as a daily driver and a tow vehicle, I am getting ready to do the modified B spring rear swap to add to the Roadmaster Active Suspension system and Hellwig rear sway bar I have already installed. I am still researching the front springs V, W, or X codes to make sure the front and rear properly match one another. I do not want the prerunner or drag racer look. As for tires, I am already running the proper E rated tires inflated to 65-70 pounds
After the springs are set up, I will be searching high and low for a deal on a ProPride or Hensley hitch. My goal is to have a SUV and long long trailer that pull "almost" as well as my 3500 cumnins and a 38 foot fifth wheel which was almost 1-1/2 times the weight of the towing truck.
Back to the trailer, I too was concerned about the lack of tongue weight. I have attempted to move anything I can up front to increase tongue weight but it appears that I still don't even have 10% tongue weight. To make matters worse, we often travel with 1/4 tank of water for toilet and handwashing on the road, and the fresh water tank is just behind the last axles.
I even put one dead battery back in the double battery tray located on the trailer's tongue for no other reason but to increase tongue weight.
I will keep seaching for more stuff to move, but I don't want to put more "dead" weight in the trailer just because.
I was also concerned about the load balance on the steer and drive axles but it appears that it is in line.
Thanks again,
Hunter
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