My truck makes me SEASICK

If you want a smooth ride, get an F-150. F350 & F450 are work trucks. No work truck is going to ride like a car, but the 150 will come closer.

Tom J

Basically quite true. With a higher load rated chassis comes a stiffer ride especaily when not loaded heavily. If you want a soft ride, you need a LD truck and even consider a front spring change in current one. I can understand where you are coming from as I have a GM 1 ton pickup with optional HD front suspension and it can be a pill at times. If your vehicle has a front swap bar, sometimes removing it on a HD truck can soften it up a bit.

----------------- TheSnoMan.com

What I'm trying to say is the ride is too "smooth"! I want more of a truck ride and my 1994 F350 doesn't have it. It is the worse ride possible, all mush and slush, bounce and dive. What I'm asking is - if this is normal?

I prefer the ride of my 1993 F450 over the 1994 F350 (what was ford thinking trying to make a truck ride soft?). Of course the newer trucks are "Fixed".

Is the chassis heavily loaded (or overloadeed?)

----------------- TheSnoMan.com

Or drive a car. Ford makes some, too.

Sounds to me like you need new shocks at least on the front. A heavy suspension should be stiff but, not bouncy. If they have never been replaced, a 1994 is probably well overdue for shocks.

Lugnut

...

Changed the shocks to what? Same factory replacement? That is your problem. Springs hold the vehicle up. Shocks dampen the movements. What you describe is a function of the shocks. You need to work with a good suspension shop and identify a shock that allows more damping for both compression and rebound.

Certainly different springs could be used to change this as well, but you should be able to clean things up with a change in the shocks.

While you make a good point, as chassis gets heavier the shock have a smaller overall effect on ride quality than they do on say a lightly sprung 1/2 ton or car.

----------------- TheSnoMan.com

I take it that you have never seen a truck with more than one shock on each corner.

Sure I have as I have had a few that came that way but point is that as suspended mass increases and spring rat with it, shocks play a smaller roll in ride stiffness than with a lighter vehicle. Shocks on HD truck are mostly to for trying to control rebound from copmpression, not compression itself. It would take a very large shock and mounting bolts to have any seriuos effect on compression on a heavily loaded HD truck

----------------- TheSnoMan.com

I apologize in advance, but I just can't help myself. I used to be a deckhand. Save money-Buy Dramamine.... And yes, I deserve to be slapped. Best wishes to you.

What kind of shocks did you put on it? You might need to put some "off-road" shocks on if you want to make it stiffer. Or try Bilstein shocks.

Only for top-posting instead of in-line posting.

Jeff