Finally found my dream tow rig

Ad8 PRODIGY

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Nice! Saw it all on fb when you picked it up but had no idea of all the details in it. Wasnt really a huge fan till i saw it under the goose and it just looks right

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79jasper

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Found some info.
Email sent to you.

In the meantime, for the other poster who was concerned about the recall on the Fontaine Classic Traveler F-550 air suspension, I found some information tucked away in some my old files that may be of help.

First, not ALL Fontaine Classic Travelers have the ReycoGranning 345P Parallelogram Air Suspension. Most of them do, though. About 293 to be exact.

When the Classic Traveler was first introduced at SEMA many years ago, as the blue SuperCrewzerII (I've been in that truck), it was outfitted with the Silent Drive 320 series air suspension. The first year of Classic Travelers 1999.5-2000 had the Silent Drive.

Then Recyo Suspensions, which had combined with Granning Suspensions, and was subsumed by Tuthill and operated under the now defunct business unit called Tuthill Transportation Technologies, busted out with a parallelogram system (the 345P) which had a lot of interesting things going for it...

1. As a parallolgram, 5 link air suspension, the driveline pinion angle could be maintained at optimal operational angle regardless of load.

2. The 345P suspension system reinforced the F-550 frame with a pre-drilled, form fitted side plate carraige that tied the pivot anchors of the parallelogram arms with the bag anchor as a single unit.

3. The 5th link, the panhard arm, was attached to the axle without welding to the housing. This was really key, because the housing was treated high strength low alloy steel, and was relatively thin at 7mm to keep the unspring weight down. Welding to it would have changed the material properties and is considered a no-no, so Recyo created this cradle that wrapped over the pumpkin with an offset arch to broaden the radius of the locating rod movement.

4. The design intent (as expressed to me by the engineer who designed it) was 6 inches of travel, 3" up, 3" down. That was just about acheived, with 2 7/8" up, and 3" down.

5. Another design intent was production installation ease, with the compressor cradle incorporated in the driver's side frame brace, making for a unitized install.

It was a very cool package... a leap ahead for it's brief period of time. Several other companies had air suspensions for the 450/550 chassis, but all them were box beam trailing arm of dubious quality (AirAX comes to mine, they didn't last long). Fontaine had some problems with the Silent Drive Z beam suspension, but I never did learn what they were. The parallelogram system seemed like such a better idea. Remeber, back then, neither Link, nor Kelderman, had full air ride parallolgram air suspensions. The ReycoGranning 345P was it. It was the shiznit.

Ford liked it too. Keep in mind that Ford was working very closely with Fontaine back then, because Fontaine was building out the Ford SuperCrewzer F-650s. Ford had an F-450 pick up in mind many years before they finally introduced one in 2008. In fact, the F-450 pickup was previously planned to be introducted 6 years earlier, in 2002, with guess what? Air Suspension. Made by guess who? ReycoGranning. Based on what design? The 345P.

In fact, careful scrutiny of some of the earlier editions of the 2002 Ford Truck order guides will reveal a cryptic reference to "Air Suspension" for the F-450. Yet no F-450 of the day ever came with air suspension. That's because Ford canceled the program. Tuthill Transportation Technologies claims to have lost 6 million dollars on all the work they did integrating the electronics of height control valves etc with Ford's vehicle electronics. Many of the hard parts were redesigned to stampings and non adjustable pieces more suited to larger scale production, rather than the small conversion shop that Fontaine was operating.

But the suspension didn't fly. The scuttle I heard was that Ford found some undue stresses in some cross brace attachment points in their frame. ReycoGranning addressed those too, but while all this was going on, 911 happened, which severly contracted vehicle sales in it's wake. I don't know the entire story of why the F-450 pickup was cancelled back then, but do know that Ford at one time had far more agressive plans than what eventually evolved. And, Ford was probably right to not go forward with the Air suspension system. Warranty costs might have been high.

The ReycoGranning guys were bitter about having no big customer (Ford) for the 345P that ReycoGranning sunk so much money in to revise to suit Ford's production requirements. Adding to the pain, the only customer they had for the current 345P was Fontaine, which held an EXCLUSIVE contractual agreement to be the ONLY* aftermarket provisioner of the 345P system. Yet, Fontaine wasn't buying that many, because the 450/550 Classic Traveler conversions were not selling as well as initially hoped. And Fontaine had their own gripes about the system as delivered. The reliability of the air compressor was one issue I heard about. Another was the reliability of the height control valve, made by Hadley.

ReycoGranning announced their discontinuance of the parallogram 345P system on June 23, 2003.

Four years later, in 2007, NHTSA announced a recall affecting all 293 production instances of Fontaine Classic Travelers on F-450 and F-550 chassis models with the RecyoGranning 345P. The recall concerns that 5th link, the pan hard rod, aka transverse tracking rod... you know, the one that attaches to the axle without welding to it via the cool clever cradle bracket that I was talking about earlier. The recall has nothing to do with the axle bracket... it has to do with the bracket at the frame side (which surprised me!).

"The bracket supporting the horizontal track rod at the frame attachement can become loose and eventually crack and break. This condition could cause the track rod to be ineffective in maintaining lateral control between the axle and frame, resulting in vehicle handling problems, increasing the risk of a crash. Dealers will inspect the bracket and nut/bolt hardware. If the bolts are loose or the bracket has cracked, the bolts, nuts, and bracket will be replaced. If the bolts are installed correctly and are tight, and the bracket is not cracked, then the bolts will be removed and replaced with new bolts with locktite."

While Fontaine ceased production of the Classic Traveler in 2005/6, and Tuthill Transportation Technologies is no more, both Fontaine and ReycoGranning are still in business and live on. Fontaine makes semi trailers and semi trailer hitches. ReycoGranning reorganized as a new company in the beginning of 2011, and still offers their trailing arm rear bag air suspension (1350AF) that uses rub blocks instead of a track rod that apparantly failed them in the 345P. I've noticed their 1350AF has gone through several design iterations over the years also.

After ReycoGranning discontinued their parallogram suspension, Fontaine turned to Link Manufacturing, who by then had developed their own "copycat" parallogram suspension for the 450/550 chassis. The earlier versions of Link's system did not use frame cradling side plates, but I've noticed more recent versions do. There are no recalls on the Link system that I'm aware of.

For the archives... if you have a Fontaine Classic Traveler, you may have either a Silent Drive air suspension, a ReycoGranning air suspension, or a Link Air suspension. Re-reading this post will give you an idea about which system you have based on what year your truck was built.

Speed, I sent you an email for those PDFs. Despite all the info I do have about Classic Traveler, I don't have a copy of the installation instructions!
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DIESELDECK

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Man its crazy. I never have seen one of these trucks in my life until this thread. Well I'll be a monkeys uncle there's one beside me at the red light right now! Champaign in color pulling a trailer full of rebar! If I can figure how to post pics I will.
 

WhiteMamba_Scorpion

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Never seen one of these either. That rear suspension is awesome. With as much as these new trucks are rated for you would think they would have an option like that from the factory.
 

GO BIG OR GO HOME

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I'll really get to find out what the suspension is made of when i pick my horse trailer up from the dealership tomorrow or Friday. It's been in getting some warranty work done. It's about 18k and has a fair amount of pin weight.

On another note, I'm going to get drivers side front fender fixed and paint driver's side of bed to fix peeling clear. I think I'm gonna go ahead and do the 07 front end swap. I love the grill that Gare had in vanilla ice but i looked on Royalty Core website and that grill is like $800. Anybody know of a cheaper option for a grill that style with no rivets that show?

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GO BIG OR GO HOME

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Ok so i picked up my horse trailer from the dealer yesterday and i noticed a couple things.
#1) the 450 looks great hooked to it lol
#2) the truck squatted about 1 1/2"-2" with the trailer weight on it and it did not relevel itself. It is my understanding that these suspensions are supposed to be "auto leveling"
#3) the ride was really harsh with the trailer. Like it was way worse than my 350 srw sitting on the bump stops. This, along with problem#2, leads me to believe that there is something up with the rear suspension. Gonna investigate that asap because there's no way that a $70k truck should ride like that. I'm wondering if the leveling valve or whatever isn't adding to the bags when loaded, resulting in the harsh ride. I did stop and look at everything and it all looked ok i guess but I've never messed with a suspension like this so it's just best guess right now

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GO BIG OR GO HOME

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So i finally got a chance to slide under the truck this afternoon to see if i could find the problem with the suspension. After doing a little troubleshooting i think the culprit is a bad leveling valve. It won't add to or release air from the bags unless you move the lever to its mechanical limits. Also, once you push it all the way up, like the truck was bottomed out for example, it will start adding air but won't stop adding air unless you pull the lever to the opposite mechanical limit. Guess I'm going to drain the air off and remove the valve tomorrow. I took a video of the suspension working but it won't upload for some reason
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GO BIG OR GO HOME

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So I finally got the suspension problem squared away I think. Like i said before, I got under the truck and located the height control valve. I undid the linkage and moved the arm on the valve up and down some and nothing would happen. No air entering or exiting the bags. The only time i got any action was to move the arm to its farthest mechanical limits and i would get slow air movement. So i went ahead and removed the valve and called Hadley, the manufacturer of the valve. They were super helpful in confirming my diagnosis and making sure that i got the correct replacement part. So the day after the part comes in, i decide to slam my finger in the door of a s10 blazer that i was working on.....the door actually shut completely and latched with my finger in the very small gap between door and quarter panel. This left me short a fingernail and with a finger the size of a banana so i let a few days go by before i attempted the reinstall lol. Anyways, got the new height control valve in and now the suspension auto adjust like it should, and very quickly i might add! For the time being i set the ride height in the middle of airbag travel. I read somewhere at what height it should be set and i want to say it is supposed to have more travel one way than the other but i haven't found those numbers yet. I thought the truck rode good empty before....now it rides like a dream! I haven't put any weight on it yet (want to confirm the ride height setting) but i think I've got it licked now. One thing i did notice now since the kneeling feature(flip a switch in the cab and dump all the air from rear bags) is working now is that it seems that the passenger side bag may inflate just slightly more than the driver's side. Like less than half an inch, not really noticeable with the suspension at ride height but when you dump the air it sits down on the driver's side first. I looked at the bags at ride height and the passenger's side does look just a touch taller but i couldn't take measurements or investigate further because it got dark and i was hungry lol. I'm gonna try to get some vids of the suspension uploaded

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79jasper

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Nice.
I would think the only way for one side to be higher would be a different bag.
But, I have noticed a common occurrence with OBS and SD trucks having the same lean to the left. Doubt it's "normal," just something I've seen a lot.

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ford_trck

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The weight of the Fuel tank is one of the primary reasons why trucks lean to the left. my truck leans 3/4 of an inch when the truck is 3/4 to a full tank. Ford use to have a shim they would install on the right side of the truck in the rear to help with it.
If your truck is leaning you make a spacer to help off set your bag on the one side of the truck. Otherwise install another sensor, one on each side of the truck to deal with your offset.
 

NJPlati

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Truck is beautiful, I’ve only seen a few of those around, and I love them! Super jealous


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ja_cain

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That's basically my dream truck, only I want an 06 and ****** the 6.0 with a coumpounded DT360.

I would settle for a Western Hauler style like this though. This is actually a 550.
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