Dieselvolk, Well, this past weekend I towed my sailboat back and forth from storage to boat shop to house to boat ramp, and found the experience most unpleasant. Lots of bouncing, tongue of trailer yanking on the hitch like a wild animal trying to escape, having to drive real slow on the rougher sections of road, stopping several times to try to shift more weight onto the tongue to see if that would fix it.
So, it took me three days to realize it, but I've finally decided that there must be a problem with the Self Leveling System (SLS) for the rear axle. I did the bounce test, and the RR corner seems to bounce easier than the LR. Most of the time the rear of the car is at the correct height when driving, but when loaded with the trailer that only occcured some of the time. Also, she leaks down and sags a little most of the time. My first guess is that it's time to rebuild the control valve. The valve in the car now came from a '79 donor, cost was all of $10 last summer. It worked well until recently, when the car started sagging when parked, not always but enough to bug me. Does it make sense that a failed control valve would cause one side to be weaker than the other? Supposedly the nitrogen spheres were replaced by the PO about 5 years ago, I wonder if one of those has failed, which in turn pushed the control valve over the edge? Hmmmm, last rebuild of the original control valve also failed after ~year or less. Hmmmm.... Very respectfully, /s/ LCDR Meade M. Dillon, USNR Digest Lurker since 2001 '85 300TD 322k miles (Euro 5spd) '96 Infiniti I30 149k miles (wife's 5spd) '73 Balboa 20 'Sanctification' Charleston SC
