Thread: Tandem Suspension Concept

Originally Posted by wagoo

Yes but Macks were designed to handle great(read double) overloads, and had enormous unsprung weight in the diffs axles etc. Take a look at the Aus Army Macks.Monsters that I think were trialled as mere 5 tonners. Lets not lose sight of the fact that we are only talking about a suspension for a light boat trailer. Air suspension, multiple links, panhard rods are probably a bit over the top for this application.
Bill.

In spite of appearances, most Macks were lightly built on a par with their competitors. Tare weight is important to freight haulers. Check out the lightweights bought by the oil companies. Single channel rails, 34,000 lb diffs and suspension, five speed gearboxes, only 9 litre engines. All the American custom builders can build a full range from lightweights to heavy haulage. Just tick the option boxes on the order form.

Double V single axle, I hope Bill will chime in here with his thoughts. Remember these are lazy not driven axles. For my application the dual is needed due to weight. It tows beautifuly, never snakes or steps out and I have done some high speed swerving to avoid objects on the HWY. It reverses great due to the long draw I had put on it and the slow tracking of duals. If you ever have to move a dual by hand forget about it...they will roll back and forth but to get them to turn is a royal pain in the butt. If you are only 1 tonne for the boat and trailer, that would equate to about the same pressure on 1 axle as the tow vehicle so I think ground pressure issues would be equal??? (does drive force come into it??)

Originally Posted by wagoo

Lets not lose sight of the fact that we are only talking about a suspension for a light boat trailer. Air suspension, multiple links, panhard rods are probably a bit over the top for this application.
Bill.

After towing my boat for 2 hrs on a very rough corrugated road on a standard boat trailer, I will be building one with air suspension ASAP.

IMHO corrugations are far worse for a boat than pounding in a rough sea.

Absolutely Ben,
And in this case it is not even just a stinking tinny that you can MIG the cracks back together when they open up. Ben, when you are setting up the suspension with aor springs I have a few tricks with regards to link ends for control arms.

Bill, I would still be interested to learn how you would propose the axle to outer leaf pack connection in a camel back setup. Solid attachment to longest leaf or to multiple leafs thus limiting interleaf sliding.

Steve

Steve, are you looking at idependant sides or solid axle? what is your tow rig? what brakes are you considering?

I think 4 of these with air bags and shocks would suffice, worked for Subaru for many years, same set up but with struts not torsion bars for the later Leone's worked well and you wont get axle hop when braking.

http://www.indysworld.com/vehicles/1...8-torsion3.jpg

Sorry I cant seem to be able to just post the pic, this computer doesn't like me.

Cheers Casper

I will always run a solid axle on trailers after playing with inde swing arms for a season.
I like the load sharing, stability and constant camber you get from a solid axle.

Tow rig is a 130 with tdslugi motivation - but for the sort of places this thing will go a massey furguson would do the job. Generally our long range trips involve 200km of driving which takes all day to complete!

Brakes will not be electric (waste of time on a boat trailer) and will not be Alko et al cable operated overide (rusty waste of time). I have had good success with commodore calipers (alloy with SS pistons) and a simple over-run hydraulic hitch.
In honesty the brakes will be locked out much of the time as reversing against hydraulic over rides is a joke.

S

Casper,

As above - tried inde swing arm set ups. Not satisfied.
Call me picky!

If it all gets too hard I will just build it on a single axle with 4link. I just think for this rig keeping it low and settled on four paws is a good idea.

Gut feeling sponsored tonight by a 2008 Metala.

S