Thread: Weights.

Yes, my thoughts too Graeme,, apparently its fairly common with vans.

I will crawl under and measure the axles on the weekend,
is there a standard chain guage?
tyres are easy enough,

I've seen safety-chain standards referenced for certain max loads but not the physical characteristics.

Does the van have load sharing suspension? If not (which I suspect) then perhaps all the load must be able to be carried by 1 axle in which case the axle/bearing combination or the brake diameter might be the limiting factor.

thats an interesting point Graeme--

it is fully independent,,

does that mean that the axles arent load sharing?

Picsof the setup may help but if each of the swing arms is seperate from each other then it will be non load sharing which may be the GVM limiter. (this is one of the reasons i dislike independent trailer suspension)

If you were to drive up a sharp step (gutter) at a 30 degree angle theoretically the full sprung mass of the van will be acting on one swing arm/stub axle

Steve.

just what i need 2 weeks before christmas,,
while crawling under for the pics,, found at least one crack in a suspension arm,,
hopefully someone can guess at the axle size,,
tyres are 185/14C 8pr
twin chains, 10mm rod
10" brakes.

and no,, its not the one, that looks like one in the second pic,,,

Remove one of the wheels and have a look the bearings and their numbers.
Going by the ID of the bearings you will get the axle size.
It will be good to inspect all the bearings and repack them or replace the bad ones.

Call AVan on monday and ask them if they have the specs of your Golf.
AVan bought all the jigs and spares when Golf closed down.

From the Vehicle Components catalogue:

Axles within a group may be considered to be close coupled. If so, then load sharing is not required providing each axle in the group together with its wheels and tyres is rated to at least 120% of the load on that axle with the trailer at its ATM.

Your GVM of 1540 kg is 120% of 1300 kg which is the max load on a single 45 mm round axle using LM (Holden) or SL (Ford) bearings, also according to the Vehicle Components catalogue. However if the axle is 50 mm, the max load is still 1300 kg if using Holden bearings but 1500 kg if using Ford bearings which equates to 1800 kg GVM.

'close coupled equals load sharing' is all well and good for a black top set up. I would hazard a guess that the cracked arms are a direct result of non load sharing overload conditions that are faced by "off road" trailers.

That suspension set up on a 2 ish tonne trailer dead set scares mes.

Just goes to show that just because you have a trailer business doesnt mean you are an engineer.

S