Thread: Chassis build for "box" trailer

Originally Posted by roverrescue

yeah Ben,
I am a little worried about the upper rim. It is currently a band of 50mm wide FMS welded to the OD of the mount plate. There 15mm of space miniumum to the bag wall at compression but obviously I cant dynamiclaly load it yet.

the plan is to drive this thing hard before HDG if ther eis even a feint touch on the bag then the mount will get modified. Depending on your thoughts maybe I should thin up that lip to say 25-30mm which would remove the lower edge from the moving part of the bag? 25-30mm should still give enough bracing?

What sort of clearances would you llike to see about the top edge of a rolling sleeve bag?

S

I will take some pics and measurements on my bags. They rub slightly on the turret mounts, which has worn the bags, but no failure yet. The rover mounts are smooth rolled corners however.

That would be grand, perhaps throw a rul einto the pics so I can scale the clearances...
One option that I still havent discounted is to cut back the 50 FMS to say a tapering 25 at the peak of the curve. And then stitch weld on a length of 1/2" round bar along the edge for smoothness.

S

Righteo
Update time - spent just a few hours last week with the owner getting the chassis ready for galvanizing.
Chassis delivered to the mob who will make it all shiny and silver yesterday.

Pretty happy with the final layout. Love the air springs! Big thanks to John (bush65) who gave some great advice regarding which springs to use. Also to other suggestions given and gleaned from these pages.

Mrs and I are heading OS for a few months so assembly wont take place till October but I will re-update then.

Final chassis weight as best we can determine (weigh both ends while other end hangs on crane) comes in at 190kg.
Ally boxes and lid weigh 175kg.
Total dry weight should come in under 600kg.

Will be plated to 1500kg ATM.

Water tank in back is about 200L. Main box is 2400x1300x500.
Front trapezoid box is fitted out with engel, 40L esky, 240AH battery, compressor and electrics.
Under that front box sits the Dexta electric over hydraulic brake controller and a small air resevoir.

Customer is happy - makes me happy.

Steve

So pics above show the final links geometry and spare wheel placement.


The ones below are the final (pre HDG) chassis.
The one with my ugly mug is with the chassis upwards, second with chassis down.

S

A couple with the boxes sitting in position.

Main box will be hinged at the leading edge with a 12V 3000N actuator used to lift the lid to about the position it is sitting in the second picture.

Aluminium plate will be used to make up wheel guards and to plate the space in front and behind the guards. This will then be welded to the main box centrally and bolted to the steel frame guards.

Steve

Final picture.
I like this photo! But it does show the damper position.
Bilsteins are GU patrol fronts (upside in picture obviously)
This photo is prior to the rear cross member being welded in. Upper damper mount is now tied to the rear cross member that also supports the water tank.

Anyways - fire away!

Steve

Originally Posted by isuzurover

I will take some pics and measurements on my bags. They rub slightly on the turret mounts, which has worn the bags, but no failure yet. The rover mounts are smooth rolled corners however.

Sorry just remembered I had forgotten to do this... Probably too late?

The weather is terrible here so the pic is a bit crap... Hopefully you can see the rub area? There is about an 8-10 mm gap between the spring and the turret at ride height with a light load.

Thanks for pic Ben!
Once we had it all linked up and flipped and loaded I saw that I would have troubles as you suggested.

If you look closely at the 2nd pic in post #25 you can see I have tapered the spring "buckets"

As usual with these things, we ran out of time to actually put it all back togetther after finish welding and then load it up and flog it along a dirt road like I would have liked to do.

I do regret not buying enough material to make two chassis and build two simultaneously.
The overall design came together well and I can see me being asked to build another one.

Next job that has been offered isto be an "offroad trailer for a 6m platey hardtop" geez now that will be a challenge. I am still deciding if I really want in on that one!

S