Thread: Opinions on Suspension, Brakes & Hitches

Glen,

I am going to throw a recomendation towards camel group
www.camelgroup.com.au



Speak to a fellow by the name of Dave (Scottish bloke) and tell him Scott Thompson with the 2 kids and a pregnant wife sent you, he will sort you out (I am hard to forget I have been told). They are at Parramatta Rd Underwood. Very helpful [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif[/img]

The unit I have is not a heavy duty one by any means but it has done me well for the last 2 years and is having no signs of trouble except the flat tyre it has at the moment.

Plus in trying to answer your questions, what do you intend using the trailer for, I take mine to a range of places and it does not have brakes or independant suspension, all depends on how much you are going to hurt it

Hi DiscoTDi,

I intend to take it just about everywhere I take the disco, except rockclimbing and local harder day trips.

I would expect it to go to the cape across the top end, gulf country and through the center, as well as a trip to tassie etc, it will also be used for weekend 4wd trips and normal camping trips/weekends away up the beach etc.

Hopefully it will be a home away from home and provide a comfortable base for exploring this great land.

Mate have a look at this camper
http://www.campertrailers.org/camper_trader2.htm

As for suspension leafs are the go for ease of maintainence and simplicity and override brakes too mainly because soft floor camper aren't heavy enough to warrent electric or hydrolic brakes.

Treg or trigg are the most popular hitches for the above reasons.

A good setup would be 7 or 9 leaf eye to eye heavy duty rebound leaf springs (this is a minimun) 50mm heavy duty axle with Ford bearings and Treg/Trigg hitch with override brakes.

This is our setup and i can tell you we have been some truely rough places with no problems at all, in fact the trailer is better than ever.

Baz.

Hi Glenn

Ditto Baz

I did a the axle under leaf, raised the camper enough
for a nice level ride

The weight of the camper doesn't warrant electric brakes
We only have the manual over-ride system and it works fine

Had it over some steep hills didnt know the difference
Also the Tregg hitch is a must, not enough travel in a ball mount

I'm coming in late but anyway...

I also have a CAMEL GROUP trailer which I don't regret getting. I got the Bushman which is their off-road trailer. DiscoTDI's is a Beachcomber.

I have done two long weekends and am about to do a three week road trip, so will let you know how it goes.

As DiscoTDi says, Dave the Scot is great but so is Norm the Aussie and Patrick(?) the South African.

I didn't shop around a real lot so am not sure how it compares but it was clearly better value than the few I had seen to this point.

After reading more on this site I do worry that the seals are a bit basic but as yet are untested beyond driving in heavy rain.

You asked for thoughts on suspension, hitches and brakes:

After reading the advice in http://aulro.com/modules.php?name=Forums&f...cc59eb62cbf0557 I started to worry more about the hangers than the suspension itself but mine look pretty solid to my novice eye. The hangers are not bent from anything as described in that post, they are brackets made from 8mm steel with a bolt running across the bracket to hold the spring. At the front the spring was around this bolt. At the back a second bolt hangs about an inch from the first bolt and the spring connects to the second bolt. I presume this is to allow some lateral movement. The bolts have grease nipples at one end so are probably part of the spring. The brackets are 150x75x8 where they attach to the chasis which seems to meet the advice in the mentioned thread. My point is to check the build quality of that connection. I describe mine only as a point of reference.

But this also got me thinking about chasis strength which I did not consider before hand. I just took their word that it was really strong and I guess I assumed there are standards for these things, which is an incorrect assumption. I would add this to your list of things to look at (but unlike me you probably know about these things already :roll: ). The chasis under my box is made up of 50x50x2 tubing but the length where the suspension attaches has an additional 50x50x2 welded to it and the hangers span these. The drawbar which I think is 100x50x4 attaches to this chasis just before the front hanger. It was a big selling point to them that the chasis and the drawbar are seperate.

The hitch on this model is an ORAC. I didn't research this enough and thought they were providing a tregg type device (my assumption). On the first trip I regretted this as I could not rehitch it due to the difficult approach angle and a small divot the jockey wheel was in. You have to be quite accurate in reversing the car to the pin. I almost lost the trailer trying to move it to a better location (my stupidity 8O). On the second trip I took a solid, flat bit of wood to put under a new jockey wheel with an "inflatable" tyre and this made it much, much easier. I had also practiced a fair bit in the driveway and there is a bit of technique in vertically aligning the pin with the holes which I am happy to describe if you go that way. I like the option of taking it to angles that I couldn't with the ball as I intend to do some serious off-road sometime. I don't imagine any of the hire trailers will have one for the reasons I mentioned, so if you want to come and play with one then PM me.

The LR gooseneck that came with my Disco was not suitable because it could not be inverted (to convert the drop to a rise) so I bought a 4" drop gooseneck for $75.

My father has a Tregg on his caravan and has no problems.

When we purchased it we had no intention of beach camping. We prefer forests. However some family members are now into it and I worry that the trailer will be too heavy for my ability at first. I think it is about 750kg empty. DiscoTDI's is much less than that hence no need for the brakes (it is called a Beachcomber).

I am a real novice but I am not sure the assumption about independant suspension being better is correct. Norm agreed with me but said that most customers wanted it which is why they used to offer it on their now discontinued Extreme model. However he may have just wanted to get rid of me, I had been there a while ops:

Well that reply went on for a bit, even after several re-edits!

Go the leaf suspension, easier to fix at the side of the road... just ask Hiline.... we had to fix the trailer on the way up to ACE's BBQ last weekend and we used a hi-lift jack, as the eye that held the leaf on broke (was over loaded and the weld's where, let's ***** house to begin with).

Also go the overrun brakes, also easier to fix and not as expensive to maintain, especially if you are going to be doing a lot of offroading !!

That's my two cents worth.

Matt.

Hi Glen,
I've had a Cavalier CT for several yeras now. I has the very basic rebound spring suspension which seems to work fine. It tracks well and doesn't really bounce to much unless the trailers empty, which is never.

Try the people on www.campertrailers.org They are didicated to this subject.

Cheers,
Kenjo

Originally posted by DiscoStew


I also have a CAMEL GROUP trailer which I don't regret getting. I got the Bushman which is their off-road trailer. DiscoTDI's is a Beachcomber.

The Beachcomber is still an off road trailer, but basically is not designed to do the more heavy duty trips, a simple adjustment of the suspension and it will be right for just about anything. Mind you I will say it has been up the beach through the bush and down some very corrigated crappy roads and has no signs of stress in the chassis or suspension. I prefer the lighter trailer off road as it is much better to tow and I can still carry alot of gear, get alot further than others and use less fuel.

But at the end of the day it is each to their own and what suits there needs.