Thread: Who has shocks on their leaf spring camper?

Adam,

Back in my Ford days we used to put shockers as vertical as possible. The point to remember is that the more angled they are the stiffer they need to be to be effective. If you look at some of the older wagons such as a Kingswood or old Falcon you will see they are angled inwards. This also assists to a degree in roll stiffness, but not much. It's all about package constraints. You also need to put the lower mount as far out as possible. If you look at the Disco the lower mount is on a bracket mounted rite out by the wheel and well below the axle tube. This is to assist in getting it as verticle as possible. Do something similar and get the maximum out of your shocks.

You definately need double acting, and to stop/minimise spring wind-up under braking (I assume you are going for a braked trailer?) then stagger the axle mounts, one in front the other in the rear.

Just a question, what springs are you going to use? You need to get the longest possible and with very wide leaves. This will allow much greater articulation and the additional width will reduce the stresses and hence spring sag. I would be looking at the Falcon ute with the maximum rating. From memory these are the longest available and will carry about 1.2t, give about 12" of travel and are designed very conservatively (stress levels). If you need to carry more load then add air bags over the springs so you can adjust to the load variations likely.

hope this help Adam

i did try find the name of the shocks but no go sorry

Originally Posted by walker

That would be aswome. Also maybe a pic of how they are mounted .

I am thinking probably welding a mounting plate onto the leaf plate like this.

The trailer I got my shocks from was done like that and the welds had broken. I would if you can set it up like on the photos Highlin posted.

Thanks Ray, the pics you took were almost exactly as I imagined I would do it but will help a lot.

Ian, I understand what you are saying about mounting the shocks out as far as possible but I think I will be forced to put them on the iside of the spring as it is in the pics Ray put up. This is because the wheel will be too close to the body to fit a shock in there.

I have used off-road springs from a specialist spring maker in S.A. (industrialsprings.com.au). I did want to go as long as possible but it was the weight of the trailer (or lack of it) which limited what I bought. The problem was that the trailer is only going to weigh less than 700kg fully loaded and the lightest "extra long" springs were rated to 1200kg.

I have seen first hand what too hard a spring does to the contents of an off-road trailer so I wanted the springs to match the weight as best as possible.
This is the spring I have bought: http://www.industrialsprings.com.au/ies1145.htm

Let me know what you think.

Thinking about it know I probably should have bought something like an XJ spring although I don't know what they are rated.

I could have just made the trailer heavier or carried more junk but I though that defeated the purpose of a light off-road trailer.

Will mounting the shocks on an angle towards the centre of the trailer cause a decrease in shock ability? I have seen a few shocks mounted like this ( I think Nissans are mounted like this) but wondered if I am just better doing it as straight as possible.

Which are the double acting shocks? I think the tough dog foam cell only damp in one direction. Is it the mono shocks that are double acting?

Im not sure on exactly how your going to do your springs but might I suggest that the rear springs off of a LWB series and the mount plate for them would do you nicely as they provide a well mounted shocky bolt and theyd be good for a shade over a tonne a pair total and if you want em lighter just start pulling the smaller leaves out. If you can find an old wreck you can get away with it cheap.

On that note. If you want the Front spring mount plates Im pulling whats left of the frontof bug 2.0 apart shortly and your welcome to them, the shocks and the springs if its any good to ya.

Thanks, but like I said, I have already bought the springs, they are about to be welded on tomorrow.

On another note, I picked up the axle and springs and hitch on Monday finally. Got it home from Dandenong and went ot test it all out only to find they had installed a D1 stud pattern not D2.

Unfortunately they can't just change the hubs over, they have to do a whole new axle, something to do with the small PCD on the D2.
So they will have the new one ready Friday and I just have to go back and pick it up and give the other one back.

Adam,

If you look at an older Falcon station wagon the shocks are mounted inside the springs and angled toward the car centre. The lower point is mounted under the spring as far out board as possible. This is because of the packge constraint to keep the load floor as low as possible. This might be a solution for you and you could use off the shelf Ford type shockers. All the work will have been done for you, especially if you copy the geometry.

Adam,

Had a quick look at the springs you are getting. They have a military wrap according to the picture. This is a very good feature for an off road spring. the military wrap is where the second leaf wraps around both eyes at the ends of the first leaf. This is because one of the highest failure points on the spring is the eye and with the military wrap the second leaf allows you to at leat limp home (over many thousands of k, but a little slower).

Looks a good design, I'm not sure about the stress levels but they would have followed basic design principles and you should be ok. The one this I am unsure of is the amount of travel the spring is designed for. If you go over their recommendations this is where you will over stress the spring and cause failure. You probably want to talk to someone about the desing condition for the spring e.g. how much Jounce and rebound is allowed for in the design.

Just finished looking at the site you directed us to. They have a better spring for what you really need. It's the IES1210. It is longer by about 65mm which will make a huge difference to the wheel travel.