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Thread: Soft ride trailer
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3rd Nov 2015, 11:01 AM #16Golden Member
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My next trailer will have car running gear - specifically a three link with Land Cruiser radius arms and panhard and a solid axle. Bags or coils, haven't decided yet. If you used this system with dual axles and bags that'd work. Requires fab skills compared to off-the-shelf components. Less fab skills than building a dog though.
A few people have done this over the last couple of years and described their builds on the internet. It's appealing for a lightweight but heavy duty trailer.
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3rd Nov 2015, 03:29 PM #17Novice
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Legion
If yiu happen to be able to point me the tight direction for one of these builds I'd live to look at one
Dave TTC
Turning Wood Into Art
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3rd Nov 2015, 03:39 PM #18Golden Member
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Got the idea off this guy:
http://www.myswag.org/index.php?topic=31775.0
(let me know if the link doesn't work, maybe you need to be a member)
Others have done it since then on other forums that probably won't show up unless you're a member. But I think dieseldude's was well described.
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3rd Nov 2015, 03:41 PM #19Novice
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Worked good. Great array of oics. Will look at it in detail tonight.
Thanks
Dave TTC
Turning Wood Into Art
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3rd Nov 2015, 05:50 PM #20Too many projects, so little time, even less money!Are you a registered member? Why not? click here to register. It's free and only takes 37 seconds! Doing work around the home? Wander over to our sister site, Renovate Forum, for all your renovation queries.
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4th Nov 2015, 08:02 PM #21Most Valued Member
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4th Nov 2015, 10:19 PM #22Banned
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4th Nov 2015, 11:24 PM #23Golden Member
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Maybe a little but with suitable coils and a long enough panhard rod it's probably not going to be much. The panhard I've got is from an 80 series or 100 series rear end and it's long.
Other idea is to use Land Cruiser rear control arms and some custom fab to build a reverse Watts link. They should be short enough. I've got some others from a front end I think, with a curved section, but they're a bit long for a Watts, 800mm eye to eye.
But a panhard would be much easier.
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4th Nov 2015, 11:29 PM #24Golden Member
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You could do it with inline springs. I'm sure 200 series front end springs are shorter than the back end and surely strong enough. Or inline bags would be short enough and give the soft ride that this thread was about, right?
I like the engineering aspect of a custom linked trailer suspension compared to a leaf spring kit. Way more interesting.
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5th Nov 2015, 10:27 AM #25Golden Member
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Timely, someone's updated another thread with the same idea:
http://www.myswag.org/index.php?topic=40452.0
This one's got bags and Patrol running gear.
There's a good photo of the panhard rod on p2. I reckon with that length the wheels would only shift an inch at full travel. You could minimise it even more by setting it up so the panhard was horizontal at normal running height but that would be a bit harder than what he's done. I.e. because his rod is mounted between the axle and body it can't go beyond horizontal without bottoming out. You'd have to mount it in front/behind the axle to allow it to go above/below horizontal.
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5th Nov 2015, 10:31 AM #26Novice
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I cant see the pic?
I dont know what a panhard rod is but am interested
Dave TTC
Turning Wood Into Art
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5th Nov 2015, 11:10 AM #27Golden Member
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I downloaded this one picture off myswag to show you how he did it. Happy to delete if metalwork/myswag members don't like that. Might be worth signing up to myswag because there are lots of clever trailer builders there too, including some crossover from this forum and vice versa.
panhard_rod_trailer.jpg
A panhard rod is a lateral locating device. Here, looking from the back, you can see it's attached to the axle at one side and the chassis at the other. It means that as the suspension articulates and the axle travels up and down, the chassis point is fixed and the axle point travels along the circumference of a large circle. So as the axle goes up and down it stays relatively vertical.
A panhard rod is simple enough and only requires two mounting points and should be low-maintenance and fairly bulletproof.
A Watts link is much more complex and requires five mounting points but should have much less lateral movement as the axle goes up and down. The geometry is straightforward but lots more fabrication involved.
You could also do literally dozens of other suspension setups but the three link/panhard version has the advantage of simplicity.
Depends how much you like design/engineering/fabrication I guess, how far you want to take it.
There are other cool ideas I've thought about too, like the Porsche 928 sort-of series had a really cool rear axle torque tube suspension thing. Some other vehicles also had it, like VW bugs. If you found a cheap wrecking 928 and the rear weight limits fit a trailer/camper design that would be pretty interesting. But if something went wrong it would obviously not be off the shelf parts like LandCruiser/Patrol/etc.
porsche_rear_suspension.jpg
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5th Nov 2015, 11:17 AM #28Novice
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Cool. Thanks.
For leaf suspension i presume less play therefore not needed.
I can see i will be building a trailer to get by and hopefully a real good one in a couple of years. This had been very informative
Dave TTC
Turning Wood Into Art
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5th Nov 2015, 11:24 AM #29Golden Member
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I guess the width of the leaves and the width of the bolts is enough to prevent lateral movement.
The radius arm idea has (factory) rubber bushes in the arms so even though the attachment points with LandCruiser arms is maybe 3" bolts, the rubber bushes would allow some lateral movement and you wouldn't want to e.g. start oscillating at highway speeds or something so you need that lateral location of the panhard rod.
Triangulated 4-link another cool idea that you could do with factory control arms.
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6th Nov 2015, 10:14 AM #30Golden Member
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I've done more procrastination at work since the three-link has piqued my interest. I've remembered/revisited some old ideas of commercial implementations of it in the crazy USA.
- the "Tee Nee" boat trailer
- the Holsclaw motorcycle trailer
- one truly frightening one, the Yakima Rack and Roll trailer.
The Yakima has no axle, no panhard rod, just trailing arms and springs. And it rides on tyres like motorbike tyres. And yet, somehow, it appears to be street legal over there.
The first two are pretty basic and diverge from the original question in this thread - it's more along the the lines of "super lightweight, super simple suspension yet great riding trailers". However, soft ride seems to go along with it.
And finally, another airbag three-link (the post by StumpXJ):
http://www.expeditionportal.com/foru...uestions/page3
from memory that guy should have the experience to believe what he says when he recommends it. Really simple setup he's got, not using vehicle-scavenged parts just mostly straight tube.
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