CT suspension

I've had both, ALKO on a small caravan which eventually failed and involved a long ride on a tilt tray and a very expensive replacement with leaf springs in a small outback town.
We've also towed a off road camper all over Oz during the last 25 years fitted with leaf springs and shock absorbers with zero problems. when others travelling with us have had spring probs (only ever twice) we could repair it without too much bother to get out and mobile to somewhere to effect a permanent repair.
The short answer is that leaves can be repaired but with the alko type you can only fit a chock/wedge between the arm and the frame to keep the wheel down. Basically if it is stuffed you are too.

I have had alko rubber suspension on camper trailers and off road trailers they have two versions std and h/duty off road, i've always used the off road version as long as you get the right load rating no problems i have towed trailers across the simpson and all over the place no problems at all.

I have an old CT with leaf springs. I did the centre bolt and the leaves were edging out in to the tyre at Lawn hill. Fixed straight away. Couple of days later snaped two leaves on the other side. Fixed that day with replaced leaves at Winton. I had no probs.

I've owned a Dingo off road CT since 1996 fitted with Alko suspension.

I was told after i puchased it that Alko had a bad history of sagging so out of curiosity i messured the wheel hieght from the wheel to the guard and engraved the number on the chassis...9 years on and it has sagged about 5 mm.this camper has done 2 trips to the cape with friends( never with me i'm afraid )one trip with the father in law who did a 3 month trip around OZ which included Ayers Rock and the Kimberly the great Australian Bight and the Ondadatta track (he told me before he left he would be 90% sealed road driving..yer right ).
l have been on numerous trips with friends and seen leaf spring and coil spring suspension fail but never seen or heard of Alko failing.
For my money it would be the best around but it does have some short falls namely it does not have a lot of wheel travel.

If yu are just giving the choice of Al-Ko or leaf spring suspension & you want to go to remote areas, then the choice is simple ......... rebound leaf suspension.

Hi uncle
Haven't seen ALKO, but have used CT and trailers with leaf suspension. Best setup was long leaf springs with good quality shockers. Short leaf springs (even proper eye-to-eye ones) are too choppy for offroad IMHO.
Regards
John

G'day Uncle,
We have a Trak shak CT with leaf springs and good quality shockers, and have not had one ounce of trouble. Our CT has done about 40,000ks in 5 years mainly on dirt, and can be loaded up quite heavily with 70kg tinnie on top and all the gear crammed in for a family of 6. Trak shak does come out with an option of coils, but they recommend you take a spare coil and stub axle. (you have to wonder why?). A mate of mine has this one and has replaced suspension. Coils are a better ride and probably can go faster, but leafs are more reliable.

Cheers
David M

Have leafs on mine, shackle type, not slipper. Over the years I've broken one spring. Was easy to source spares. Wouldn't like to try getting spares for Alko system in the bush.....

Also, a snapped leaf sring can be jury rigged quite easily to get you going again, at least enough to get you to the next town.

Cheers.........

My parents busted the Alko suspension on their offroad Caravan (yeah its not a CT) , in Cowra , that has an Alko Dealer. Took him 3 days to source the parts from Melbourne. Cowra isn't exactly the Back of beyond.

They also had no end of troubles with tyre scrubbing because of the suspension.

Uncle, I sold my Dingo last year after 7 or 8 years of reasonably rugged use. Alko suspension was still intact and caused no real issues. I have heard unsubstantiated stories of failure and was warned not to leave the CT loaded up when not in use for long periods. My biggest complaint with it was that everything in the trailer copped a rough ride (limited wheel travel). The trailer also tended to bounce about a bit on rough tracks. I now have a CT with eye to eye leaf springs, no shockers. After completing 22000ks over last 4 months including GRR and Kalumburu ( as well as the rest of the big lap) we didn't break so much as a cup. It also carries a frige. I chose the leaf spring mainly because SWMBO and I were travelling alone and the "jury rig" option if a spring did break appealed to me. I was beastly careless about shockers as they present another possible point of failure particularly over long corrugated driving. Easy enough to address and I accept that they improve the ride / handling. I was attracted Alko when I bought the Dingo but would take some convincing to go back to it.

Many thanks for this feedback guys,and we are a little more enlightened now on a few points that were brought up.Thanks again and enjoy this weekend everyone.

Hi Roachie,main reason is budget,most of the coiled models are out of our price bracket.However I have a good mehcanical friend who works on the V8 supercars each year at Bathurst,and has just built a new Rx7 for Leanne Ferrier.His design on the suspension system for her car is incredible!We've only just been talking about the possibility of designing a coil sytem using Datsun 1600 trailing arms,stengthened and then putting in the Lovells and Either Decarbon or bilstein shocks.