Wednesday, Apr 26, 2006 at 17:04
If you feel the contents are buncing around too much, it may be too stiff.
I am going through the same thing with my CT at the moment.
It has the ALKO offroad 7 leaf spring set up rated at 1500kg axle load.
The trailer is only rated to 750kg gross.
Some obvious answers I know, but here goes.
First, have you played with tyre pressures? If a 750kg trailer, they can be less than what you run on the car, axle load is less. That is the easiest way to add more give. Use the 4 psi rule and
check temperatures. You do air down your trailer tyres when you air down your 4wd tyres for off road use?
2nd is also obvious, drive a little slower and try and pick a better line!
(Sorry about that one, but there are some slow thinkers out there :-))
3rd, Load it up to see what it looks like.
The ALKO site says that
the springs will flex 50mmm on full load, but I have at least double that in
suspension travel.
If it is not bottoming out when going over rough tracks, you may be able to reomove one spring (the shortest one), or go for softer coil springs.
If you have shock absorbers, are they rebound only? That would help too.
When setting up springs on our race cars, we try and get just under full
suspension travel for each track/course to maximise travel and traction. As you have found, too stiff a
suspension is almost as bad (but not quite) as a too soft
suspension which bottoms out all of the time.
Interested to see what others may come up with.
AnswerID:
169120
Follow Up By: DiscoCamper - Wednesday, Apr 26, 2006 at 17:28
Wednesday, Apr 26, 2006 at 17:28
Yes drive a bit slower on a better line; I was not going that fast for the conditions (
well at least in the discovery)
I might look at softening the leaf springs and adding a shock absorber.
Has anyone added shocks to their trailer or did you get a
suspension specialist to do it
FollowupID:
424460
Follow Up By: Shaker - Wednesday, Apr 26, 2006 at 17:42
Wednesday, Apr 26, 2006 at 17:42
A friend of
mine took out either 1 or 2 leaves, (I can find out if you like), & fitted shockers, he has since done thousands of kms in the high country, Fraser Island & all through the outback with no problems, prior to the mods it bucked around & damaged gear, smooth as since!
FollowupID:
424467