AT trailer didn't really fail so bad

[Jjgres]

I'm late to the party but I was reading the locked "AT trailer failed on the Road of Bones" thread and thought I could contribute some info as I was on the trip.

Like any good reality show, we had a deadline. Flights were planned, the trip cost Suzuki a bundle. Sending parts to a moving target in Russia is hard to do. Hence, we didn't wait around for a new shock.

The Suzuki cars were not stock- they had suspension work and skid plates.

The trucks were pretty stock. One cracked a PS line but it was a slow leak.

The roads we took were remote- not many Advanced Auto stores around. We didn't try to break the trailer-we made several attempts to fix the broken shock/shock mount and lowered the tire pressure, installed a huge bump stop. We finally quit worrying about the trailer and it was fine. Made it to Magadan which is not-fail in my book. In fact, with the right side running swingarm on the bumpstop the beating it took was worse than normal.

The motorcycle lost some bolts, and my gear fell into the wheel derailing the chain, a oil line came loose. All of which we fixed and it ran fine.

baja is much rougher than the Road of Bones.

The road got so slick I could only do walking speed on the bike. The deadline had us loading it onto a truck for a hundred kilometers or so.

 

[Sirocco]

Locked thread? I would love to read the comments as we are planning to take a trailer from the UK to Magadan via Central Asia/Mongolia. Do you have a link? I want to know what Im in for! I think we are well prepared, but im always searching for info. We are also looking into doing the BAM western section (Vitim bridge etc).

any info most appreciated.

G

 

[Jjgres]

It's buried back around row 20-something in this section. I found it nostalgically googling the Russian trip.



On the trip- you will have fun. Russia is a huge place. We did 3300 miles going up the east side and we were not near the top. It took like 10 hours to fly east to west from Moscow.

 

[Jjgres]

http://www.motorcyclistonline.com/f...ad_of_bones_vladivostok_to_magadan/index.html

This should be a shameless self promotion link to the MC viewpoint.

 

[elcoyote]

AT picked up the Chaser after its trip to analyze the damage and make repairs. The damage actually was minimal and we were quite pleased that the trailer completed the adventure despite missing a strut. This trailer suspension was different in that we used Fox coil over struts with remote reservoirs instead of air struts. We chose this option for the increased oil capacity. As it turns out, the line between the remote oil reservoir and the strut was somehow severed on the journey and lost its oil. Without its dampenng oil, the strut hammered itself to death. The hammering lead to metal fatigue to one of the strut mounts. The mount broke.

A testament to Fox quality is that the remaining strut continued to perform under increased load and dampening duties despite not having it pre-load re-adjusted.

The AT Chaser has since been repaired and returned to Automotive Events at no charge, ready for the next big challenge AE has to throw at it.

 

[cnynrat]

Thanks for letting us know about the rest of the story.

Not that I needed it, but it reinforces my confidence in the robustness of my Horizon.