Timbren Alternatives??

[high-and-dry]

I went thru the same thing. go look at my axle thread title i got my axle its wrong. The first wrong axle was ordered thru bend trailers, they sent it to redneck trailers. I dont know if redneck deals direct with with customers but you might want to look them up. Then they went thru tex trail for the new axle, who only sells to other resellers.

As for dexter, yes you can call the Indiana plant where the troflex are made and order but you will pay more. As for specing the axle its tricky but not too hard. Yes they sell with jeep and toyota lug spacing. A warning with the toyota spacing, you cant run center caps on the rim without using a spacer, even then the rim is like a 1/4 inch from the "swing" arm with no speacer. I ordered a 1/4 shim spacer just to give me a little more room. Also the lugs are 1/2 inch, they will not work with stock toyota lug nuts, and standard 1/2 lug nuts will not work with toyota rims. You have two options, put in new lugs at 6 bucks each, or special lug nuts at 20 something for 20 of em ( thats how I went ) thread below on toyota rim stuff.

Now to do the math on axles, you need to remember a couple things. One trailer rims have 0 offset, so if you go different rims you need to take this in to account. Next there are limits to the torflex axle, ie how close or far the hub face is from the support/frame. So if you doing a custom frame I say start with how wide you want the rims. figure out how far the hub face on the rim is from the inside of the tire your going to run. Then add an inch or two for clearance. then figure thats where the frame has to go. Then you need to make sure your with in the required space, I think its 4 min, 9 max.

My hub space is 68 inches, my frame is 52 inches. I will edit a pic in of the axle with the rim attached ( no 1/4 inch spacer ) in a few mins so you can see how it works out

I had to draw it out one side full scale to make sure it works. I recommend doing that, start with where the rims will be, draw in the hub face ( using the actual offset of the rim and tire )
then work out the frame location.

If your going on the existing frame, measure the out side of the frame, look at the rim/tire and see how far out you need the hub face to clear the frame by an inch or so. then make sure it fits the min max that torflex can do.

Wrong axle received, new axle also received. case closed.

Okay I ordered a dexter torflex axlw thru bend trailers in oregon. I specified on the order form the weight I wanted. I spoke to 2 people there, which is a total night mare out of a few calls. I left 4 or 5 messages never received a return call. The axle is a number 10, was supposed to be rated...

expeditionportal.com

M100 aftermarket axle for Toyota bolt pattern

I am going thru this right now as well. The main reason for using the spacer is it lets the center cap fit, if you look at the pic Mischief posted above you can see the grease cap is out to far. Also using the spacers would allow you get the spacer nicely lug centered and tight then the rim...

expeditionportal.com

BTW i found timbren harder to spec out, figuring the ride height part out was impossible. I spoke to timbren, they said they cant spec it, call etrailer, etrailer said they cant spec it they just want the part numbers I want, they said call timbren to spec it out. Well i am using a torflex due to that issue.

 

[old_CWO]

I went thru the same thing. go look at my axle thread title i got my axle its wrong. The first wrong axle was ordered thru bend trailers, they sent it to redneck trailers. I dont know if redneck deals direct with with customers but you might want to look them up. Then they went thru tex trail for the new axle, who only sells to other resellers.

As for dexter, yes you can call the Indiana plant where the troflex are made and order but you will pay more. As for specing the axle its tricky but not too hard. Yes they sell with jeep and toyota lug spacing. A warning with the toyota spacing, you cant run center caps on the rim without using a spacer, even then the rim is like a 1/4 inch from the "swing" arm with no speacer. I ordered a 1/4 shim spacer just to give me a little more room. Also the lugs are 1/2 inch, they will not work with stock toyota lug nuts, and standard 1/2 lug nuts will not work with toyota rims. You have two options, put in new lugs at 6 bucks each, or special lug nuts at 20 something for 20 of em ( thats how I went ) thread below on toyota rim stuff.

Now to do the math on axles, you need to remember a couple things. One trailer rims have 0 offset, so if you go different rims you need to take this in to account. Next there are limits to the torflex axle, ie how close or far the hub face is from the support/frame. So if you doing a custom frame I say start with how wide you want the rims. figure out how far the hub face on the rim is from the inside of the tire your going to run. Then add an inch or two for clearance. then figure thats where the frame has to go. Then you need to make sure your with in the required space, I think its 4 min, 9 max.

My hub space is 68 inches, my frame is 52 inches. I will edit a pic in of the axle with the rim attached ( no 1/4 inch spacer ) in a few mins so you can see how it works out

I had to draw it out one side full scale to make sure it works. I recommend doing that, start with where the rims will be, draw in the hub face ( using the actual offset of the rim and tire )
then work out the frame location.

If your going on the existing frame, measure the out side of the frame, look at the rim/tire and see how far out you need the hub face to clear the frame by an inch or so. then make sure it fits the min max that torflex can do.

Wrong axle received, new axle also received. case closed.

Okay I ordered a dexter torflex axlw thru bend trailers in oregon. I specified on the order form the weight I wanted. I spoke to 2 people there, which is a total night mare out of a few calls. I left 4 or 5 messages never received a return call. The axle is a number 10, was supposed to be rated...

expeditionportal.com

M100 aftermarket axle for Toyota bolt pattern

I am going thru this right now as well. The main reason for using the spacer is it lets the center cap fit, if you look at the pic Mischief posted above you can see the grease cap is out to far. Also using the spacers would allow you get the spacer nicely lug centered and tight then the rim...

expeditionportal.com

BTW i found timbren harder to spec out, figuring the ride height part out was impossible. I spoke to timbren, they said they cant spec it, call etrailer, etrailer said they cant spec it they just want the part numbers I want, they said call timbren to spec it out. Well i am using a torflex due to that issue.

Lots of good info in this post regarding how to measure, thanks! My "rule of thumb" is 1.5" clearance from tire sidewall to closest contact point of the trailer, whatever that may be; fender well, chassis, etc.

Just like with lifted trucks or hot rods, start with your actual tire/wheel combo and work backwards on the dimensions and engineering.

 

[high-and-dry]

okay pic time. As you can see the swing arm thing is a 1/4 from the rim, this is with a 15 inch rim. I would assume a 16 or larger rim this would not be an issue. remember My hub facing is 68 and frame is 52. Thats 8 inches from the hub face to the frame. there is about 3.5 inches from the outside of the bracket to the outside of the swing arm. I have about 2 inches of clearance to the frame from the tire. So you could use my numbers, and add 16 inches to the frame width you have and you would be okay. You might be able to go closer, but again I think the min from the bracket is 4 to the hub face 9 max ( dont quote me on that ) .

adding second pic to show clearance from where the frame will be. sorry kind of hard to take a pick when everything is black.

hope this helps ... edit, that is a brand new axle never mounted, and you can see all the paint missing from it before it even got used.

 

[old_CWO]

Timbren alternative? Straight axle and leaf springs.

There's just no reason to beat your head against the wall when a simple and perfectly effective solution has been with us literally since horse and buggy days...

 

[high-and-dry]

I dont want to edit the thread above incase some one has read it and misses info. With a toyota rim, figure add 15 inches min ( i did 16 ) to the frame width and it should work. Thats with 31 10.5 r 15 tires.

 

[Louisd75]

Timbren alternative? Straight axle and leaf springs.

There's just no reason to beat your head against the wall when a simple and perfectly effective solution has been with us literally since horse and buggy days...

You could always go with a push-rod leaf spring design if you want to to add some adjustability and be different from the crowd

 

[high-and-dry]

You could always go with a push-rod leaf spring design if you want to to add some adjustability and be different from the crowd

I see how the spring setup works. I dont see anything that controls axle location. That system might work well with a 4 link setup, or an unsprung trailing arm.

 

[Louisd75]

I see how the spring setup works. I dont see anything that controls axle location. That system might work well with a 4 link setup, or an unsprung trailing arm.

It's difficult to see in that picture, but it's an IFS setup. The triangles with the linkages transmit movement from the arms to the leaf springs. The crosspiece that looks like it's part of an axle is what the swing arms are attached to. The guy is putting the underpinnings of a Lexus into an older truck and using parts on hand to try to save money. I don't think it'll be better than going with coils and I think it makes leaf springs unnecessarily complicated, but do have to give the guy credit for figuring out a way of "making it work" with what he had on hand. I think it also has a benefit of being able to fine tune your leaf spring suspension without having to add/remove leafs.

There's a better explanation and more pictures here: https://www.thedrive.com/news/36828...rt-of-this-crazy-ford-f100-lexus-ls400-mashup

 

[old_CWO]

It's difficult to see in that picture, but it's an IFS setup. The triangles with the linkages transmit movement from the arms to the leaf springs. The crosspiece that looks like it's part of an axle is what the swing arms are attached to. The guy is putting the underpinnings of a Lexus into an older truck and using parts on hand to try to save money. I don't think it'll be better than going with coils and I think it makes leaf springs unnecessarily complicated, but do have to give the guy credit for figuring out a way of "making it work" with what he had on hand. I think it also has a benefit of being able to fine tune your leaf spring suspension without having to add/remove leafs.

There's a better explanation and more pictures here: https://www.thedrive.com/news/36828...rt-of-this-crazy-ford-f100-lexus-ls400-mashup

From the article: This particular project has been going on for 16 months

Any performance gains wouldn't be worth that much mucking about for me no matter how little cash is in the project. Pretty sure I can fine tune a simple pair of pickup truck leaf springs a little faster than field engineering that contraption.

Interesting nonetheless. If it weren't for guys like that we certainly would never learn anything new, that's for sure. Bravo to him.

I obstinately stand by my assertion: if building the type of trailer we are discussing with other than a straight axle and leaf springs you're tilting at windmills. Regardless, I enjoy so much of the creativity that I see in these builds and certainly have stolen shamelessly many ideas presented.

Cheers!

 

[Louisd75]

From the article: This particular project has been going on for 16 months

Any performance gains wouldn't be worth that much mucking about for me no matter how little cash is in the project. Pretty sure I can fine tune a simple pair of pickup truck leaf springs a little faster than field engineering that contraption.

Interesting nonetheless. If it weren't for guys like that we certainly would never learn anything new, that's for sure. Bravo to him.

I obstinately stand by my assertion: if building the type of trailer we are discussing with other than a straight axle and leaf springs you're tilting at windmills. Regardless, I enjoy so much of the creativity that I see in these builds and certainly have stolen shamelessly many ideas presented.

Cheers!

16 months includes everything though... moving the entire drive train from a newer Lexus to an older Ford. I agree that it isn't worth it if your goal is be on the road as fast as possible but it's not too bad for a part time hobby.

As for our trailers, my leaf springs are still chugging along like champs