trailer suspension

cjmitchell5

Adventurer
Got another idea.....btw, all of these ideas are for a US M101 or M116 3/4 ton.

The trailer has a 3K loaded rating. So unloaded the six leaf pack is really stiff. Ideally, I'd like to buy the high speed trailing arm/airbag AT suspension kit. However, I just thought what if I removed all but one or two of the leafs and installed airbag helper springs?

I'm sure there are all kinds of bad reasons to not do this but they aren't coming to mind. (it's kinda late here)
 
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ExpoMike

Well-known member
This is very commonly done on lowered trucks. Remove all but the main leaf and then add airbags to allow adjustable height. If you want to add adjustable load capacity without changing ride height, then this would be a great setup. If you want independent suspension, well that's obvious it doesn't solve that.

What are your design goals or needs? That should dictate what you build.
 

ntsqd

Heretic Car Camper
The only caution I would add is to not plumb the two air springs together. Doing so will allow air to escape one spring and flow into the other. Picture a sidehill, downhill spring is getting compressed......

Could either keep them separate entirely or plumb in a separating valve.

Regardless of the suspension that you end up with, I would highly suggest that shocks be part of the picture.
 

Martyn

Supporting Sponsor, Overland Certified OC0018
The leaf springs will end up working as axle locators.

Issues to deal with;
Off the shelf air bag mounts won't hold up to the task, we ended up custom manufacturing 1/4" plate mounts.

You will need to add bump stops and limiting straps.

As suggested separate air to each bag and shock absorbers a must.
 

Cruiser

Adventurer
On the 116 the spring perches are quiet robust.. would it be possible to make a trailing arm/control arm to mount to the front perch and use that to locate the axle.. Kinda like the guys do with the airbag conversions on the ricer trucks?
 

ntsqd

Heretic Car Camper
I'll caution that I'm not trying to scare anyone away from trying this, only to point out where a simple difference in dimensions or design could make or break the whole project.

If you break down what's really happening in a leaf spring suspension, the front half of the main leaf is, among other things, a trailing arm. The rear half of the main leaf does a little less than 1/4 of the side to side locating work (due to the two bushings vs. the front's single bushing), but no front to back location since it's bolted to the shackle.

So a single trailing arm from each front spring hanger could work. Though there are a couple things that need to be kept in mind.
The main leaf has some arc in it. That allows it to act as a spring in the lateral direction as well as in the vertical direction. This has the effect of softening any hard hits (pot holes etc.) that would eventually impact the front spring mount. With a trailing arm you only have the compliance of the bushings to soften these hits. That may be enough, I'm not sure. I personally would use rubber rather than urethane bushings.
The other thing is that the leaf provides lateral location. The shackles couple with the front mounts via the main leaves to resist lateral dislocation of the axle. With a trailing arm you don't have that coupling and the amount of lateral dislocation possible could increase substantially depending on the rigidity of the fixing of the trailing arms to the axle.
One solution would be to not try to rigidly couple the trailing arms to the axle in the lateral direction and to use a trac-bar/panhard bar/whatever you want to call it instead.
Which opens up it's own little can of worms. The height of the trac-etc. bar, where it crosses the trailer's chassis centerline, determines the Roll Center of the suspension. A line drawn through this point and the center of the hitch ball is the Roll Axis. This is the line in space, the "hinge pin", that the frame pivots around the suspension. The further this line is away from the Center of Gravity of the trailer, the more the trailer will lean on a side hill. So, the bar wants to be as high as is reasonably possible.

Now something to keep in mind, but do not let it drive much of any decision. More just so that some of the dynamics involved are understood rather than something to worry over. Mixed springs, meaning more than one type of spring employed on one tire, can be a very difficult thing to get damped correctly. Were we talking some sort of race vehicle (of any sort) I would caution highly against doing this. The damping that a torsion bar needs is far different from the damping that a leaf spring needs, and both of those are far different from the damping that a coil spring needs. A trailer's damping needs aren't as refined, so a mixed spring set is much less of a damping concern.
 
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