Trailer Porn

azpowell said:

I though about doing something like that but was afraid I would mess up and drill a hole slightly off somewhere and the rollers would have to be placed in specific pockets to line up with the hole...

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Make a jig, center punch and drill a pilot hole, then drill to final size. A jig ensures repeatability, the center punch that the drill won't "walk", the pilot hole as the small drill will stay in the center punch dimple, the larger drill will stay in the center of the pilot hole.

Don't force any drill to cut, if you feel the drill motor under load from pressure, you're forcing it.

Use sharp drills, always, and let the drill cut the hole. Drilling steel, try to keep the drill turning less than 600 RPM and stop if it gets hot. Cutting oil is always better than no cutting oil, but isn't strictly necessary.

Just remember, heat is your enemy and will dull your drill faster than anything else.

A good quality set of drills should last years and years, garbage freight shit, minutes and hopefully minutes.

You cannot make a dull drill cut, no matter what. Learning how to sharpen drills is easy, once you learn. Learn it and you'll always have a sharp drill, and your perforating tasks, easy..

Just saying..

It depends on the starting down angle, and the diameter of your tires, so the clearance is generally tied to the bottom of the frame as that never moves. In order for you to realize more clearance under your trailer and the fender, depending on where it's mounted and to what, using torsion axles with down degree angles will give you more clearance.

On a system that has a 10 degree up axle, the center line of the spindle to the bottom of the trailer frame is approximately .96 inches. That is based on a newer system. If you have an older system on your trailer that measurement may be much less. For a 10 degree down you would have a difference of 2.08 inches. For 22.5 degree down, the difference would be about 3-1/3 inches, and for a 45 degree down torsion axle, the difference could be 5.28 inches. It's really a crap shoot with older axles as the standards were being developed and everyone was doing something different. Compression clearance will differ with the load rating too, so the heavier load the more compression.
You should realize that raising the trailer for more clearance will introduce more trailer sway by raising the center of gravity.

Whitewater Worthy Equip said:

That is safe assumption with humans

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I resemble that remark..

As far as Cupido76 learning more, here's a short primer

Torsional suspension axles are basically a steel square, with a smaller steel square inside, and the spaces between the square's occupied with rubber rods Dexter calls shock cords.

According to Dexter “Dexter would consider any Torflex arm that has moved more than ten degrees from the original build angle as weak or losing suspension”. But how would you know if your axle has sagged 10° or more when you don’t know what the start angle was?

The first test is to jack up each side of the trailer and watch to see if the wheel moves down as weight is removed from that side, if on either side the wheel does not drop at least 1½” the axle needs replacing. ALWAYS, in all instances, jack the trailer by the frame, NOT the axle as it's very likely you can bend it doing so.

Second, measure the diameter of your tire (as an example ST175/80D13 trailer tires have a diameter of 24″) and divide this number by 2 (in this case 12″). Now with the trailer sitting on level ground measure the distance from the ground to the top of the axle tube, either just ahead or behind the axle mounting brackets. Take the tire radius and subtract the frame to ground measurement, if the result is greater than 2½” your axle needs replacing (the above calculations are based on a fully loaded axle with an initial start angle of 0° to 10° up angle).

I posted the measurements for the other axle angles in an earlier post.

As an example: your trailer has ST175/80D13 tires which have a diameter of 24″, dividing the diameter by 2 gives you the radius of 12″.

The distance measured from the ground to the top of the axle measures 7″

12″-7″=5″ The axle arm has dropped more than 2″ and should be replaced

Here's a handy diagram


Here's a link to the Dexter site if you're interested