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Old 05-28-2020, 05:14 PM   #21
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ggrvguy View Post
When I first got my camper, I replaced the tires which appeared to be original, and all the suspension bushings and shackles. I opted to go with the never fail, based on price and how much I intended to tow. My camper only weighs less than 4000, but all the bushings were worn almost thru . I have no idea how many miles were on it. I felt the grease-able bushings weren't worth the price for me, plus I thought it would be a maintenance headache I didn't need. My thinking at the time was, the grease would attract dirt that would get into the bushings and wear faster than the plastic ones.
Gary G
Before there were a lot of seal options for bushings, things were greased on some maintenance schedule. The new grease pushes all of the old grease out, dirt should never really goe back into the bushing unless it's really wore out with a huge gap. Most of what looks like dirt in a old bushings is more likely metal particulate that abraids off when not greased enough. I've had 2 JD garden tractors over the last 40 years that have seal-less brass wheel and front steering bushings that I've never had to replace, but I grease them once or twice a year. Obviously hard to compare to a TT, but the tractor is in really dusty, dirty service. I've also had a dozen or more motorcycles, back in the 70s a lot of the swingarm (some nylon, some brass) bushings had grease fittings and didn't have grease seals. I just did a swingarm bushing replacement on a 1972 Honda, dirt didn't seem to be the problem, lack of grease was.

I thought the Never Fail bushings were about the same price as brass bushings. I did see a lot of people that had the Never Fail bushings fail, so greased brass hopefully will last longer.
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Old 05-28-2020, 06:00 PM   #22
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JohnB FYI, I did the test of drilling a leaf spring. I just drilled out the center hole larger that bolts the 3 leafs together. Original hole was 7/16" (0.438") and I picked a hole size of 15/32" (0.469") because that probably in the range (30-40 thousandths) of what you have to do to get the spring eye to 0.750" (I also had a 15/32" reamer all though I should have drilled hole undersize).

After I got the hole indexed in, I tried drilling with a Harbor Freight 15/32", cobalt plated 118 deg drill bit. I use slow speed and lots of cutting oil with high feed pressure. The first attempt didn't get very far, but I could tell, that there was a good chance of doing this if I got the variables right.

As I'm sure you know, general purpose 118 deg HSS drill bits are really only good for softer materials. Also I wanted to take the Harbor Freight cheap tool factor out of the equation also, so I used an uncoated black drill bit that was from an industrial supply, and reground it to a 135 deg angle. This is much better for harder metals and SS. I used about 350-400rpm , oiled it up with a heavy feed pressure, and it went though it like butter.

So the only reason I really don't want to fool with this option is because I'd have to disconnect the axle from the leaf spring, so I could set it up squarely in my Smithy drill/mill head. But if leaf spring is off, this is a viable option.
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Old 05-29-2020, 02:14 PM   #23
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RRS2670 View Post
. Snip...

My frame hanger is a 3-1/4" frame to bolt center dimension which requires an over slung (axle on bottom of leaf spring).

I have debated whether I want to just use one cross member support, like the MORryde Xfactor adjustable cross member, or do all three. My cheapness tells me I don't want to spend the ~$130ea for the MORryde to do all 3. My assumption is that there is a lot more force exerted on the center hanger since it's supporting to leaf spring ends, so maybe one is better than none. Then there is the fabrication side of me that says, I can probably buy 3" channel and make 3 of them to fit for the same price as 1 MORryde. My problems with that is time, I seem overbooked even though I'm semi retired.
What do you think about one cross member for the equalizers? My frame looks to be 5" x 1-3/4" hot rolled channel.
Hi Russ,

You are correct that the center hanger for the equalizer takes more stress then the front or rear hanger. You have the shorter hangers with the 3 1/4" frame to hole center. And you have the 5" C channel frame. Both of those are in your favor. If you are going to do only 1 hanger, then yes do the center hanger.

I had that same frame setup on my 2004 T2499 and I had the same concrete driveway pad to do a hard 180 turn on as I use to have with the T310SR, until we moved to the new place.

Granted the T2499 only weighed ~ 6,500 lb loaded verses the close to 10,000# on the T310SR, but the T310SR has the I beam style main frame, not box tube and not 5" C channel that Sunline has used over the years on the 7,000# GVWR chassis. I never noticed the hanger bending issue on my T2499 doing the same turn around. Lower weight, shorter hanger and stiffer lower flange on the 5" C channel I attribute that is a much better setup and less hanger deflection. You may be able to get by with no hanger reinforcement. I have no data to show that combo is a problem, although I have a good feeling that there is not a lot of extra safety margin.

Anyone with the I beam frame, 5", 6" or 10" can and will in time given the right circumstances, have issues. Hard turns on dry pavement, off roading, cross country highway driving even can aggravate the issue. Highway driving with lots of miles is just a lot of flexing even with normal turning.

The problem is the lower flange on this I shape has almost no left to right stability unless it is reinforced. Sunline would weld on a angled gusset at the center hanger which helped stiffen that hanger attachment but it by itself will not solve the issue. I have pics if wanted. But they did not install any hanger reinforcement on the front and rear hangers. That coupled with 5" hanger centers (frame to hole center) makes the hanger very weak in left to right stability. In time, the main frame web would crack, the 8,600 and 10,000# GVWR Sunline campers had this show up. The 5 or 6" ones may have had it too, just I have not heard or seen them do it yet, but the issues exist. This is not only a Sunline issue, but was industry wide on many brands of campers back in that era when they started using the I beam frames. Lippert even had a NHTSA alert on the frame web cracks that this can happen and how to fix it. Which was cross braces and hander reinforcement.

This post in case you didn't see it, is how I addressed the I beam frame flex before my frame web cracked. https://www.sunlineclub.com/forums/f...ics-12143.html

I added the cross tubes to BenB's 2006 T26SR as a precaution. I have seen and told the owner of a 2007 T286SR with an actual cracked frame web of the issue and sure enough, his was cracked. He had a welder fix the issue.

Campers that go off road have the flexing issue even more aggravated as the ups and overs create an entire twist in the main frame. I have a 2007 T2499 as a project camper and it has the I beam frame. I will reinforce that camper along with the header when I get to restoring it.
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Old 05-29-2020, 02:53 PM   #24
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RRS2670 View Post
Just thought I'd throw in a couple of pictures. If you look at the picture with the wheels on, you can see how misaligned they look from the excessive play. I have to cut hard when I'm backing in my spot causing wheels to try and pivot. I'm sure this puts a ton of stess on the bushings in spring hanger and equalizers pivots. You can also see the elongation of the holes in the shackles and what's left of the bushings.

Here's some of the components I just purchased.
LCI Armor Equalizer, this has a good comparison of Dexter and MORryde (not named in video) at about 2 minutes in a 4 minute video.


I also find it interesting in that very good video, they are testing the new Road Armor equalizer using 1/2" thick shackle links. Yet, I cannot find LCI selling 1/2" heavy duty shackle kits in any of their brands, yet anyway. They sell their Never Fail bushing setup with new pins and shackles, but they are the older 1/4" thin plates that have all the same issues. I wonder why they have not jumped on the upgrade wagon and get a HD shackle link kit to sell. I too have bought the Mor-Ryde HD upgrade shackle kit as well as the Dexter kit. I have no issues with either brand in quality on the HD kit.

LCI bought the Trail Aire brand/company many years back and now I see they are upgrading design to it to the Road Armor thanks to you. Before this new design, all I saw was fixes to the failures on the original design.

I like what I see and I will need to look into them deeper to see if it will fit on my T310SR without a bunch of redoing of the suspension. Since we are into rubber equalizer suspension discussion, here is an option that eliminates the entire equalizer. Roadmaster not long ago bought out a small company who came up with getting rid of the equalizer all together on tandem/triple axle setups. They went to a slipper spring setup on all axles. See here for more
https://www.roadmasterinc.com/produc...t_ride_ss.html There are U tubes out their on the inventor company showing the drastic reduction of bouncing by going to the independent wheel setup. Or at least there use to be before Roadmaster bought them out. I have not looked for them is a few years.

I was thinking of that Roadmaster upgrade on the T310SR, but I redid my center hanger setup and I would need to rework it all over again. And I would have deal with the ride height issues. For now, I am staying with the rubber equalizer setup even if it is rebuilding the old Trail Aire I have or maybe the new one you found.

One heads up, so far any brand rubber equalizer I have used/installed affected the tire to fender well bump clearance by some amount. Some campers came out OK and others not without fiddling with the suspension to get it to work. Not sure if you have both sides of the suspension all apart yet, but check the loaded tire OD to underside of the fender well clearance on your rigid equalizer. After you convert to the Road Armor, you will need to check that again and make sure you can go full travel of the suspension and not hit. If needed I can get into more detail on this with pics etc if you have not already found how I dealt with this. Sunline setup the bump clearance lower than the industry standard 3" minimum that Dexter calls out. 2 1/2" will work but I have found where 2 1/4" or less can hit.

Your suspension wear in this pic is the traditional failure. You found this before the shackle links broke out. Good for you!


Good discussion.

Thanks

John
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Old 05-29-2020, 02:57 PM   #25
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RRS2670 View Post
So the last item would be how I handle the leaf spring eye wear. I've only taken one apart and the nylon bushings were wore through on hanger an equalizer sides. I measured the spring eye with telescoping gauges and micrometer only at the bore face, haven't checked the inside bore yet. Measuring from the end of eye wrap (I have no noticeable gap) I get 0.726" and measuring 90 deg of that I get 0.702". I really need to take a closer look at the bore and the hanger bolt holes, but I'm not going to be working on this for a couple of weeks. I just wanted to get parts on order an have a plan in place when I actually do the job.
Wow, OK you have what appears to be, spring eye hole wear. Curious on what the center of the bore is? From what I have seen, the end walloarigg out can be more then the mid section, but even the mid section can wear too, just not as bad as the ends.
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Old 05-30-2020, 09:13 AM   #26
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Hi John,
Thanks for your reply, I like your detailed answers and analysis.

I thought I'd just give you an update on a couple of things. I'm going to be gone out of state for a week or more doing home maintenance and repairs at my daughters house in MO. So I should have all of my parts waiting when I get back. I ended up buying 1 -MORryde x-factor cross member (bought before I saw your reply) to use on my center flange hanger. I have to agree with you that my short hanger and stiffer channel design may not have a flexing issue, but I tend to over design things for my piece of mind.

I also had in my mind doing a variation of your spring hanger stiffening ( thanks, that was very informative thread) for the front and rear hangers. I happen to have a 3' piece of 2" x 3/8" hot rolled steel flat stock that I was going to cut into 4 pieces and drill 2 holes in each one, one for the spring eye mounting bolt, and one near the top the same size. I would run this on the back side of the front and rear hangers up to the top of the frame channel. I would cut a spacer (I like your 2" pipe idea) that would fit near top of channel, in-between channel web and new stiffener plate. Fairly simple with just drilling a couple of holes. I believe this would stiffen things up with minimum material, and save on weight if compared to running cross members between front and rear hangers. After reading your post, I may hold of on this and just go with the center cross member.

Just for your info, as an additional simple option to stiffen a 3" wide frame hanger (saw this on another TT forum) is cut a piece of 3" angle to the inside dimension of the hanger. Place the piece with the corner pointing down (centered on hanger bolt) between hanger and push up and weld to bottom of frame. Also weld to inside of hanger. The hypotenuse of the angle is ~4-1/4" and the depth (center of hypotenuse to corner tip) is about 2-1/8", which should clear spring eye on a 3-1/4" hanger.

On the new LCI Road Armor, I hope I don't have wheel to well clearance issues, that's what I was trying to get from LCI when I called. I don't understand why they wouldn't have a document like MORryde's qualification guide: http://www.morryde.com/uploads/downl...alifier_v8.pdf
It gives clear instructions on what the requirements are for fitment. I don't have my wheels on, trailer is on jacks, but I measured the center on axle to frame unloaded, and the diameter of my newly mounted Goodyear Endurance tires are 27". So by using 1/2 of my wheel diameter subtracted from my center hub to frame measurement, I have an unloaded tire to well clearance of 5". That make me think your comment on your loaded Sunline clearance of 2 to 2-1/2" is probably about right for mine (look at my picture earlier in thread).
The Road Armor equalizer claims 3" of travel, but it has a taller height than my 2-1/4" steel equalizer, so spring ends may be farther from frame. If I run into wheel clearance issues, I may have to extend frame hangers like you did. I don't want the extra 4-6" from an axle flip.

I went back and measure the front leaf eye again at the face and about the middle of the eye. My telescoping gauges are probably 60-70 years old and the one for this measurement is right near the maximum extension, my next size is to large. Point being I am having trouble getting a consistent, repeatable measurements (my micrometer is new). So I got 0.731" at eye seam at face, and 0.713" in the middle. I got 0.719" at 90 deg. at face, and 0.699" in the middle. So the middle dimensions are definetly tighter than the face. Obviously I'll have to measure all of them when I get back. Do you have any thought on this, does this seem excessive to what you've seen? Did you look at Tod's epoxy fix for worn spring eye? That seems much easier to me so I wouldn't have to remove spring from axle to try the reaming process I talked about earlier in thread. Any opinions here from your engineering background?

Thanks again,
Russ
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Old 05-30-2020, 01:35 PM   #27
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John,
Tried editing and adding this to end of my last post, but it time out and I lost the editing button. So here's what I wanted to add.

Update: My MORryde HD wet bolt/shackle upgrade just came in. Out of curiosity, I checked the new bushings in the spring ends I have apart. The slip in easily about a 1/4" to 1/2" in, but are an interference fit towards the middle. I also checked the frame hangers on both side and it seems those didn't move and elongate the mounting holes, the sarations on the new wet bolts heads should dig in securely and not turn when torqued.

Question? On the motorcycle swing arm I just did, the shoulder of the through bolt where a grease hole is drilled, has a circular groove around the circumference where the hole is, allowing grease to get around the whole diameter of the bolt. I have a lath, so do you see any issue if I did the same on my wet shoulder bolts I just got with HD shackle kit. I would probably put a radius on the nose of the tool bit so there wouldn't be a sharp point in groove that could be a concentrator for a crack when under heavy load?
I think this would help on problem of getting grease to loaded area of bolt and bushing.
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Old 05-31-2020, 09:33 AM   #28
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The grease fills the entire bushing easily and instantly, I don’t think there is need for a grove nor do I think a grove would work. A good bronze bushing has just a few thousands clearance and grease would be tough to get to move around the bushing were there not a groove, but these things the amount of clearance for grease to move is huge. A couple pumps of grease fills things up and moves it through the bushing. The gap is so big the groove wouldn’t help. Try it with a bolt and bushing before install. Sometimes people install the grease hole down so the bolt seals it off and they have trouble getting grease in, a groove would help their, but better is to just install the bolt correctly.

As far as the epoxy experiment, I do not give it very good odds. I had the epoxy already and the bushings I used cost 10 dollars. I’m skilled with epoxy and doing a nice quick job was quick. If it lasts, I’ll be surprised and pleased, but I sure wouldn’t follow my lead.

If you have the ability to mill the eyes consider the 3/4 inch dom tube with 9/16 inner and make your own bushings. I looked at those exact same bridge reamers you posted up, but didn’t think I could deal with them in a spring eye with a drill press. That would be a bomber setup. You would need some sort of mild adhesive to fix the bushings in, but steel bushings would outlast us all.
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Old 05-31-2020, 10:07 AM   #29
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Hi Russ,

Your posts are good and make me "think" about them before responding. I had some time today and did some digging into this one.

Quote:
Originally Posted by RRS2670 View Post
I spent some time looking to see if leaf spring material can be milled or drilled with the thought of reaming out the eye of the leaf spring and machining thicker bushings. Typically leaf springs are made from an alloy steel 5160, which has high carbon and chromium in it.

After look at a couple Truck suspension youtube's, I found that the leaf spring can be drilled at slow RPM, high feed pressure, and lots of cutting oil. I have a scrape truck leaf spring I was going to experiment with. My thought was to ream out the eye to 0.75". As was stated by JohnB in one of the Tod's suspension threads, reaming is typically done after undersize drilling and usually only removes a few thousandths of an inch at a time. I stumbled on to this tool that I was debating about using, and to ask JohnB, our mechanical expert what he thought about this as an option.
https://drillsandcutters.com/3-4-hss...bridge-reamer/

The thing is assuming you can even use this on spring steel, I wouldn't attempt to do this by hand. The leaf spring would have to be removed, set up and indicated on a mill or heavy duty drill press, in order to keep everything square and parallel for a true circular hole. I probably will try drilling in my scrape leaf spring just to know whether or not I can do it, but after looking at Tod's work and watching a couple of youtube video's, I think his option is probably much easier. The link below is a very good comparison for how different manufacturers of similar products hold up to a few different test. I also watch one youtube where a machinist had a worn shaft on a lath apron that he couldn't find new parts for, and he used the Devcon to build shaft back up and machine it back to original dimension.
I myself have not use spring steel before in a machine building situation. I looked up the 5160 you mentioned and it does call out for automotive leaf spring use. Here is the properties of the raw annealed material.
AISI 5160 Steel, normalized 855°C (1570°F)

What I was looking for was the material hardness. This states it has a Rockwell C scale rating of 27. Again this is in the unhardened state. RC 27 is soft. You can drill it real easy with HSS bits or reamers. I suspect an auto leaf spring has some temper to it. And that is where the question comes, what temper do they treat it to when using in a working leaf spring?

Here it shows what an oil quench hardness can yield. They may offer other temper treatments to have less hardness too.
MatWeb - The Online Materials Information Resource

In the material notes at the top of the page it talks about post oil quenched hardness being RC 62 at the surface and RC 60 at the center. Anything in the RC 60 range, I doubt HSS or even cobalt will touch it or last very long. (M2 HSS is in the RC 65 range.) Carbide with the right cutting angle and coolant maybe to most likely. Or a better way is wire cut or plunge probe burn EDM cutting . (EDM = Electrical discharge machine.) The EDM systems have been around a good while now. Their claim to fame is it can burn through very hard steel with extreme precision. In die work, they use the wire cut CNC systems that can hold 0.0002" with excellent finishes and just about make the old conventional machining way obsolete cutting out complex shapes. But the process is slow, and it takes the high cost of the machine. If you are using the machine a lot, it pays for itself.

Since you were able to drill and ream the sample leaf you had, I suspect it is no way in the RC 60 area. It could be in the RC 45 area which is like a grade 8 carbon steel bolt. And yes, HSS will cut that without too much issue with the right angle, speed and coolant.

In your tool box of goodies, do you by chance have and old Rockwell hardness tester? If you do, then we really know what we are dealing with and what trailer leaf springs may be.

Assuming you do not have one, bummer... I know of spark testing off of a grinding wheel. It is a quick handy way with a bench grinder to help sort out some characteristics about the steel. And there are some who have done studies to show hardness changes the pattern that can be seen. Here is one study I found on the web http://www.wiete.com.au/journals/GJE...05-Dalke-R.pdf

There is a lot of charts out there that show spark patterns for different steels. But honing in on hardness is a little more complex. Maybe, your pierce of scrape leaf spring could be compared to a trailer leaf spring, assuming the material was known and the same to see which is harder by the spark pattern.

The HSS reamer you linked, I have not used that style, they are using it most likely with a hand drill or mag base drill on the side of an I beam getting ready for riveting. It will cut the beam steal they are using I'm sure. For a leaf spring, this all comes back to the hardness with is an unknown.

For a test, if you have an old trailer leaf spring, try drilling it with a HSS bit like you did. If you can drill it with HSS, then reaming the eyes can stand a chance of surviving. And you can try a file test, if a normal mill flat file will cut the spring, then you may stand a chance you can drill with HSS. Just try it on the end edge of one of the leafs.
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Old 05-31-2020, 04:26 PM   #30
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Hi Russ,

You may be out of town now, but I will leave this for you when you get back. Working on getting caught up on the respones.

Quote:
Originally Posted by RRS2670 View Post
I thought I'd just give you an update on a couple of things. I'm going to be gone out of state for a week or more doing home maintenance and repairs at my daughters house in MO. So I should have all of my parts waiting when I get back. I ended up buying 1 -MORryde x-factor cross member (bought before I saw your reply) to use on my center flange hanger. I have to agree with you that my short hanger and stiffer channel design may not have a flexing issue, but I tend to over design things for my piece of mind.

I also had in my mind doing a variation of your spring hanger stiffening ( thanks, that was very informative thread) for the front and rear hangers. I happen to have a 3' piece of 2" x 3/8" hot rolled steel flat stock that I was going to cut into 4 pieces and drill 2 holes in each one, one for the spring eye mounting bolt, and one near the top the same size. I would run this on the back side of the front and rear hangers up to the top of the frame channel. I would cut a spacer (I like your 2" pipe idea) that would fit near top of channel, in-between channel web and new stiffener plate. Fairly simple with just drilling a couple of holes. I believe this would stiffen things up with minimum material, and save on weight if compared to running cross members between front and rear hangers. After reading your post, I may hold of on this and just go with the center cross member.

Just for your info, as an additional simple option to stiffen a 3" wide frame hanger (saw this on another TT forum) is cut a piece of 3" angle to the inside dimension of the hanger. Place the piece with the corner pointing down (centered on hanger bolt) between hanger and push up and weld to bottom of frame. Also weld to inside of hanger. The hypotenuse of the angle is ~4-1/4" and the depth (center of hypotenuse to corner tip) is about 2-1/8", which should clear spring eye on a 3-1/4" hanger.
Doing the MorRyde cross member at the hanger is good. No issues there.

To your using a piece a 3/8" flat bar to extend down from the frame to the hanger as a stiffener, I highlighted in blue above. When I first read this I had a vision you were going to bolt this on the outside on the flat side of the channel. Re-reading, you are putting it on the "inside" of the C part of the channel, not the flat outside. If that is correct, then you are doing a bolt on concept of what I was going to suggest, which was to weld in a vertical flat bar at the hanger area to turn the C shape into a boxed frame. The vertical plate would be ground on the ends to fit just inside channel to allow about 1/8" inward to allow a fillet weld bead on the top and bottom flange of the channel. This would allow the hanger bolts to remain standard length. If you go this weld route, make sure and stick a piece of sheet metal between the frame and the bottom of the camper plastic membrane so the weld heat will not burn a hole in the plastic. That is what I do and it works well. The heat shield just gets stuffed in above the frame and then taken out when done.

If you do not have access to welding, your bolt on idea will help and work. Just you need to deal with the longer spring pin bolt. I made my own from a grade 5 or 8 bolt, drilled it for a grease hole and made sure the body of the bolt was totally in the hangers and spring. No threads in the spring area or hanger area. They do sell longer spring pins, the HD shackles use them. It is all doable, just pick which you want to do.

On the 3" angle fix you are describing, I "think" you are describing that the angle iron is "inside" the hanger. It would be about 1 3/4" plus a little wide to allow the spring to fit up in the hanger. Then weld the angle to the inside of the hanger and the leg ends if they hang outside the hanger, weld that to the bottom of the frame.

If I explained that right, it will help the hanger become stiffer as the angle is tying the 2 sides of the hanger U together. Sunline did part of this concept on the 2006/2007 Slide room campers (8,600# GVWR frames) to help stiffen up the hanger, just they had the corner of the angle pointing up and the legs down. Their method creates a stronger hanger, as does the one you found, but it not address the flexing of the lower flange of the I beam frame. The I beam frame cracks the web of the beam above the lower flange. On your channel frame, the channel bottom flange is a lot stronger to start with then the I beam bottom flange frames. And most channel iron frames have shorter hangers.

If you want to make the hanger stiffer, then welding in or bolting in a spacer inside the hanger will stiffen up the hanger significantly. In my case, my cross supports came over time. At first was the tube spacer, later followed the cross brace between the hangers. Just adding the tube spacer increased the hanger strength, I could feel it trying to bend the hanger by hand.

If you want to stiffen the lower flange of the frame, then your bolt on idea or a weld in flat bar on the open C end of the channel will help that. This is not as robust as the cross tubes, but I would call doing both the lower flange support and the hanger spacer would give a high level of stiffness you never had before. I would call it, creating a higher level of safety margin. And again, the short hanger C channel frames I have not seen or heard of them having the issues like the I beam frames.

Pick which method you want to go with and feel good about it. It will help eliminate any future issues.

Hope this helps

John
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Old 05-31-2020, 05:38 PM   #31
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OK here is this one

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Originally Posted by RRS2670 View Post

On the new LCI Road Armor, I hope I don't have wheel to well clearance issues, that's what I was trying to get from LCI when I called. I don't understand why they wouldn't have a document like MORryde's qualification guide: http://www.morryde.com/uploads/downl...alifier_v8.pdf
It gives clear instructions on what the requirements are for fitment. I don't have my wheels on, trailer is on jacks, but I measured the center on axle to frame unloaded, and the diameter of my newly mounted Goodyear Endurance tires are 27". So by using 1/2 of my wheel diameter subtracted from my center hub to frame measurement, I have an unloaded tire to well clearance of 5". That make me think your comment on your loaded Sunline clearance of 2 to 2-1/2" is probably about right for mine (look at my picture earlier in thread).

The Road Armor equalizer claims 3" of travel, but it has a taller height than my 2-1/4" steel equalizer, so spring ends may be farther from frame. If I run into wheel clearance issues, I may have to extend frame hangers like you did. I don't want the extra 4-6" from an axle flip.
LCI has not given out very good information on the prior Trail Air unit either. I basically had to buy it, measure it and create a way to use it. It seems on this new product, they are following the same, no detail info route. All camper suspension setups are not created equal.

Once you get the camper back together, then with the camper loaded with camping gear and at your travel weight, check the wheel well clearance.

Here is another test you can do to make sure you do not hit, at least going slow anyway.

Force a tire to leave the ground like going in a large pothole with one tire.




Those pics are from when I went to the Trail Aire unit and 16" LT tires. See here if you want more on the topic that may help you https://www.sunlineclub.com/forums/f...tml#post106198

If you do not pass the 2 1/2" test or the suspension full flex test, then comes sorting out shackle lengths and hanger height adjustments. I have been through both in my suspension saga of fixes and upgrades. Can type more on that if and when the time comes.
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Old 05-31-2020, 06:05 PM   #32
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Originally Posted by Tod Osier View Post
The grease fills the entire bushing easily and instantly, I don’t think there is need for a grove nor do I think a grove would work. A good bronze bushing has just a few thousands clearance and grease would be tough to get to move around the bushing were there not a groove, but these things the amount of clearance for grease to move is huge. A couple pumps of grease fills things up and moves it through the bushing. The gap is so big the groove wouldn’t help. Try it with a bolt and bushing before install. Sometimes people install the grease hole down so the bolt seals it off and they have trouble getting grease in, a groove would help their, but better is to just install the bolt correctly.

As far as the epoxy experiment, I do not give it very good odds. I had the epoxy already and the bushings I used cost 10 dollars. I’m skilled with epoxy and doing a nice quick job was quick. If it lasts, I’ll be surprised and pleased, but I sure wouldn’t follow my lead.

If you have the ability to mill the eyes consider the 3/4 inch dom tube with 9/16 inner and make your own bushings. I looked at those exact same bridge reamers you posted up, but didn’t think I could deal with them in a spring eye with a drill press. That would be a bomber setup. You would need some sort of mild adhesive to fix the bushings in, but steel bushings would outlast us all.
If the bearings are a pressed in fit, the inside of bushing will become somewhat restricted. I the problem is the load on the bottom of pin, it's hard to force grease in. This is the same issue I've seen on motorcycle swingarms that support the rear wheel and riders. The groove helps get grease all the way around and on the loaded surface. My question was more concern about weakening the bolt, I thought I read one of yours or John post discussing this before. I wasn't sure if the bolts are marginally sized or if the are overkill. I wouldn't want to make something weaker if it's not strong enough in the first place.

I was kind of skeptical of using epoxy until I started looking at a couple of youtube's (did you watch the one I linked?). The epoxy you used was one of the better ones, if you get a clean surface and roughened up a little to get some bit, (that's why I suggested maybe adding a couple of divots with a burring bit), this stuff may work. If the bushings are a tight fit, I don't think it will see a lot of a shock load. JB weld and Devcon seems to be some pretty tough material, they did better than the others manufacturers tested.

On my 8 hour drive today (I'm in MO), I was thinking about the reaming option, I really didn't want to fool with taking the axles of to remove the springs. But after thinking about it, it would be a good test to prove one way or the other. If it worked, would help others that have this problem. And yes I can make bushings.
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Old 05-31-2020, 06:37 PM   #33
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On this topic

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I went back and measure the front leaf eye again at the face and about the middle of the eye. My telescoping gauges are probably 60-70 years old and the one for this measurement is right near the maximum extension, my next size is to large. Point being I am having trouble getting a consistent, repeatable measurements (my micrometer is new). So I got 0.731" at eye seam at face, and 0.713" in the middle. I got 0.719" at 90 deg. at face, and 0.699" in the middle. So the middle dimensions are definetly tighter than the face. Obviously I'll have to measure all of them when I get back. Do you have any thought on this, does this seem excessive to what you've seen? Did you look at Tod's epoxy fix for worn spring eye? That seems much easier to me so I wouldn't have to remove spring from axle to try the reaming process I talked about earlier in thread. Any opinions here from your engineering background?

Thanks again,
Russ
It looks like you have about 0.020" total play from the center to the spring outside edge of the spring if I interrupted the numbers right.

Sadly, I have seen this, this bad and worse. Worse being the new bronze bushing fell through the hole. The "patch" was to wrap shim stock around the bushing until you made it to a press fit. I say patch as the spring eye wear was bad created by worn and spinning shackles and pins along with worn out nylon bushings. The patch gets you going, but in time odds are favorable the bronze bushing may crack due to not having the 100% needed support at the ends of the spring where the heavier wear is in the spring eye.

The question comes down to how many miles will it take to get to wearing pins again if you do not fix the support issue?

There is not a lot of data out there to answer that question on bronze bushings. We (I) known the nylon can wear to this place in 8K to 10K miles. My cracked bronze bushing was not created from worn spring eyes, but lack of total bushing support at the radius at the end of the spring eye. And I pulled it out in a routine check just because that's me, I see it and if it's going bad I change it. I'm sure I could of used it that way a long time more. My cracked bushing with a good bore ID on the spring was around 23,000 miles on the bushing. This was also when using HD shackles. That is part of the ability have run longer before everything starts wearing out, having the HD shackle kit.

The ideal is to help fix the issue totally, but this does come back to, how many miles do you plan on towing the camper in the future? Maybe making what you have better will be good enough. If you feel you will "only" tow 30K miles more before changing campers or stop using it, then you have choices shorter than a total fix. And even after the 30K miles, check it at 20K miles and replace bushing parts then if needed before the pins start grinding into the springs. The pins into the springs is the real issue. We can sort of live with the bushing wear before it makes it to that point with HD shackles.

I saw Tod's epoxy fix. It looks really good, but it needs to be tested to see if it holds up. If it does, we have a winner. If it doesn't, we are back to plan B. His cross county camping trips sort of makes him our tester on some of this. In the semi near future, we will be doing cross country trips and I can rack up more miles to add to the data pool.

Sadly, Tod bought new Dexter springs last year and now his bronze is cracked worse than mine is a lot less miles on a camper half the weight of mine. While new springs will fix the hole heavy wear, it does not seem to totally fix the needed bushing support issue to prevent bronze bushing cracking.

My springs which never made it pin wear, I was lucky I addressed the problem before that, my springs where made by American Rockford back in 2003. It could be that while my springs that are not perfect, appear to be better made in full roundness then the Dexter's Tod just bought.

I will have to measure the extra new bronze bushings I have in the barn. I can't remember where I wrote down the decimal OD's. That can help tell if yours has any press fit left in your spring eye at 0.699". If the bushing spins, well you will need to do some level of fix as if it spins, it will fail fast.

Hope this helps

John
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Old 05-31-2020, 07:00 PM   #34
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In your tool box of goodies, do you by chance have and old Rockwell hardness tester? If you do, then we really know what we are dealing with and what trailer leaf springs may be.

Assuming you do not have one, bummer... I know of spark testing off of a grinding wheel. It is a quick handy way with a bench grinder to help sort out some characteristics about the steel. And there are some who have done studies to show hardness changes the pattern that can be seen. Here is one study I found on the web http://www.wiete.com.au/journals/GJE...05-Dalke-R.pdf

There is a lot of charts out there that show spark patterns for different steels. But honing in on hardness is a little more complex. Maybe, your pierce of scrape leaf spring could be compared to a trailer leaf spring, assuming the material was known and the same to see which is harder by the spark pattern.

The HSS reamer you linked, I have not used that style, they are using it most likely with a hand drill or mag base drill on the side of an I beam getting ready for riveting. It will cut the beam steal they are using I'm sure. For a leaf spring, this all comes back to the hardness with is an unknown.

For a test, if you have an old trailer leaf spring, try drilling it with a HSS bit like you did. If you can drill it with HSS, then reaming the eyes can stand a chance of surviving. And you can try a file test, if a normal mill flat file will cut the spring, then you may stand a chance you can drill with HSS. Just try it on the end edge of one of the leafs.
Hi John,
I'm not at home now but made it to MO.

I am not a tool and die maker, or even a machinist, more of a machine operator/hobbyist. Took a lot of machine shop classes in my 20's because I wanted to get in that trade, but I didn't and forgot a lot of the stuff. A lot of my tools are from a retired machinist from the 1960's, but no I don't have a hardness tester. But I have an old co-worker who has been a machinist his whole life and still has a shop, I'll ask him if he has one.

The spring I was testing the drilling on was from my 2002 Chevy Express 1500. When I get back I can try drilling a hole form scratch and go to a larger size. I did try a file to the spring and yes the file is harder than the leaf, I could file it.
Also, if you read my response to Tod, on the way down here I kind of decided maybe I should take the time to remove spring and try reaming out the leaf springs. Tod's worried the epoxy won't last. I was kind of impressed with the stuff he used based on the youtube comparison I linked in a post.

The bridge reamer I showed, I thought since it's tapered with 3 or 4 flutes, it may last longer then a drill that's cutting on 2 points because it wouldn't be taking out as much material per cutting edge. From my current measurements of the one spring eye, I'd only need to remove about 0.050th's
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Old 05-31-2020, 07:33 PM   #35
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To your using a piece a 3/8" flat bar to extend down from the frame to the hanger as a stiffener, I highlighted in blue above. When I first read this I had a vision you were going to bolt this on the outside on the flat side of the channel. Re-reading, you are putting it on the "inside" of the C part of the channel, not the flat outside. If that is correct, then you are doing a bolt on concept of what I was going to suggest, which was to weld in a vertical flat bar at the hanger area to turn the C shape into a boxed frame. The vertical plate would be ground on the ends to fit just inside channel to allow about 1/8" inward to allow a fillet weld bead on the top and bottom flange of the channel. This would allow the hanger bolts to remain standard length. If you go this weld route, make sure and stick a piece of sheet metal between the frame and the bottom of the camper plastic membrane so the weld heat will not burn a hole in the plastic. That is what I do and it works well. The heat shield just gets stuffed in above the frame and then taken out when done.

If you do not have access to welding, your bolt on idea will help and work. Just you need to deal with the longer spring pin bolt. I made my own from a grade 5 or 8 bolt, drilled it for a grease hole and made sure the body of the bolt was totally in the hangers and spring. No threads in the spring area or hanger area. They do sell longer spring pins, the HD shackles use them. It is all doable, just pick which you want to do.

On the 3" angle fix you are describing, I "think" you are describing that the angle iron is "inside" the hanger. It would be about 1 3/4" plus a little wide to allow the spring to fit up in the hanger. Then weld the angle to the inside of the hanger and the leg ends if they hang outside the hanger, weld that to the bottom of the frame.
You were understanding my explanation correctly. I do have a welder, but thought it was easier to drill a couple of holes, especially since the channel is pretty stout to begin with. As you said my frame/hanger situation doesn't typically have many problems, so I don't even think I'm going to reinforce the front and rear hangers.

The V-clip (3" angle) I told you about was from a RV forum (don't remember which one) where the had issue with the hangers braking of on fairly new, low mileage trailers. The frame sounded like it was an I beam like yours, with long hangers. Anyway several members had the issue, and concluded that the center hanger had most of the stress, so the fix was to use a cross member on the center hanger, and use the V-clips on the front and back. It seemed like a nice simple fix if you have a welder. Not sure why they didn't want to use the cross members on all three hangers.

Did you see the question about cutting a groove in the shoulder bolt at the grease hole? Just wonder if that would weaken the bolt to much, or is the bolt robust enough for a circular groove? Tod gave me his opinion about the groove but did not answer my specific bolt strength question.
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Old 05-31-2020, 07:34 PM   #36
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John,
Tried editing and adding this to end of my last post, but it time out and I lost the editing button. So here's what I wanted to add.

Update: My MORryde HD wet bolt/shackle upgrade just came in. Out of curiosity, I checked the new bushings in the spring ends I have apart. The slip in easily about a 1/4" to 1/2" in, but are an interference fit towards the middle. I also checked the frame hangers on both side and it seems those didn't move and elongate the mounting holes, the sarations on the new wet bolts heads should dig in securely and not turn when torqued.

Question? On the motorcycle swing arm I just did, the shoulder of the through bolt where a grease hole is drilled, has a circular groove around the circumference where the hole is, allowing grease to get around the whole diameter of the bolt. I have a lath, so do you see any issue if I did the same on my wet shoulder bolts I just got with HD shackle kit. I would probably put a radius on the nose of the tool bit so there wouldn't be a sharp point in groove that could be a concentrator for a crack when under heavy load?
I think this would help on problem of getting grease to loaded area of bolt and bushing.
It's good the spring hangers will have some bite in them to stop the pin spin. If you have any that do not hold. the anti rotate bolt on tab can help that as your hangers are not worn badly. This post shows the anti rotate tabs. Get to the bottom of that response, the pics show up.

On the grease groove. I have been thinking about this more today, and I see you just responded to Tod tonight on this topic.

First off, the grade 5 bolt 9/16" spring pin with 1/4" thick hangers, is used on the Sunline 5,500 # GVWR, 7,000# GVWR and 10,000# GVWR campers. I myself can confirm that. I can also confirm Jayco uses the same pins, 1/4" hangers on 15,000# GVWR 5th wheels. I never checked the Sunline 5'ers but I do know they use 1/4" hangers as I helped one of our members with his hangers. I suspect Sunline used the same 9/16" pin on their large 5ers too.

Point being, the pin is not the weak point at least up to 15K GVWR. If you cut a 1/16" deep 1/8" radius bottom groove in the pin, the 9/16" becomes 1/2" on the OD. There is already an approx 1/8" drilled grease hole down the center to the cross hole. So that removes some of the strength but again, that wet bolt is at least good up to a 15K camper, just not yet proven with a circle groove in it. At your camper weights, the risk is lower the groove will create an issue. Having lathe tool marks in the grove may be worse then having the groove. Polish the groove to make sure no tool marks are left over if you decide to go that route.

After thinking about this, back when I was in the machine tool business making mechanical power presses for the stamping industry, we had put a lot of lubrication grooves in long sliding ways and rotary bronze bearings. But, we pumped oil into the grooves by an automatic cyclic oiler. The grooves in this case helped spread the oil over the entire wear surface. And this was on loads hundreds if not thousands times heavier than our campers and are bearing surface speeds in the same order of magnitude. Basically, those tight toleranced high surface speed applications would burn up without the oil grooves.

The suspension pin setup does not have a lot of sliding friction, it does have a small level of rotation. But again the rotating is maye only a total of 50 degrees with the equalizer center pin going +/- 25 deg back and forth at relatively low speed. Lube is needed on a trailer bronze bushing, but not the same where high surface speed and weight needs lube grooves.

Thinking back on all the suspension work I have done on my bronze bushings, I have never had a grease flow/dispersion issue. I never had a grease groove but there was always adequate grease that came out of the shackle pin when I took the pins out. Lack of lube was not an issue. I never saw a real "dry" condition.

See this sketch I made for a friend who could not get grease to go into his bronze bushings as the lube hole was installed in the wrong place. The 6:00 area plus or minus is the problem zone. The pin hole does not want to be in that zone. 3:00 or 9:00 create working solutions. At the 6:00 area, the camper is pressing down so hard, it seals off the grease and there is not enough pressure in the grease gun to force it in.


When you grease the bushing at the 3:00 or 9:00 location and the camper is on the ground, grease flows up to the 12:00 position and over about 180 degrees to the opposite side in the pin clearance. Granted on a new dry install and the weight of the camper pressing down, the 6:00 area did not get much lube.

But, then the camper flexes around the pin moves up into the play and would squeeze the lube down into the 6:00 area. As long as the bushings are well greased on a good schedule, they should never go dry. Short of cross country travel, I grease in the spring and mid summer. 2 times a year. I have never seen a "dry" bushing. Yes I have some bottom half wear, I can see the burnish in the bronze and the pin, but not from being dry.

Odds are low your groove will be an issue if you want to add it. But I'm not seeing it fix any of the failing bronze issues we have been talking about, which is lack of spring eye support backing up the OD of the bushing.

Thinking all through this today, I myself would not add the grease groove.

Hope this helps

John
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Old 05-31-2020, 08:11 PM   #37
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RRS2670 View Post
Hi John,
I'm not at home now but made it to MO.

I am not a tool and die maker, or even a machinist, more of a machine operator/hobbyist. Took a lot of machine shop classes in my 20's because I wanted to get in that trade, but I didn't and forgot a lot of the stuff. A lot of my tools are from a retired machinist from the 1960's, but no I don't have a hardness tester. But I have an old co-worker who has been a machinist his whole life and still has a shop, I'll ask him if he has one.

The spring I was testing the drilling on was from my 2002 Chevy Express 1500. When I get back I can try drilling a hole form scratch and go to a larger size. I did try a file to the spring and yes the file is harder than the leaf, I could file it.
Also, if you read my response to Tod, on the way down here I kind of decided maybe I should take the time to remove spring and try reaming out the leaf springs. Tod's worried the epoxy won't last. I was kind of impressed with the stuff he used based on the youtube comparison I linked in a post.

The bridge reamer I showed, I thought since it's tapered with 3 or 4 flutes, it may last longer then a drill that's cutting on 2 points because it wouldn't be taking out as much material per cutting edge. From my current measurements of the one spring eye, I'd only need to remove about 0.050th's
Glad your travels were safe.

Hey, 1960's machine shop stuff is good stuff. No issues there. My son received an old 1960's, maybe even, 50's, lathe from his wife's grandfather who use to work as a machinist for GM. It is a 6" Southbend lathe with all the chucks, tools, face plate and a full set of collects. It works great for camper and other small projects. We use it here in my barn as he has limited room in his. It is more about the person running the machine, then the machine itself.

If you need to take 0.050" out, does your smithy have a vertical milling head? You can use a small internal boring bar and a lathe tool bit and cut it out. Technically, you can put the boring bar in your lathe chuck to spin if you can clamp the spring in position to the tool on the cross slide. Then use the carriage to move the spring back and forth in relation to the boring bar.

Ask your machinist friend about an internal boring bar to bore the spring hole. There are all kinds and it is easier to get a replaceable carbide cutting bit to fit it, if needed. Here is one I found real quick https://www.mscdirect.com/product/details/92200625

Here is a boat load of fixed ones. They are cheaper but harder to deal with if you chip the cutting tip verses the changeable tip ones.
https://www.mscdirect.com/product/details/92200625

Always good to have a new tool around for many projects. The bridge reamer may work too, just it is hard to change the diameter if you need to go larger or not as large as the wear is not that bad. The boring bar, you just move the tool and cut any diameter you want that the tool will fit in. You could make all 8 holes custom sizes with the boring bar, only take out what it needed to clean up each hole. Custom make each press in bushing to fit. You can even use the boring bar on the bushing ID if you buy one that can get in to a 9/16" hole. Do spring and bushing if you are making bushings.

If you find out the spring hardness, please let us know.

Hope this helps

John
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Old 06-12-2020, 09:17 PM   #38
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John,
I talked to my machinist friend, also John, and originally just wanted advise on how I could enlarge the leaf spring eyes. Since he's been mostly sheltered at home, he hasn't had much work come in to his shop, so I'm going to have him do the work since he's available and said he'd give me a good price. But I'll share a few things about what we talked about. First off on hardness, he said if it bends, it's not that hard, but may be tougher to machine than other metals. To him, something that is hard would be like a file, it's brittle and can break fairly easy. So next talked about the best process for enlarging and trueing up the leaf spring holes. He said you could try drilling and reaming (he doesn't like reaming more than 0.015" at once), but worried it may be hard to keep drill from wandering, so he said using a boring head in his Bridgeport mill with a carbide boring bar was probably the way to go. I will hopefully get him the springs next week and get an actual price since he hasn't seen the leaf springs yet.

I just rented a Uhaul trailer and I remember you talking about this on one of yours or Tod's threads on this subject. I looked at the tandem axle and I rented a single axle. They used the same springs and axles on both trailers. The single axle trailer I rented had a 2900 lb GVWR (600 lbs less than my TT Dexter axles) but everything about it was way more heavy duty. Wider, thicker leafs, 6 leafs instead of 3 like I have, and the eyes were much bigger. Looking at the eyes, they were automotive style with thick rubber bushing in them, no grease zerks. I started thinking about when I replaced my rubber leaf spring bushings on a Chevy Express and how it stiffened up the rear end, I started wondering about using the same polyurethane bushings in my leaf spring eyes. They are supposedly have 10x the abrasion and wear resistance of standard rubber bushings. So I found that back in the 50's and 60's when leaf springs were common in many vehicles, that the Dexter Axles that RV's use, have some of the same dimensions as some of the automotive leaf components. If turns out that 1955-1975 Jeep C5's use 1-3/4" wide leaf springs. Energy suspensions has leaf spring polyurethane kits that I bought and want to try using on my Sunline. I have attached a picture of bushings and dimension, include some of the dimensions of the leaf eyes. I was originally thinking of machining down the polyurethane bushing od (I found a few youtube's that showed Polyurethane bushings can be machined, they are about 75-80 durameter), but than thought since I'm boring out the spring eyes, why not just bore out to use bushing as bought. The bottom line is I'd have to take out about 0.150-0.175" of the spring eye.

So to summarize this, I would not use the metal bushing that came with new polyurethane kit, the bushing id is 9/16", that slides nicely onto new MORryde 9/16" wet bolts, so I'd wouldn't use the brass bushings that came with bolts. The length of the new polyurethane bushing is 1.80" which is about 0.005" longer than the wet bolt brass bushings and should fit in the hanger nicely. The od of the new bushing is 0.875" so I would need to bore out ~0.150-0.175" from the eye of the leaf. The leaf eye od is ~1.430"-0.875" (bushing od, new leaf id) = 0.555"/2 = 0.277" metal eye thickness. The original leaf spring eye thickness is about 0.375". So can you think about this a while and try to digest what I'm suggesting. The eye thickness will be weakened, but using the polyurethane bushings will absorb some of the road shock and possibly cut down on the stress that would be induced into the spring eye. Can you tell me if I am looking at this rationally and does it make sense? Do you think the boring of the eye to 7/8" id would weaken the spring to much. Thanks Russ
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Old 06-15-2020, 11:13 PM   #39
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Hi Russ,

Getting back to you. The urethane bushing idea by itself is good but I have one reservation on the urethane (see below). I do have concerns over taking that much strength out of the leaf spring eye. (cracking the spring over time) I have no data or access to finite element analysis any more to run stress simulations on the reduced spring eye.

Here is a thought, have your machinist take out minimum amount out of the worn spring eye to clean up the hole and make it true road. Now you have something good to start with. Wearing pins with failed bushings create similar metal lose in the eye so the risk is lower that there is any issues on the spring. Have each spring hole when cleaned up recorded for bore dimension. He may be able to find the worst spring to clean up and match the rest to that final clean up dimension so they all end up the same. Or mark each bore and record. Point is, you know the final spring bore on each marked spring.

Then ask your machinist if he can machine the urethane bushing OD down to fit the new cleaned up spring eye bore. Then light press/size to size fit in the urethane bushing and make sure you can still get a new spring pin inside it. He most likely will have to make an arbor (a round pin the right diameter to insert in the bushing ID) to chuck up in the lathe to allow him to turn down the OD. Or you try it. Tool bit configuration and spindle speed is different for rubber/urethane I do believe. He should have some insight to this setup as urethane cuts different then steel. It's more gummy and cuts different. Our shops guys knew all the right tricks on how to cut rubbers etc and I did not pick up any of them.

I do not see any issues trying the turned down urethane. Keep a lookout on it as the testing goes. If it starts failing, then before the pins start wearing the spring, take out the urethane and install custom bronze bushings. I would suggest using Ampco 18 aluminum bronze. OR generic aluminum bronze C95400-TQ50 heat treated to TQ50 state.

Now to the reservation on the urethane. I can see the urethane having a level of working on the ends of the springs at the front and rear hanger. The bushing at the spring eyes at the shackles and on the equalizer may have issues with the thin urethane.

Here is why I think this. I may be out in left field, but it is the preconceived notion I have for you to think on. The urethane will react different then a free to pivot pin in a bronze or other plastic clearanced bore bushing. The ends of the springs at the front and rear hanger pivot/ rotate very little so the urethane may flex within itself for that small movement as the urethane will grip hard on the pin and spring eye (no slip at the pin or eye). At the equalizer area, there is a lot of movement of the equalizer and the shackles. That much movement I think will tear up the thin urethane as that material can only be flexed so far within its cross section thickness. Since the urethane will grip the pin hard, it acts like a brake once the bushing thickness cannot pivot any more and will over stress the bushing to fail in time.

If you look at automotive lower control arms on some cars, they have very large diameter rubber bushings with a steel pin in the center. The larger the rubber cross section wall thickness, the more rotation the bushing can handle. As the control arm goes up and down, the rubber flexes (that is it rotation) in the sidewalls of the large diameter. And you are supposed to center the control arm in the middle of its travel before you tighten up the center bolt on the center sleeve or it will tear the bushing apart over time as you overtravel the rubber in one direction with the car apart. The over rotation of the rubber causes it to crack. I think this will happen at the equalizer area even on an unmachined urethane bushing in the OD diameter in your pics. See if you can find how much rotation that urethane bushing can handle. If it is only 1 to 3 degrees, there will be a problem. For urethane to work on larger rotation angles, the urethane cross section may need an inch or more.

Hope this helps

John
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Old 06-16-2020, 05:44 AM   #40
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I may be wrong, but I don’t think the poly is used as a bushing, just to hold the bushing. All these various bushings have something to hold them in place, either drive in friction like the bronze bushings or a rubber shell or the poly. The wear points are metal on metal. I may be wrong, but that looks like the case in what I’ve seen. The bushing needs to be fixed in place by something so the wear is on the bolt and bushing, not the bushing on the spring eye.
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