Flipping my axel
- Thread starter Grego
- Start date
My mates got an '09 16.something (not sure which exactly) on-road expanda and he ordered it from the factory with the flipped axle.
I'll post some underneath pics tomorrow. One reason I went through with the conversion was knowing that some come out of the Jayco factory underslung - many Outbacks, for example.
It's a great thing to know that you can drive out of your driveway knowing that you're not going to scrape the spare tyre carrier on the road as you go!
It's a great thing to know that you can drive out of your driveway knowing that you're not going to scrape the spare tyre carrier on the road as you go!
Some pics of underneath:
We re-used the u-bolts and fish plates. The trailer builder we visited said there was no need to use new ones, but I'm not convinced yet - I might end up doing another lap and replacing them for peace of mind.
Before we started I called our insurance company and, to my complete surprise, 5 minutes later they gave the okay for us to raise it – no demand for an engineer’s certificate, no questions about who was doing the job, or what exactly was being done. I just stuck with the simple “we want to raise the suspension to avoid damaging the underside of the van on steep driveways, etc. Is that okay?”
I was worried about the tow ball height regulations – the centre of the ball on a fully laden tow vehicle must be between 320mm and 460mm off the ground. But my raised, level, unladen van now measures 520mm to the centre of the ball, and I figure if I put 500kg of water and supplies in the van it’d lose the required 60mm in height, if not more, so I figure all is good there.
After doing the job, even with the hitch on top of the draw bar as it is, and the Hayman Reese weight distribution hitch standard shank at the lowest adjustment, it still leaves the rear of the van hanging a few inches lower than the front. I’ve just got a brand spanking new Mitsubishi Challenger, and the HR tow bar rides quite high, and I’m going to have to fork out for a drop shank in order to achieve something close to the 460mm towball height. Or rather, I need the drop shank to allow the van to ride level, which is one of the main desired goals (even though on a test drive the whole rig seemed to run quite nicely with its rear hanging slightly low), and fortuitously this will see it comply with the 460mm max ball height rule. (Though, that said, I’m led to believe that many offroad campers don’t comply with the ball height rules, so I’m not even certain that I need to worry about the ball height.)
I was dragging my feet on doing the job on my own, and I was wise to – it’s definitely preferable to have a person on each side of the van when manoeuvring the axles around. (Especially when you decide to do the job on a sloped driveway! Don’t worry, we’re not silly - we strapped the van to a heavy object so it wouldn’t fall down the slope!) We happened to have a 10” high dolly and a 3” dolly, and they both came in handy for the job. On the dual axle we pulled the pin out of the central pivot point of the leaf springs, and that gave us room to slide the drum brakes through and forward/backward and under the leaves. Also gave us plenty of elbow room for welding the locator plates on top of the axles. I’ve heard people recommend to remove the springs, jack the van higher, then replace the springs above the axle as a way of avoiding having to lift the heavy axles, but the bolts holding the springs on are all spot welded to the brackets, so it involves grinding every one of these bolts free to do it that way. Even on a single axle, the axles aren’t that heavy, so I’d rather butcher the bolts on only one end of the leaves rather than both.
Now we just have to remember that it may ride as high as an OB, but it’s not beefed up like an OB and we shouldn’t get too ambitious with where we take it...
We re-used the u-bolts and fish plates. The trailer builder we visited said there was no need to use new ones, but I'm not convinced yet - I might end up doing another lap and replacing them for peace of mind.
Before we started I called our insurance company and, to my complete surprise, 5 minutes later they gave the okay for us to raise it – no demand for an engineer’s certificate, no questions about who was doing the job, or what exactly was being done. I just stuck with the simple “we want to raise the suspension to avoid damaging the underside of the van on steep driveways, etc. Is that okay?”
I was worried about the tow ball height regulations – the centre of the ball on a fully laden tow vehicle must be between 320mm and 460mm off the ground. But my raised, level, unladen van now measures 520mm to the centre of the ball, and I figure if I put 500kg of water and supplies in the van it’d lose the required 60mm in height, if not more, so I figure all is good there.
After doing the job, even with the hitch on top of the draw bar as it is, and the Hayman Reese weight distribution hitch standard shank at the lowest adjustment, it still leaves the rear of the van hanging a few inches lower than the front. I’ve just got a brand spanking new Mitsubishi Challenger, and the HR tow bar rides quite high, and I’m going to have to fork out for a drop shank in order to achieve something close to the 460mm towball height. Or rather, I need the drop shank to allow the van to ride level, which is one of the main desired goals (even though on a test drive the whole rig seemed to run quite nicely with its rear hanging slightly low), and fortuitously this will see it comply with the 460mm max ball height rule. (Though, that said, I’m led to believe that many offroad campers don’t comply with the ball height rules, so I’m not even certain that I need to worry about the ball height.)
I was dragging my feet on doing the job on my own, and I was wise to – it’s definitely preferable to have a person on each side of the van when manoeuvring the axles around. (Especially when you decide to do the job on a sloped driveway! Don’t worry, we’re not silly - we strapped the van to a heavy object so it wouldn’t fall down the slope!) We happened to have a 10” high dolly and a 3” dolly, and they both came in handy for the job. On the dual axle we pulled the pin out of the central pivot point of the leaf springs, and that gave us room to slide the drum brakes through and forward/backward and under the leaves. Also gave us plenty of elbow room for welding the locator plates on top of the axles. I’ve heard people recommend to remove the springs, jack the van higher, then replace the springs above the axle as a way of avoiding having to lift the heavy axles, but the bolts holding the springs on are all spot welded to the brackets, so it involves grinding every one of these bolts free to do it that way. Even on a single axle, the axles aren’t that heavy, so I’d rather butcher the bolts on only one end of the leaves rather than both.
Now we just have to remember that it may ride as high as an OB, but it’s not beefed up like an OB and we shouldn’t get too ambitious with where we take it...