Shocks?

[gudmund-TNT]

and yes to "working on it" as you may have noticed in the posted picture I attached, yes I did end up cutting one inch off of the 'Sumo' 4 inch tall rubber spring. (its now 3 inches tall with a 1/4 inch of preload per instructions) ..........................

 

[working on it]

and yes to "working on it" as you may have noticed in the posted picture I attached, yes I did end up cutting one inch off of the 'Sumo' 4 inch tall rubber spring. (its now 3 inches tall with a 1/4 inch of preload per instructions) ..........................

* My Daystar piece is about 1.25" shorter than it was originally, now about the same height as your Sumo, and with about 0.5" of preload, after being moved into place with a BFH (there were no instructions as I was using the product in an entirely different manner than intended). Both systems stay in close contact with frame and axle/spring assemblies (your Sumo is attached to the sprig, whereas mine is attached to the frame), and the progressive compression nature of each removes the danger of instantaneous/complete bottoming-out, that bumpstops alone (sans shock absorbers) would provide. It's a way to help out out our trailers with insufficient axle travel to utilize true shock absorbers.

 

[gudmund-TNT]

I can live with that - nice comparison photo set and explanation.

 

[ntsqd]

If the axle moves at all a shock can help. Just because the axle can only move 1" in it's given use doesn't mean that you have to use a shock with only 1" of travel. You're obviously not going to find a shock with that short of a stroke, and that's OK. Just use the shortest shock that you can find. Most shock mfg's have a listing of their p/n's respective extended and compressed lengths. For instance, this is Rancho's: https://www.gorancho.com/downloads/prod ... _specs.pdf

Think about spring rates, the units are load over compression (lbs./in usually) So if you have a 2500 lbs./in spring then it compresses one inch with 2500 lbs. on it. With only 1250 lbs. it only compresses 1/2", but with 5000 lbs. on it it will compress 2" I think that is obvious, but I mention it just in case it is not.

Suppose a TD weighs 1200 lbs. and has those 2500 lbs/in springs under it. The axle is rarely going to move at all because it would take 5000 lbs. to compress both springs 1". The beer is going to be foamy and the eggs will only be good for scrambled, AFTER you get all of the shell chunks out of them. Lets say that we replace those springs with 500 lbs/in springs. Now the trailer's weight will compress the springs ~1.5" and the axle will move much more freely when a tire hits a bump. Downside is that ride height will vary a lot more with load. Upside is that the beer won't be foamy and you can have the eggs sunny side up if you so desire. If those 500 lbs./in springs start out with 1.5" more arch in them than the 2500 lbs./in springs have then the resulting ride height for the unloaded trailer will be the same.
With trailer springs that have more than one leaf in them one way to get a softer spring rate is to remove leaves from the springs. The shorter the leaf, the stiffer it is. With either the cut down urethane bump-stop or the Sumo spring in place I suspect that most TDs could use only the main leaf if they had shock absorbers. Running that light of a spring rate w/o shocks would very likely result in dangerous sway.

 

[mtbikernate]

I have a basic leaf spring arrangement in my trailer. Haven't had any major issues, but I have had at least one bottom-out incident where the axle contacted the frame. Don't know for sure when it happened, but I see the evidence of it if I look under the trailer.

I was looking for a solution to prevent this from occurring again, mostly, while avoiding a "hard" bump stop. I won't argue with a touch more ride height and maybe slightly smoother compression events, either.

I actually turned up working on it's modified daystar bumpstops on expedition portal and was considering a similar solution.

After speaking with a SumoSprings rep (and a Timbren rep), I chose to buy the blue, lighter duty Trailer SumoSprings.

https://www.superspringsinternational.c ... SS-106-40/

I have just at 6" of clearance between my leafs and the frame (which is within spec for the sumos), so I shouldn't need to make any modifications to these to get them to work. For me, a bolt-on solution that I could install without modifying was worth spending a bit more.

I'll also be replacing the bias ply ST tires with 27x8.5x14 AT tires (going with the less expensive Maxtrek SU-800 tires instead of the General Grabbers, the only other model in AT variety appears to be a Kenda Klever, which seems even harder to find, though there are quite a few more MT options).

Between those two changes, I expect that my trailer will be able to ride a bit smoother on gravel roads (mostly from the ability to air down the tires, and the newly gained tire flex). That's the extent of the "off-roading" my trailer will be seeing.

 

[mtbikernate]

so I ended up doing exactly what gudmund did with my sumosprings. When I lifted my trailer, I saw that my leafs didn't have very much preload on them. Less than an inch. Which didn't give me enough space for the sumosprings to fit (even though sumosprings says you need 6" of space minimum, and I had just a hair less than that with the trailer on the ground).

That's fine. Knowing that the sumosprings can be trimmed easily enough, I went ahead and did the same with mine, using a hacksaw.

I haven't set it back on the ground yet. Had to take the wheels off in order to turn the wrench to tighten the u-bolts, and I'm just leaving the wheels off until I get the tires changed. That'll give me a chance to go through the rest of the suspension (esp the shackles), the brakes, and the hub bearings.