Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

I picked up my axle today, it's a Dexter#9 with 22.5deg down angle. When I ordered it, they asked for the frame width which is 60in, that is fine. I ordered a an axle 74in face to face, which takes into account the offset of the wheels with a 2in gap between the wall and the tire that is fine also. What I didn't know was the distance from the bracket to the swing arm is only 1in. My walls are 1in so it will be a tight fit.

Any ideas? One that came to mind was to use the router and rout a recess along the swing arm travel (a pie slice shape) then glass and epoxy it for protection from moisture.

You could try an 'AXLE STRETCHER' if you could find one!

You can check with the axle mfgr, but I'm confident the center of the axle is empty, and can be cut and widened if necessary.... The rubber suspension is at the ends (see the stubby axles)..... I don't think they would recommend it, and it will void the warranty, but it could be done....

If you were to widen the axle, it would change the mounting points. One modification would lead to another requirement and so on. The easiest thing to do right now would be to change out the wheels for ones with a different offset. But then that may require wider fenders.

I'd never paid any attention to the distance between my brackets and the swingarm. But you got me to thinking about it and I went and measured. I have the same Dexter axle and the distance on mine is right at ½ inch. But hey, I'm committed now so we'll see what happens if I hit a really big bump.

Flava,
I think you're going to be just fine, take a look at what Camp-In does on the bottom of their side wall at the axle location. It looks like a clearance area for the swing arm to me.
Hopefully, Cary will see this thread and let you know what's up with that.

arnereil wrote:You can check with the axle mfgr, but I'm confident the center of the axle is empty, and can be cut and widened if necessary....

David Grason wrote:If you were to widen the axle, it would change the mounting points. One modification would lead to another requirement and so on. The easiest thing to do right now would be to change out the wheels for ones with a different offset. But then that may require wider fenders

David is right, this would move the brackets out as well. I need more room between the bracket and swingarm. Another thing I didn't notice was that the axle isn't a straight tube, theere is a slight bend in it to compensate for the load.

Even though I wanted a 0 deg arm angle I wasn't sure if it'd be too low, I knew a 45deg would be too high. I split the difference and ordered a 22.5deg axle. I think this will save me from having to make large arm recess cuts.

Dean has it correct on how we do it. Our torsion axles clear the frame by very little. We cut out the bottom of the side wall where the swing arm travels. To allow for the swing arm to travel above the frame we cut out slightly above the frame. It doesn't leave a hole because we have a floor to wall gusset inside behind that area. So, basically our swing travels in the wall. We only run about 1" of tire to side wall clearance. It works great because the torsion axles are very positive side to side.

As for the exposed wood it gets a very liberal coating of undercoating during the fender install.

Cary

Dean told me to check Jan Keller's build pics. I've looked at those pictures a hundred times and never noticed the notch in the side wall.

I checked the Dexter site and looked at their drawings. It looks like with a 22.5 deg down angle, it won't go past the frame bracket even at shock loads. I can make a square cut out along the bottom frame tube without having to get too fancy. I also noticed on the Dexter site that there is an optional short spindle, it's 6in instead of the standard 6 1/2. It's not much of a difference but that would have been enough to avoid this problem.

Thanks guys, I feel a lot better about cutting the notch.

Cary,
I gotta be honest here... I only had it half right.
Let me explain...
Originally, the bottom edge of my profile (Side Wall) was going to be positioned a bit lower than the frame to hide the tounge, rear reciever and the grey water tank. I would rather not have to stack my tounge like that, but because of the dropped foot well, I believe stacking it is the best option. So, I knew I would need some sort of notching at the swing arm area.
I really liked the idea of hiding all that stuff to make the profile stand out.
One problem though... It used up some serious head room needed when the dinette was being used, so I nixed that idea and raised the profile to where, just my woody skin is going to cover the frame rail only, nothing else.
When I noticed the notch in the Camp-In profile, I just assumed that your profile sat lower than the frame and the notch was just in the "apron' area and didn't extend up into the cabin area above the floor height...
...And to be totally candid here, I only have guestimations at this point as to the exact postion and travel of the swing arm. That's why I plan to go with a Flexiride axle, it has a positionable forged swing arm. Until I have the actual parts in my hands, it's really just an educated guess.
My drawings are showing me that I have a minimum of 9" clearance from the ground to all that "stuff" hanging down under there. (I measured the ground clearance on the rear end of my F-150 and it's right at 8 1/2")

Dean,

You are more than half correct. Our side wall does drape down over the frame, about 2 1/4". The notch in the side wall I think is something like 3".

We too use the Flexiride. The forged trailing arms are nice because they turn out and would only hit the trailer's side wall near the stub. For our standard ride heights we don't need that much cut out. If we lowered one for a street rodder or something we need that extra little bit. The other thing the extra cutout area gives us is room to pull the cinch bolt out if readjusting the ride height. Plus the extra room makes running brake wiring easier.

Give yourself as much cutout as you can afford with the Flexiride. You won't be sorry.

For a fixed axle like the Dexter with the 22.5 degree angle the notch probably won't need to be much if any.

Cary