Morco torsion axle, silent ride suspension

[Mark Mckeeman]

Hi again,

First let me say I’m located in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. This information will only be relevant to those of you living within this manufacturers distribution network.

I'm putting a new axle under my Boler and just ordered a Morco torsion axle. Cost $360.00. That's crazy I know, but a less expensive Dexter Torflex was going to cost me well over $100 in shipping from the supplier in Montreal making the total cost about the same.

The Morco has a couple of features I like including adjustable ride height.

Here is a link to their site.

http://www.morcoproducts.com/

While going through the process I noticed their silent ride suspension system. Check it out under the Downloads tab.

Although the original Boler axle was lacking under the weight of a fully loaded Boler (1500#) it may still have enough life left in it for a lightweight teardrop project. I'll make that determination once I have the current project completed.

Mark

[brian_bp]

There's only one common rubber torsion component brand with splined arm mounts for adjustability, and that's Flexiride, so I wasn't surprised to see that Morco is building axle assemblies with Flexiride components. If you got Flexiride for Dexter prices, celebrate - they're premium components (at least the suspension portion, I don't know about the hubs and brakes) and priced accordingly.


The Silent Ride Suspension (SRS) is a way to get rubber springs with a beam axle. (It's from Timbren, a rubber spring maker that I have heard of.) That makes some sense, and I didn't know there was a commercially available product in recreational sizes. Thanks for the tip!

The tandem axle SRS is especially interesting to me, because I expect that it would load-share (or "equalize") better than typical leaf-spring setups... but I doubt many teardrops need tandem axles (4000 lb capacity), and if a travel trailer needs tandems I don't think the "tiny" term would apply...

[Alphacarina]

Yes, the Fexiride half axles should be very cheap to ship, compared to a whole beam axle

The SRS axle may 'load share' but the rubber torsion type axles sure don't. I have a pair of 5500 Dexter torflex axles under my boat trailer and Dexter claims they don't 'load share' even a little bit - They do not recommend (and won't warranty) any triple axle setups using their torflex axles because they don't share - It is possible when running over a curb or something similar to get the entire weight of the trailer and load onto one wheel/axle which would probably cause a failure in a triple configuration. Dual axles survive in similar circumstances not because they load share, but because a 5500 axle is capable of supporting the entire 11,000 pounds all by itself in such a situation . . . . but a 5500 wouldn't support the entire 16,500 pounds if it were stressed in that way in a triple installation

I was considering putting triple 5500's under my trailer (already had them bought) and after hearing that my total load (boat and trailer) was only about 10,500 pounds, the Dexter engineer STRONGLY recommended NOT to use the 3 axles, saying just two 5500's would be perfect for my application

Don

[Mark Mckeeman]

I picked up my axle yesturday. It is a very stout unit with a 3" tube and flexiride splined inserts, arms and hubs, no brakes.

I didn't exactly get dexter prices though. $360 for the axle plus all the lovely Canadian taxes brought the total $410.

It wasn't cheap but as you say I did get premium components that will definately last the life of the trailer.

Mark

[Arne]

Looks like with the silent ride you can not get the tear as low because of it's design. The center of the hub has to be below the frame, unless there is a dropped axle option..

[brian_bp]

Looks like with the silent ride you can not get the tear as low because of it's design. The center of the hub has to be below the frame, unless there is a dropped axle option..

Right... the SRS setup basically replaces a typical tandem leaf spring pack pair, with equalizer; it does not include the axle itself. In both SRS and leaf cases, dropped-beam axles would be used (as on my travel trailer, a leaf-spring single axle) to set the trailer lower.

I think the ease of setting the trailer relatively low compared to the hub height is one reason that the rubber torsion independent arm designs (such as Flexiride and Dexter's Torflex) are so popular on small and lightweight moulded fiberglass travel trailers. That does not seem to be a big concern for teardrops, as most setups I see here have straight axles on leaf springs, even overslung mounted, so there's no attempt to get low.