16 foot single wheel unusual TD build

[WeirdDogGuy]

I agree Don. It's certainly possible. German engineers are pretty meticulous. Great attention to detail, but I guess all engineers are like that....

[rowerwet]

my dexter trailer axle is not level, it is curved, I looked into flipping it so I could make the tear ride lower, but I would have needed to get the axle perches cut off and welded on the other side. This does mean the tires with no load are not plumb, but from what I've read this was done on purpose, as the load increases the axle takes on the correct shape. Most likely this is the same situation, and since cars are built to go around corners the rear tires are normally not vertical. Look at a late model Ford Focus, the rear tires tilt in toward the top enough to see easily, it is all about carving through the corners.

[dodgedartgt]

Andy,

Consider taking the assembly to a muffler shop and having them "tweak" the forward bend in the trailing arm on their bender to bring the wheel face and pivot bushing into line with each other. I doubt it would take much effort at all. When I worked at the "suspension" place years ago, we used an exhaust pipe bender with custom dies to bend up our sway bars.

Or, take advantage of the discrepancy and cut the two bends out and rebuild the trailing arm as a straight piece. That way the pivot point will be much closer to the centerline of the trailer.

Mike in FL

[Ron Dickey]

most of the one wheels I have seen have been shorter.
http://www.google.com/search?q=one+whee ... 89&bih=899

Hope you get it balanced right. most that have any weight have 2 connectors to the pull unit.

Maybe you will start a new idea in the one wheel world.

Good luck
looking forward to more pictures.

[WeirdDogGuy]

Andy,

Consider taking the assembly to a muffler shop and having them "tweak" the forward bend in the trailing arm on their bender to bring the wheel face and pivot bushing into line with each other. I doubt it would take much effort at all. When I worked at the "suspension" place years ago, we used an exhaust pipe bender with custom dies to bend up our sway bars.

Or, take advantage of the discrepancy and cut the two bends out and rebuild the trailing arm as a straight piece. That way the pivot point will be much closer to the centerline of the trailer.

Mike in FL

That's a lot of work to fix a degree or two. It would work, but I can just mount the hinge off the same amount and call it done. The important thing is that the wheel is going straight down the road. We had a storm blow thru today so I don't have any pix but I'll try to post some tomorrow. Thx for your ideas Mike.

[WeirdDogGuy]

most of the one wheels I have seen have been shorter.
http://www.google.com/search?q=one+whee ... 89&bih=899

Hope you get it balanced right. most that have any weight have 2 connectors to the pull unit.

Maybe you will start a new idea in the one wheel world.

Good luck
looking forward to more pictures.

The shorter ones have a crazy wheel in back and get their directional stability from 2 mounting arms attached to the bumper. I can't do that since my foamy is so long and the end would need to travel a big arc. I'll get more pix soon-bad weather today.

[WeirdDogGuy]

my dexter trailer axle is not level, it is curved, I looked into flipping it so I could make the tear ride lower, but I would have needed to get the axle perches cut off and welded on the other side. This does mean the tires with no load are not plumb, but from what I've read this was done on purpose, as the load increases the axle takes on the correct shape. Most likely this is the same situation, and since cars are built to go around corners the rear tires are normally not vertical. Look at a late model Ford Focus, the rear tires tilt in toward the top enough to see easily, it is all about carving through the corners.

Yes, that's what I meant by "wheel camber". The wheel geometry changes during loading/cornering.

ThxAndy

[WeirdDogGuy]

One last thought about wheel camber and direction of travel. The hinge I'm using is the original VW hinge with the rubber bushing. As the wheel goes down the hiway, the drag on the wheel is going to try to deflect the hinge a bit. That may cause the wheel to cock out a little-kind of like the way a rudder steers a boat. The hinge bracket that I'm building does not have a rubber bushing in it so it should hold my geometry pretty rigidly. Just one more thing to consider....

ThxAndy

[Gpike]

Alignment...

Something like this might help.
http://www.andysautosport.com/camber_sh ... abbit.html

Even with the rubber bushings, it should return to center, but these may be a good way to adjust the tracking.

Great build by the way, you have some great and interesting ideas.

[WeirdDogGuy]

Alignment...

Something like this might help.
http://www.andysautosport.com/camber_sh ... abbit.html

Even with the rubber bushings, it should return to center, but these may be a good way to adjust the tracking.

Great build by the way, you have some great and interesting ideas.

Thx for that link. You know, I considered making the tracking adjustable, but in the end, I decided that I was making a mountain out of a mole hill. I think you're right, it will just return to center after hitting a bump. A car tire spinning down the hi way is a pretty good gyroscope. Once it settles in, it really doesn't want to go anywhere. Also, I'm not welding my brackets on, I'm bolting them so I will be able to dial in my tracking slightly.

Thx for your commentsAndy

[WeirdDogGuy]

More crappy weather-snowed a bit this morning- but I did get a little done. I thought I was done with the design/layout. Here's a pix of how I had planned to do the suspension. It's an adjustable motorcycle shock and I thought that would work fine. There's a big nut on the top of the spring that you can turn in (tighten) and swing the arm out for more clearance or loosen to retract the swing arm. The design would allow me to have a low profile on the pavement and when I needed more clearance for offroad I could just crank the nut down and swing the arm down.

avll19.jpg (112.6 KiB) Viewed 936 times

But I worked a trade today for a weird car that has live hydraulics. It can kneel. It's a 1966 Citroen Safari Break. This opens up the possibility of automating my rear suspension. I haven't researched the system in the Wagon so I'm not sure how it works yet-just hydraulics, air over hydraulics, etc,etc. I'm not giving up the Soob, it's my daily driver so I'd like to use the AVLL on either vehicle. I have some airbags and it would be easy to bag it but then I wouldn't need the motorcycle shock. Generally speaking I like the KISS philosophy but I camp in some remote places and I like the idea of controlling ride hight from the TV. I guess I need to think about this more.

[WeirdDogGuy]

Well, we've got a foot of snow coming this w/e so I guess I'll just order some stuff. Plexiglass for the front windows and I've pretty much decided on air ride suspension. It will be much more convenient than cranking my shocks in and out all the time and I'll be saving a lot of weight.
I just have to check my swing arm geometry to make sure they'll fit but I'm pretty sure that I can make it work. I'll probably order these ebay bags, $60 per pair:

[angib]

But I worked a trade today for a weird car that has live hydraulics. It can kneel. It's a 1966 Citroen Safari Break.

Getting into Citroen hydraulics is a bit like going over to the dark side - you are inclined not to come back.

But they are neat. The best Citroen party trick is to use a block of wood to change a wheel - lift car right up, put block next to relevant wheel, let rest of car right down and the wheel comes off the ground.

Here's someone doing it the fancy way with a gen-u-ine jack stand. http://youtu.be/KSabTiFpIzY

[WeirdDogGuy]

But I worked a trade today for a weird car that has live hydraulics. It can kneel. It's a 1966 Citroen Safari Break.

Getting into Citroen hydraulics is a bit like going over to the dark side - you are inclined not to come back.

But they are neat. The best Citroen party trick is to use a block of wood to change a wheel - lift car right up, put block next to relevant wheel, let rest of car right down and the wheel comes off the ground.

Here's someone doing it the fancy way with a gen-u-ine jack stand. http://youtu.be/KSabTiFpIzY

Funny! They are strange creatures aren't they? I thought they might be air over hydraulic but they are just pure live hydraulics. Accumulators, leveling valves, all kinds of cool stuff. Really looking forward to playing with it but no way I'd ever crawl under one. It'd squish me like a bug. I'll run my air bags with a little 12v compressor or my bicycle pump in a pinch.

Thx for the replyAndy

[mezmo]

That Citroen suspension is called "hydropneumatic". It's not
pure hydraulics. It does use a high pressure hydraulic pump, so a
power source for that is needed - i.e. the engine in the car.
The fluid is pumped to the various suspension spheres [among other
areas that use it] where it interacts with compressed nitrogen
in the spheres, which is separated from the hydraulic fluid in
the spheres by a diaphragm. The hydraulic fluid compressing the
nitrogen provides the spring effect. Also be aware that two
different kinds of hydraulic fluid were used, depending on what the
model year of the car is. The older cars used red fluid, which can
be corrosive to various parts. Sometime in the 1960s [~1967 maybe ?
I'm not sure] they changed to green fluid, which is not corrosive.
Putting red fluid into a car set up for green fluid will cause major
damage to the system = major expense to replace/fix it all.
I'd advise checking out the various Citroen websites about this and
other such things Citroen, because they didn't do things like most
of the other car companies did !

Cheers,
Norm/mezmo