Brakes

[hugh]

Actually my trailer is already built, there are a few pictures of it in my "personal gallery" on this site. I think of it as a "slouchie" its 8' long and just over 5' wide with an interior height of 5" 2" I made the frame from 2" square tubing and put it on 31" tires with a spring over config so I could try a little more extreme off roading than most trailers get. To make a long story short with the spring over and the 48" wide axle it tipped over [very slowly with no damage except to my pride] so I changed it to spring under to lower it. The axle is a 2000 lb unit but the springs are rated for 1750lbs each. It was never weighed but best estimate puts it around 1100 or 1200 lbs. I always intended on placing a 3500 lb axle under it to get the thicker tube and beefier bearings plus kick the track width out to about 62" to give it stability so it could go back to a spring over for ground clearance since my Jeep runs 35" tires. You make an interesting point about the leaf springs though, any thoughts regarding taking say 1 leaf out to make it a bit closer to the weight of the trailer. Or I could just buy a set of springs closer to the actual trailer weight. As far as the brakes go they seem like a good idea for added safety both for my family and others sharing the road. Either way there was a link in a few posts here to ABC trailers, they have a dynamite price compared to what I can get locally - way less than half. I hope to order the 3500 axle with brakes very soon.

[teardrop_focus]

Ah!

Sounds good. You know now that you'll want to get an accurate assessment of the trailer's weight. I like your plan...

Better than taking a leaf out (but not cheaper) is buying a slightly softer-rate spring. Chances are that they'd be a little longer, too, so some welding may be required to move eyelets and/or a shackle mounts.

You'll win in the end, though, with much more suspension compliance offroad and a nicer ride quality on the highway.

Here's a handy chart to help you find the right spring rate. It also contains some spring dimensions to help plan the modification:

http://www.stengelbros.com/UtilitySprings.htm

That link was brought to us by T&TTT User bluzharp in this thread: Spring Capacity By Dimension


Please pardon the slight deviation of the thread's course...