Travel Trailer air suspension

[brista]

I have a 34' TT gross weight 11,000 lbs. I am interested in keeping this unit long term and would like to put some kind of air suspension on it. I've read about trailair centerpoint, the kelderman system, as well as dexter axles air suspension.



I would like some real world feedback if you or any of your camping buddies use these systems. I'm also interested in hearing if any of you have fabbed up your own system. I'm not afraid to manufacture something myself, just looking for good feedback on what works well and what doesn't.



Thanks



Brian

 

[bmoeller]

I know of one guy that hauls camper for hire. Says he loves the air-ride trailers. I think he said some of the upper end trailers come with it from the factory. Think the particular company was using Kelderman's stuff.



Been a while, so I could be wrong.

 

[brista]

Yes I'm positive the results would be good, just have to decide what to buy or build.

 

[JRMora]

I would like some real world feedback if you or any of your camping buddies use these systems. I'm also interested in hearing if any of you have fabbed up your own system. I'm not afraid to manufacture something myself, just looking for good feedback on what works well and what doesn't.



Thanks



Brian

Didn't fab my own, but I had the Trail Air Centerpoint installed on my trailer after I took delivery (I already had the Trail Air pin box), and I'm glad I did. Very smooth riding system and I get ZERO sway from passing semi's (14k# helps).



Juan

 

[brista]

Didn't fab my own, but I had the Trail Air Centerpoint installed on my trailer after I took delivery (I already had the Trail Air pin box), and I'm glad I did. Very smooth riding system and I get ZERO sway from passing semi's (14k# helps).



Juan

Thanks. . they are not grossly overpriced either considering what it took to develop them. Do you have any issues at all with them loosening where they clamp onto the center hanger?

 

[JThomas]

Air suspension

Dexter Axle has an air suspension for their axles. They make good stuff and their prices are generally pretty good.

 

[RColston]

No problems with the CenterPoint CP# system on my Teton. Smoothed out the ride quite well, good pricing and the nice thing is that if you have an airbag failure it basically reverts back to the springs, unlike the Dexter Air Flex which drops to the stops.

 

[brista]

I looked at all the options and decided to fab one up loosely following the design of a hendrickson air ride, or airliner suspension used on large trucks. A friend had a tandem axle car hauler he wanted to convert to air ride so we used this a "test" mule and built an air ride system using a firestone 6401 bag on each wheel, with the idea of converting our RV's to air ride after.



The system worked very well on the car hauler so I am in the middle of fabbing up a complete air ride suspension for my TT. This invovles complete removal of the leaf spring system. I will post pictures of it soon for those who might be interested in building their own trailer air suspension.



Brian

 

[JRMora]

Thanks. . they are not grossly overpriced either considering what it took to develop them. Do you have any issues at all with them loosening where they clamp onto the center hanger?

Haven't had any problems with them loosening, but when my dealer installed them, they didn't properly secure on of the air lines and it rubbed on the inside of the tire. Coming back from the lake one weekend I noticed the trailer wasn't riding as smooth as it usually did. Checked the gauge and it was at zero. When I tried to put air back in it (thanks to my Pac Brake air compressor). I could only hear the rushing of air. Slid under the trailer and found the air line that was rubbing on the tire. No way to fix on the road. Just drove it the rest of the way home.



One of the good things about the centerpoint is that your suspension will revert back to normal if your system loses air. From Trail Air's website:



Safety Stops

You don't have to worry about downtime from an air leak with Center Point's safety system. The arms are shaped so the air spring cannot collapse and damage itself. The shape will allow for oscillation during travel.



Trail Air Centerpoint



Juan

 

[brista]

I ended up building my own system. I have it done all but for a couple finishing touches today. I'll post up some pics of the project for those that might be interested.

 

[brista]

Finished the project

Okay... I finished the project. The new suspension works very well. Test towing revealed that you could feel the cracks or pavement height changes as the wheels of the truck went over them but the trailer travelling over the bumps could not be felt in the truck.



Here is a bit of a progression of photos throughout the suspension changes:





First had to remove the old suspension by grinding the welds off.

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Then I built some walking beams in a jig for uniformity, here they are laid on the floor to give you an idea how they will look:

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I built the suspension on the bench so I wouldn't have to do any excessive welding under the trailer. It's obviously positioned upside down on the bench:

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Here is the main beam welded into position and the axles clamped to the walking beams:

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Here are the airbags and shocks installed:

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Transverse torque arms installed to handle the side to side forces. These are adjustable heim joint arms:

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This was a fairly labour intensive job taking about 20 hours from start to finish with a few [coffee] breaks here and there but I think it will really help prolong the life of the travel trailer. After test towing it I'm satisfied with the results. I'll post some long term info after the towing season is over here. Now to consider what to do about an air hitch and have the trailer completely riding on air.