Tandem axle trailer (Caution, Pic heavy)

[Scott]

Pulled my trailer home today. Gonna put a second axle and change the stock lighting to DOT commercial Sealed 3" rear and 2" side marker LED's with waterproof plugs and repaint.

Scontubee COOOOL!!!

Will update with pics in about a month!!

Thanx Chip for the spec's

[Scott]

Excepting the orange side marker lights, my trailer is done.

Sprayed it sunday and reassembled it today.

It looks like the factory macgregor dual axle upgrade.
In the interest of not running afoul of the dread board cops, I will post pics and a follow up on the mod side. Will try to take my camera tomorrow!!

[Frank C]

... Will update with pics in about a month!!

Hmmm ... now there's a promise from a shipshape Cap't!

[Scott]

I just noticed, it in fact was almost exactly 1 month.
I do happen to make a living by meeting appointments. just kidding, it was an accident and I wont have time for pics till friday.

P.S. Total fabrication time invested, not including shagging parts = 9 hrs
Total cost including paint= apr $400, Ill get an accurate price list.

[richandlori]

Scott, feel free to post those photos here, as they are related to the trailers and Towing topic, us cops arn't that anal anyway!!!

Rich

[Scott]

Here it is, the factory Mac trailer upgrade







I pulled the original tires as they were an odd size and hard to find. I opted for lower profiles to lower the center of gravity.







Tractor trailer light unit, cut in half with the open side down. Will drain when pulled from water.



Sealed commercial 3" light



Quick disconnect





Side Markers are also sealed commercial units with quick disconnects.



I just left the brake lines where they were and slid the axle forward. If you look close enough you can see the slag from the original spring hangers.

All thats left is screwing with the stacks to even out the axle weights.

[Chip Hindes]

NIce job.

If you're staying with only two brakes, they need to be on the rear axle.

I believe the Champion Trailers website explains this better than I could.

Adding an extra few feet to the original lines ought to be fairly simple and cheap.

[Scott]

my intention is to have brakes on both axles. I've but to buy the parts and bolt them on.

Just a recommendation, suck down your brake system, rebuild it and fresh up with dot 5 silicon. When your seals fail, and they WiLL fail, the dot 3 eats your paint and starts a mean case of cancer in the drums.

[Chip Hindes]

Brake fluid is one of the nastier ones you have to deal with. It will certainly eat paint. It's hygroscopic and will absorb water, which is a good reason to flush and refill the brake system periodically, particularly on a boat trailer. I'm not sure why this would be particularly damaging to brake drums, any more than, say, regular immersion in salt water. I assume either fluid leaking in sufficient quantity to coat the brake drums will also soak and ruin the brake shoes.

I switched to disc brakes with stainless rotors anyway, so that point is moot.

In any case, in order switch to silicone and keep your entire brake system from self destructing in short order, you need to completely dismantle the system, flush out every trace of the old fluid and then replace all the rubber parts before filling up with silicone. This is, IMO, a lot of work and quite a large expense on the pretense that you might be saving the drums, if your seals fail.

Once the seals start leaking, you're due for a total rebuild anyway, so saving the drums is not a big additional savings. The economics:

a) 2 new drums at $50/ea sometime in the indefinite future; or

b) a complete brake system flush and rebuild now.

I think I'd go with a).

Note that you can replace the entire brake system, including the drums and even the hoses for $250 plus shipping, per axle from Champion.

Silicone brake fluid was pretty popular a few years ago; not so much now; the newly reformulated glycol based fluids are better and are used by all major automotive manufacturers. I read one opinion that silicone brake fluid would soon go the way of leaded gasoline.

[Scott]

Bummer, I have dot5 in 3 of my 5 vehicles. Seems to still be abundantly available at the auto parts store.

Ive never seen glycol fluid but we run it in the form of antifreeze in all of the valving on our trailers and the hydraulic actuators in our trucks.

The price spiked a couple years ago on hydraulic fluid so at the next service on each truck we flushed the systems and refilled with antifreeze. havent had a problem of frozen valve since.

[Chip Hindes]

I believe the old DOT 3, as well as 4 and 5.1 are all different formulations of glycol. Only DOT 5 is silicone. The newer ones are reformulated for higher boiling points.

[Divecoz]

Did I not read the brake if only one should be in the rear?? OR am I remembering this wrong or is it but another host of opinions and the jury is still out ???

[Chip Hindes]

Divecoz:

Single axle brakes on a tandem axle should be on the rear axle. the reason is explained on the Champion Trailers website. To my knowedge there is no disagreement. Based on personal experience I had many years ago with a defective electric brake system on a flatbed trailer, I can assure you what they say is true, though at the time I didn't know why.

Scott intends to add rear brakes ASAP.

If you have a two axle arrangement other than the depicted tandem, with center hanger mounted equalizer, the answer may be different.

[Scott]

My guess would be that as the brakes are applied and the fore axle tends to the rear, the EQ will shift the bias to the rear axle causing the front axle to lighten up and skip or skid. Seems to work that way on TT units when empty.