To all those that have travelled around Australia. Is is necessary to upgrade from roller rocker suspension to inderpendant suspension, if you were in the market for a new van, to travel Australia and corogated roads ? Not looking at major off-road .
Thoughts ?
Regards Wayne
To all those that have travelled around Australia. Is is necessary to upgrade from roller rocker suspension to inderpendant suspension, if you were in the market for a new van, to travel Australia and corogated roads ? Not looking at major off-road . Thoughts ? Regards Wayne
Its all about weight on the wheels.
Remember the biggest flaw with independent suspension on caravans are that they are not weight equalizing. No ifs or butts. While the road is reasonably level, smooth all is fine.
Rolla rocker is completely weight equalizing as the trailer moves along a rough, undulating road weight is being shared.
Modern load carrying truck/trailers to obtain maximum loaded performance must have by law load sharing suspension.
I have been towing our duel axle caravan about 15 000 kilimetres per for the 3 years, there is no way I feel,I would ever need more then roller rocker suspension, maybe air suspension which is equalizer suspension would be my choice but not yet to much country to see before I need to do one piece of road that I can not do now.
Old school for me, Roller Rockers; most Caravans I have seen with suspension failure have been Independent, however they may have been subjected to "Too Much:" rough stuff.
I have done 95000 Km`s in the last 4 years with no problems with RR`s. Give them a good grease every 10000 and they should last.
Have towed our vans all over the continent for 40 odd years and always used roller rocker suspension. Simple and easy to fix. One of the biggest issues in the outback is broken independent suspension arms and then trying to obtain a replacement. Can be waiting months. Roller rocker parts are easy to obtain if you break something in the first place. Use the KISS principle.
Was going to suggest some shocks . Just make sure the attachment points are good and strong . I fitted some to car trailer we all use. Often towing long distance interstate . They take a lot of the harmonics out of suspension. Less movement less wear !!
We've had our Boroma 22 ft/3.5 tonne van on Alko Rocker beam leaf spring (load share) suspension FullTime Caravanning for 16 yrs now and over 180,000 kms (dirt roads approx 30,000 kms) without a problem.
But I have Upgraded the springs with an extra 2nd full length main leaf and reset of all leaves, Brass Shackle bushes and greasable pins welded to the Shackle plates and all suspension components double lock nutted.
I carry 2 x extra spring packs as spares but never needed to use them in all these years.
The Alko springs being cheap. Import quality, definitely benefit from a proper reset and extra quality leaf or leaves added for proper weight carrying ability and longevity.
It also come with factory fitted Monroe Gas shocks, which even for sealed roads as well as rough and dirt sealed roads makes a difference in ride and handling.
The only full load share Independent suspension I know of is the Leaf spring Simplicity design. They also now make a few newer designed Load Share Independent Coil and Airbags design suspensions as well.
BT 19' travel weight 3200 Simplicity Independent Load Share (leaf spring).
It has traveled approx 260K Off Road only replaced Pivot blocks twice and
saddles once. Would say easiest suspension to work on as only takes about
half an hour a side to do and no messing around with grease, shocks, any
other maintenance or worry about axels when off road.
