hello, All.
You may recall I sent the axle back to Axis. They paid the freight both ways and stiffened it up. When I picked it up at the freight office, it was completely bare, with just a thick coat of grease on the spindles. I was amazed that the freight company would accept it that way. But it seemed to be fine (it did have castellated nuts installed to protect the threads on the spindles). The new sticker said "5,200 lbs" and I about died--I thought for sure it would be way over-stiff. We're still talking about why that number, but read on.
I put the axle on myself this time with one floor jack and one small hydraulic to rotate it properly. The axle is actually pretty easy to handle when it's bare--no drum or brakes. Axis used the old swing arm but a new tube, so everything fit but I had to drill out the 5/8" holes again, since the tube had new brackets on it. When you drill through two smaller holes that aren't aligned, you get ovals. This concerned me, so I've watched it very carefully. I don't see any movement of the bracket due to the lack of tightly concentric holes in the bracket and axle mounting flange. If I did, I would put thick washers on each and weld them on with the bolt in place. That would provide a tight fit, but I don't think it's necessary.
I reinstalled the brake plates and drums and adjusted them like I would a car, which turned out to be wrong--too tight. But I was sure the brakes were sufficiently loose--wrong again. Even the slightest drag turned out to generate a lot of heat. So slight, in fact, I would have swore that they were overly loose. I put the Centramatics on in the direction pictured--either way fits fine on this axle and wheels.
The longer Monroe 55003 shocks were reinstalled, but first I drew lines to show the amount of compression (anyone need a pair of 55002's--9" compressed and 12-1/2" elongated?). The bottom line on the shock barrel is 6", so when you can't see the numbers you can just count backwards. The 55003 shocks have an active length of 5-3/4".
When the jacks were removed, the shocks compressed to only 2" on the street side and 2-1/4" on the curb side. Ack! Too stiff!! I expected something more like 3" or a little more. However, after driving about 20 miles around the local area, they had compressed to about 3-1/4". Great, this is perfect (I'm thinking). Loaded up and took off for Vegas. The trip is shown here--5,275 miles. You might have caught my whine on another thread when I couldn't get the axle to run cool--it was a combination of castellated nuts too tight (by about three castellations on both sides) and one side had a very slightly dragging brake that I just couldn't feel. Once that was adjusted, the spindles run as cool as the TV.
Mid-way in the trip and fully loaded with water and other provisions, the shocks were typically compressed to 4". That's a little more than I would like, but the Caravel performed fine, even took some potholes that made my teeth rattle in the TV, but nothing moved inside the trailer. The condition that does make items shift is a road that puts the TV and trailer into a porpoising motion, which really makes the shell deflect more than a big bump. Nothing the axle can do about that--more throttle discipline, I think.
The swing arms are very nearly horizontal when fully loaded. This is about 3-5 degrees more "up" than I would like, but as I said, it runs fine and I'm moving on to the next project. Thanks for all your comments.
One note about Axis--I have some confidence that if we can make a standard order form (like, all the early 70s ought to be so similar that that is a real possibility) they will hear us again. They have said they would do another set for me for my Overlander (2 axles), since I have the disc brake parts already. If that goes well and I don't bug them too much, it'll be a start.
The bottom line is that I spent more time in aggravation than it would have cost me to get the axle directly from Inland RV. On the other hand, I now understand the axle and trailer much better and I'm happy about the job I did. On balance, I would do it this way again (and I have the shocks on the way I like them!!).
