Safari 30 bunkhouse owners club!

[overlander63]

Rich and the bunkhouse have safely arrived at Inland's world headquarters, and we held a debriefing over dinner. We'll be taking measurements in the morning, of ball and wheelwell height, torsion arm angle, toe. We're also going to check the disc brakes, there is a squeak when the pads are warm, and we want to make sure there are no further problems in that area. We'll also check to make sure the wheels are true, and there's nothing weird causing all the niggling issues Rich has been having.
We'll take lots of pictures, cull through them, and post the most relevant and instructional of the bunch here tomorrow evening.

[overlander63]

Originally Posted by robandzoe

Hey Rich - Axis are the way to go!!!
Rob

Rob, Axis exited the Airstream axle business a year or so back. The two main choices now are Henschen and Dexter.

[overlander63]

Originally Posted by ROBERTSUNRUS

Hi, Terry. Pictures please, please, please.

We got Rich's Bunkhouse in last night, and this morning I took some measurements and photos. I took measurements at the top of the fenderwells, ball height, rear and front of the tow vehicle at the top of the tow vehicle's wheelwells. The numbers are interesting.
Starting at the right rear wheel, the height before service is 25 7/8", right front 25 3/4", left rear 25 1/2" left front 25 3/8". Ball height was 17 3/8".
The tow vehicle, 2005 Nissan Armada SE 4WD with ride control, again starting at the right rear:
33 5/8", right front 36", left rear 33 3/4" left front 36 3/8".
The lowest point of the HAHA was 8 3/8" from the ground.

[Inland RV Center, In]

Originally Posted by robandzoe

I just spotted this latest topic here on the Bunkhouse thread... Hey Rich - Axis are the way to go!!! A 2005 with a failed axles already... wow! My 50 year old leaf spring axles are still a working great but then again my 30 foot (original) 1958 bunk house is only 4000 lbs.! I'd take it to Area63Productions for those new axles.. in southern California area..

Rob

Axis, because of a number of problems, "QUIT" selling to Airstream owners, sometime back.

Also, testing by a highly recognized laboratory, the AXIS axles were on the bottom of the list for quality.

The lab results on the Axis axles, clearly showed poor design, bad welds, insufficient welds, especially on the spindle and brake flanges, and an absolute disregard for alignment.

Perhaps that's why Axis, as a knock off product, quit supplying the Airstream owners.

We have, on hand, a couple of "never used" Axis axles, that confirm the lab results.

Andy

[overlander63]

After replacing the axles, and performing some other brake and running gear repairs, we measured everything again.
What we have now is:
Trailer--
Right rear 26 1/2"
right front 26 1/2"
left rear 26 1/2"
left front 26 1/4"
Ball height 20.5"

Armada--
right rear 35"
right front 36 1/2"
left rear 35 1/4"
left front 36 5/8"
HAHA 9"

[rluhr]

OK, as Terry said, the work is done. We hitched up but haven't towed yet. To save everyone from having to do the math, here's the difference between old axles and new axles on my trailer. (All measurements are with trailer hitched up and the torsion bars tightened.)

TRAILER:
Right rear + 5/8"
Right front + 3/4"
Left rear + 1"
Left front + 7/8"

Ball height: + 3-1/8" <----

TOW VEHICLE:

Right rear + 1-3/8"
Right front + 1/2"

Left rear + 1-1/2"
Left front + 1/4"

Low point of HAHA: + 5/8"

------

What Terry forgot to mention is that when we jacked up the trailer with the OLD axles, they dropped only 1-3/4". They should have dropped at least three inches. So the axles were definitely not behaving normally.

The increased clearances should help a lot with problems we've been noticing over the last year. The HAHA has been having trouble clearing bumps at entrance curbs, and it has been increasingly difficult to get the Armada leveled up.

Once I drive it a while (458 miles back to Tucson) I'll measure everything again and see if anything has moved or settled.

[wkerfoot]

Originally Posted by overlander63

After replacing the axles, and performing some other brake and running gear repairs, we measured everything again.
What we have now is:
Trailer--
Right rear 26 1/2"
right front 26 1/2"
left rear 26 1/2"
left front 26 1/4"
Ball height 20.5"

Armada--
right rear 35"
right front 36 1/2"
left rear 35 1/4"
left front 36 5/8"
HAHA 9"

Terry,

As I read and compare the two sets of numbers, the trailer went up about 1" and the ball height went up 3". Is this correct? If so, why? If not, what did I miss.

Bill

[wkerfoot]

Rich,

You beat me to the question. But, I am still confused.

Bill

[overlander63]

Rich's trailer is still here, and I'm going to verify the trailer is level, and remeasure the ball height. We're thinking that Sophie misread the tape measure...

[overlander63]

We just measured the ball height, as well as the HAHA height, and both have in fact increased by about 3". We just verified this, the HAHA low point is 11" without the Armada attached, and the trailer level.

[rluhr]

Sorry for the confusion. I'm thinking that re: ball height and the Hensley low point measurements, that we have a methodology problem. So many people were working on the trailer this a.m. that I think that someone may have changed the screw jack tension on the Hensley during the measuring process.

Looser screw jacks would cause the front end of the trailer (and back end of the Armada) to drop, and I believe that is what happened around the time we were taking those measures of the hitch ball and Hensley before the axles were replaced. Thus, those two measures should not be taken too seriously. They probably show far more elevation gain (3 inches) than we really got. The 3/4" lift at the wheels is more indicative of what really happened.

I also failed to note that I have been increasing the tension on the Hensley screw jacks over the past several months in an attempt to compensate for the back of the Armada riding lower and lower over time. Increased tension didn't help. Eventually this led to noticing that the axles were bad. Now that the axles have been replaced, I am able to use the original tension that we set up the Hensley with three years ago, and get better leveling.

My conclusion here -- based on my experience only -- is that bad axles can mess with your weight distribution, by changing the hitch ball height. In other words, the 3/4" decrease in trailer height made it impossible to get the truck and trailer properly leveled. I suppose if I'd replaced the stinger to one with a 3/4" deeper drop I would have been able to compensate. But that would only be masking the true issue, which was the axles failing to hold the trailer up as far as they should, and not having proper 'travel' in them to suck up the bumps.

[robandzoe]

Originally Posted by overlander63

Rob, Axis exited the Airstream axle business a year or so back. The two main choices now are Henschen and Dexter.

Actually, we are still getting Axis axles and mine are good to go! GSM deals them and I'm liking ours. Good luck with your next 4 years and the replacement thereafter.

R/s, an Axis fan!

[ROBERTSUNRUS]

Originally Posted by overlander63

Rich's trailer is still here, and I'm going to verify the trailer is level, and remeasure the ball height. We're thinking that Sophie misread the tape measure...

Hi, Yea,Yea, blame the poor dog!

Sophie, do you want to move to Lakewood?

[Rick Gillis]

I did a quick check on my unit yesterday. The height from the ground to the wheel well was about 25 inches. Since winter is quickly approaching I'll have to wait until spring or our winter trip to dive into any of the other details. Our Bunkhouse has about 8,000 miles on it.