Axles and such...

[john hd]

hey henry

i spoke with my buddy, bad news, not much left of the unit except for a terminal block with a couple of wires.

however, he remembers reading an article on the web somewhere about the units and the problems people had with them.

so there is some info on the units floating around the net, just a matter of finding it! i did a google search and came up with zilch.

john

[axleman]

Originally Posted by wahoonc

Hi Henry,
I am not the buddy John was refering to I have a 1975 31' that will be in need of your services...eventually. I have never seen the device, but I do have a 1975 Service manual that has the brief description in it. I will keep my eyes out for one, and if I can get my hands on one, I will let you all know. Maybe we can dissect it and see what it is made of From the description in the manual, I suspect it applied all the trailer brakes at one time to help reduce sway, kind of the same affect you would get by tapping the brake controller manual switch in the same situation.

Aaron

Aaron,



That is very interesting . I would love to see a sample, keep me informed if you manage to locate one. Sounds line an ingenious gizmo. I should have known that with this huge community of folks on the forum two people (at least) might have seen one .



Regards,

Henry

[axleman]

Originally Posted by john hd

hey henry

i spoke with my buddy, bad news, not much left of the unit except for a terminal block with a couple of wires.

however, he remembers reading an article on the web somewhere about the units and the problems people had with them.

so there is some info on the units floating around the net, just a matter of finding it! i did a google search and came up with zilch.

john

John,

Zilch is what Yahoo yeilded as well.

Thanks,
Henry

[Anon]

Originally Posted by john hd

lou

let us know, anything is possible. those excellas had everything from central vaccums to bargeman safes! not to mention the propane powered onan generators!

john

John,
I talked to my buddy this morning. One of the guys that sits near him at C.T. worked on the first generation. He is now going to be writing up the testing procedures on the second generation.
He says he will ask him for the press releases they issue. These would be the press releases that the SAE and the auto companies receive. These will not be mainstream and they will be full of good technical information.

[wahoonc]

Originally Posted by axleman

Aaron,



That is very interesting . I would love to see a sample, keep me informed if you manage to locate one. Sounds line an ingenious gizmo. I should have known that with this huge community of folks on the forum two people (at least) might have seen one .



Regards,

Henry

Henry,
What I am hoping to do is to locate one in a salvage unit. There is a RV salvage yard about 60 miles or so from me that used to have a fair collection of early 70's vintage airstreams, I am hoping one of those units may have one still in it. These are units that are pretty heavily damaged and in some cases pretty well stripped out. So we might just get lucky.

Aaron

[axleman]

Originally Posted by wahoonc

Henry,
What I am hoping to do is to locate one in a salvage unit. There is a RV salvage yard about 60 miles or so from me that used to have a fair collection of early 70's vintage airstreams, I am hoping one of those units may have one still in it. These are units that are pretty heavily damaged and in some cases pretty well stripped out. So we might just get lucky.

Aaron

Aaron,



I really appreciate your efforts. The folks on this forum have been excellent to correspond with. Thank you!



Regards,

Henry

[Anon]

I have heard that the Continental Teves system will be available of some domestic vehicles sometime in the next 3 years. This is from my "engineering grapevine". It is an unofficial source but I think it is reliable.
I will be getting some SAE press release stuff later in the week.

[axleman]

Originally Posted by pattersontoo

I have heard that the Continental Teves system will be available of some domestic vehicles sometime in the next 3 years. This is from my "engineering grapevine". It is an unofficial source but I think it is reliable.
I will be getting some SAE press release stuff later in the week.

Lou,



You had mentioned a magazine article and talked to your buddy. Is there a link that you could provide to a web page that could show the early prototypes or concept of this system?



I am intrigued!



Thanks,

Henry

[Anon]

Originally Posted by axleman

Lou,



You had mentioned a magazine article and talked to your buddy. Is there a link that you could provide to a web page that could show the early prototypes or concept of this system?



I am intrigued!



Thanks,

Henry

Henry,
Don had mentioned the link in a previous post.
If you look at the EHB you will see that is sort of works like the ActiBrake system. If you look at the EMB it completely eliminates all need for brake boosters and hydraulic lines altogether. I should have some SAE infor in the near future. Unfortunately, my buddy that works there has to do his job during the day.
Here is the link:
http://www.conti-online.com/generato...2_0602_en.html

Lou

[axleman]

Originally Posted by pattersontoo

Don had mentioned the link in a previous post.
Here is the link:
http://www.conti-online.com/generato...2_0602_en.html

Lou

Lou,



I saw that link, I thought that if you had a “friend or two” in the business that you might be able to share some additional information.



Thanks for sharing,

Henry

[Anon]

I will be able to supply some additional information this weekend.
It will be technical press release stuff. It may even be a little deep for this thread. I will know more about what I have coming when I see it.
If anything I would post it to my Members Photos section for general consumption.

[05ModPod]

Hi Guys and Gals;

I know all might be sick of hearing about axles - but I have a slightly interesting question.

What is the width of a 99 29' Excella axle? and would it fit a 1961 overlander Chassy?

I got an okay on the wheels that they would fit the 61 - but at the time I knew nothing of the possibility of using the 99's axles.

We don't have the 99 just curios - if the guy ever wants to part it out.


Thanks

[Inland RV Center, In]

GT6921

The wide body axles are several inches wider than required for a 1961 trailer.

Also your trailer came equipped with 2300 pound axles.

Any axle from a 1968 and older Airstream would fit.

The next concern would be the rating.

I would suggest that you not exceed 3000 rating, per axle, but you must not mix two different ratings, either

You cannot mix a fairly good axel with a fairly bad axle. To do so would put more weight on the better axle, causing a sway, and ruining it in short order because it would carry more weight than it should.

Andy

[05ModPod]

Originally Posted by Inland RV Center, In

GT6921

The wide body axles are several inches wider than required for a 1961 trailer.

Also your trailer came equipped with 2300 pound axles.

Any axle from a 1968 and older Airstream would fit.

The next concern would be the rating.

I would suggest that you not exceed 3000 rating, per axle, but you must not mix two different ratings, either

You cannot mix a fairly good axel with a fairly bad axle. To do so would put more weight on the better axle, causing a sway, and ruining it in short order because it would carry more weight than it should.

Andy

Thanks Andy for the heads up. She is pretty heavy! and she is also a 28' foot rather than a 29' I was mistaken.

Well maybe we can score the wheels and tires at least - be a bit of savings anyway.

[Inland RV Center, In]

GT6921.

The axle rating for a 1961 28 and 30 foot trailer is 2600 pounds.

I would suggest that you stay with a 3000 pound axle, unless you will "always" have it heavily loaded. In that case you could go to a 3500 pound axle.

In 1963 the 28 and 30 foot railers had axle ratings of 3200 pounds.

Other size trailers also had axle weight ratings increase over time, to provide more "payload". The trailers themselves, basically weighed the same.

The largest change occured with the 22 foot trailer.

A 61-62 22 foot trailer axle had a rating of 3600 pounds.

In 63 that changed to 4000 pounds. In 65 it changed to 5000 pounds.

Airstream has learned, in time, that axles can and do fail, if they are overloaded. They also fail if the rubber rods are not exercise once in a while. A trailer that has been parked for years with all the weight on the axles, will settle, since there was no movement.

Airstream then increase the ratings accordingly, so that the owner could expect far longer useage.

You can see how much the 22 foot rating changes, even though the same basic trailer design was used.

Andy

[Coloradobus]

AXLE IS IN, now here is the question. Our old original axle on th '67 Globetrotter was rated 4,000 lbs. After re-hab, the GT weighs 4218 lbs., plus food, plus free standing A/C unit, plus bikes( on the bed), plus casket size ice chest. We replaced the old axle with a 6,000 lb axle with a 22.5 degree down angle, and after its all said and done, the GT doesn't stand any higher or lower than with the old axle. The same amount of sidewall is exposed beyond the wheel opening to the rim edge. However, while suspended in the air, the axle arm drops down more than on the old one. I was hoping for more height. Hmm, I wondering now if it WAS really necessary to replace the old one? From all reports, are we not supposed to enjoy a little more ground clearance? At least the ride is smooth and comfortable, even the side goucho stays put.

[overlander63]

Originally Posted by Coloradobus

AXLE IS IN, now here is the question. Our old original axle on th '67 Globetrotter was rated 4,000 lbs. After re-hab, the GT weighs 4218 lbs., plus food, plus free standing A/C unit, plus bikes( on the bed), plus casket size ice chest. We replaced the old axle with a 6,000 lb axle with a 22.5 degree down angle, and after its all said and done, the GT doesn't stand any higher or lower than with the old axle. The same amount of sidewall is exposed beyond the wheel opening to the rim edge. However, while suspended in the air, the axle arm drops down more than on the old one. I was hoping for more height. Hmm, I wondering now if it WAS really necessary to replace the old one? From all reports, are we not supposed to enjoy a little more ground clearance? At least the ride is smooth and comfortable, even the side goucho stays put.

Looks from here like you took a 3000 pound trailer, with a 4000 pound axle, added 1200 pounds to it, installed an axle with 2000 pounds more capacity, so you only added 800 pounds to the axle capacity. You then added 200 pounds of A/C for a balance of 600 pounds. You then added 2(?) bikes for a total of 100 pounds, leaving you with a balance of 500 pounds. Then you added a 100 pound ice chest (give-or-take), leaving you with only a 400 pound addition to your weight capacity, after all is said and done. If your old axle was "stuck" in the "right" position for your trailer, you should not reasonably expect the trailer to sit more than an inch higher than it did. Sorry to rain on your parade, but that is what my guesstimated numbers tell me. Although you probably did need a new axle, especially since you added considerable weight to it, a new axle wouldn't do a whole lot for the ride height.

[Coloradobus]

Thanks Overlander63. Yep, that's what we had figured with the a factor of about (1.3), that gave us around 4-500 lbs to play with,. Overall, I am happy with how the GT rides. No more jarring banging. I wanted to layout the overall ending project because of some feed back I was told earlier, I needed to replace the Globetrotter's axle with a 3500 poinder. Thats before I looked at the old axle tag.
With the old axle and new brake assmeblies, we had to let the air out of tires and pull the fender out to remove the tire. This new axle we don't. All things being equal, at least we thought they were, turns out the brake drum assmenblies sent from the west coast , which were thought to be identical replacements to the orginals, were wider causing the tire removeal problem. Didn't think to match them up at time of installation. Just did that this a.m. and was surprised of the differnce. The old brake drums and the new ones coming with the axle are narrower than the repacement brake assemblies we got from California 2 years ago.
Well, we're set for Missouri. Just need to hitch up and give the 36 year old towcar a chance to prove itself around town today.

[overlander63]

Originally Posted by Coloradobus

Well, we're set for Missouri. Just need to hitch up and give the 36 year old towcar a chance to prove itself around town today.

Have a safe trip, and give us a report when you return.
Remember, it's not a job, it's an- oh, wait. Wrong slogan.
See you down the road...

[Coloradobus]

Overlanded63, Took the caddy and the Globetrotter on a 30 mile jaunt, including a 6 miles 6% grade (things did get a bit toasty), and 1969 DeVille Convertible did admirably. Pulled that hill at 55 in second gear. I turned off the a/c for the eztra boost. Coming down, the compression held the whole rig in 2nd gear at 45.
Only problem we had, is the 2 year old LED brake/stop lights we ordered from INland RV have begun to burn out the light bulbs. I thought LED's had a longer life than 2 years/ 10 outings of a few days.