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Caravan chassis types
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UNBRAKED
It is many years since you could simply go to a car scrapyard,
buy an old car rear axle and use it as the running gear for
a home-made trailer. I built my first trailer this way using
the rear suspension units from a Bond Mini car. These were
the rubber Bramber Flexitor type now made by Peak Trailers
(see Chapter 3). I did not require brakes so I used the hubs
as unbraked units. You cannot do this now; the law requires
that if brakes are fitted 'they must work'. Moreover, car-type
brakes do not conform to the European Directive covering trailer
brakes as they are not of the automatic reversing type.
BRAKED
If you do need a braked trailer and want to build it yourself, the easiest
way is to go to a caravan breaker and buy an old caravan chassis because
these have had automatic reversing brakes fitted since the mid-1970s.
The only snag is that caravan axles are nearly all wide tracked and
cannot be reduced in width if you do not want a wide trailer. Caravan
axles were usually made in varying capacities e.g. 900kg, 1,100kg,
1,300kg and 1,500kg in single axle form. The chassis plate should tell
you what capacity axles and brakes are fitted. A search on the Internet
or in your local classified directory will give you the location of
the nearest caravan breaker. The old British caravan chassis makers
- B&B Trailers (semi-trailing arm suspension), Peak Trailers (swing
axle suspension) and CI (trailing arm suspension) were all made with
automatic reversing brakes and all used coil springs with hydraulic
dampers. They make a very good trailer indeed as they were of traditional
construction with at least four cross-members making it a simple job
in placing trailer bodywork straight on to the chassis. There can be
some problems though in obtaining spare parts for older designs of
chassis. The rubber suspension type then took over the market and you
will find AL-KO Kober and BPW made the most commonly found designs.
Gradually the amount of steel in a chassis was reduced and the chassis
now has just two longitudinal members with the axle tube as the only
cross-member. This is because caravan floors now take a greater share
of the load bearing construction, being made of a sandwich of foam
between two layers of plywood. |
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