Wednesday, May 22, 2013 at 18:22
Gday Neil,
Might be any of the upper leafs that break. But the main leaf locates the axle so is the most important, and a main leaf will get you out of trouble. Leaf springs can be very heavy, which is why I just carried a main leaf - from memory it might cost about $50 for a spare main leaf.
But there are other ways of fixing broken leaf springs. Some people just carry a "spring clamp" which is two pieces of leaf spring and a clamp that goes around them. Some people can weld and reinforce the break - takes a lot of patience and skill and special welding rods. Also if the centre pin is centrally located in a leaf, you can reverse the broken main leaf so at least the axle is correctly aligned. But most vehicles have the centre pin offset (usually towards the shackle from memory). My recollection is that most trailer springs have the pin central, but you'd have to
check.
The other breakage I've had was the front pin on a greasable shackle on a Landcruiser. Fortunately I carried a spare, but I could have substituted another bolt or welded up the broken pin. I've also seen the spring hangers rip from the chassis. So bush welding skills can come in handy.
There are other points to leaf springs -
check the U-Bolts for tightness before you leave
home and
check occasionally while you're away. The centre pins can break as
well - causes the trailer or vehicle to "crab", so I carried them spare as
well.
But coil springs can break too. I can think of 3 instances I personally know of in the past 10 years - one guy had to wait for a new 105series spring to be flown to
Andado Station before attempting the
Madigan Line. Another was stuck at
Oodnadatta after simply breaking an 80series rear spring on the
Oodnadatta track. And the third was a mate's 79series which broke the lower part of the front coil - picked up by a mechanic when the vehicle was serviced - the break had happened sometime earlier.
As far as trailers and the Canning....in my opinion it isn't worth the stress on the trailer or the vehicle. I'll leave the Tvan at
home when we go again in August.
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