Are these springs still good?

[Hoopy Frood]

Reamer - that's a good idea. I'll try and locate a 11/16" reamer or maybe an 11/16" drill bit. Perhaps I can drill out the high spots on a drill press. I'll report on how that goes.

A 9/16" reamer is what you need. An 11/16" drill will likely give you a oversize hole, and not round unless you're seriously strong dude and can keep it perfectly aligned. Oops, missed that you have a drill press, that's perfect for the reamer.

[toolman.dustin]

A 9/16" reamer is what you need. An 11/16" drill will likely give you a oversize hole, and not round unless you're seriously strong dude and can keep it perfectly aligned. Oops, missed that you have a drill press, that's perfect for the reamer.

I guess what your saying is, press the bronze bearing into the 11/16", out of round hole and then ream the 9/16" ID bronze hole to make it round. Is that correct?

[Hoopy Frood]

Yes, the springs are way too hard to try and ream them to be round. So you press in the bushing and then ream the bushing to be round.

[Retiree19]

A quick note about spring failures. When springs fail, they don't just bend beyond the "W" shape. Typically the top leaf will snap at a weak point like a bubble in the forging. What happens next is really ugly. Since one axle is now unsupported, the other axle which still has a spring carries double the load. Because there is no counteracting force on the equalizer, the loaded axle rotates the equalizer up to the stop. If the break occurred on the outboard side of the spring (the way it's always happened to me) it drags the two tires together until they make contact. Because the two adjacent sides of the tires are rotating in opposite direction, it doesn't take long to shred both tires. So now you don't just have a spring problem, you have a tire problem too.

I've been through this twice, once while 10 miles out in the boondocks. Fixing it there was no fun. I got lucky the last time and smelled the tires when I was dropping the unit off at the storage lot. I had power there and was reasonably close to all the things I'd need and forgot to bring but it was still no fun. I hadn't expected a catastrophic spring failure on a one year old trailer. As the saying goes, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Now the springs get special attention whenever I do the bearings. As far as I know that's all you can do since failures seem to be catastrophic, not gradual. For what it's worth, both my spring failures were on the passenger side away from the kitchen.

[Hoopy Frood]

What kind of "special attention" do the springs get? As you said, the failure usually gives no warning, so what are you looking for/at?

[Retiree19]

What kind of "special attention" do the springs get? As you said, the failure usually gives no warning, so what are you looking for/at?

As far as I know, all you can look for is unusual deformation. Wish I knew a way to diagnose impending spring failure.

[FlyStar]

Retiree19

Thank you for sharing that. Feeling better and better about de using to have them replaced before towing across the country again.

[Overtaxed]

Just wanted to drop in a funny note.

This thread should be used as an advertisement for Morryde IS. The non-IS suspension systems just really aren't up to the task with these heavy trailers, especially if you're going to do serious miles. I've never had IS, but I understand it's much better; the engineering certainly looks better, that much I can say for sure.

The thing that kills me, there are relatively simple/cheap ways for the manufacturer to fix this. Spring hangers are kind of a well known technology. Trucks do 100K miles easily on a set of standard leaf springs, seems lots (including me) are having trouble getting 10K out of a trailer. I can't even remember the last time I hear someone doing a spring job on a car or replacing eye bushings on a cars springs. This is a solved problem, and IS, while likely a solution, isn't the only way to fix it. Lots of heavy trucks have a solid axle hung just like our RV axles are, U-bolts to a spring pack that's captured on both sides by a pin.

It's really not that hard. Maybe someone will start coming out with better springs that have a machined hole for the pin (vs a bushing)? Or a hard bushing instead of brass that will not deform out of round? There are probably 100 ways to fix it, but this isn't some intractable issue, it's just lazy and not caring very much if the problem is resolved or not.

[Hoopy Frood]

I don't know that you can compare a car to a trailer. The weight difference is huge, and when there are leaf springs they are mainly at the rear where there is even less weight. And I have no experience with semi trailers and how they manage the springs and spring rates.

[toolman.dustin]

Suggestion: https://www.roadmasterinc.com/produc...mfort_ride.php

Thanks for posting this. I'm considering this addition. Lots of good reviews on this product. I see Lippert also makes a similar product. Still researching.

Dustin