A Question About Slipper Springs....

[Jeepers Creepers]

OK, we went and had a look at a 2005 model camper today.

Me being me, i forgot to ask the owner (prior to travelling an hour and half to view it) if it had eye to eye's or slippers.

Bugger me, it had slippers fitted. The slippers on the left side, had rubbed a long way into the saddle welded to the chassis rail.
My thoughts are to steer clear of the things, because the bulk of our camping will be on Fraser or Teewah beaches. I can just imagine the carnage of slipper springs against mild steel with a handful of wet sand in there.

Now, having never owned a trailer with slippers, am i correct in staying the hell away from them or not.

I have considered, if welding a fresh saddle to the chassis on both sides would work ok or even switching the slippers over to eye to eyes.

Thoughts on the matter please folks.

[BigJules]

I tend to agree. I have a heavy duty box trailer, that I just took Fraser, that has slipper springs. It has done around 10,000km and the springs are wearing the chassis rail. The trailer is gal so has lived about 12 years longer than most already.

[dirtpilot]

Why not replace the springs with eye to eye. Only need to weld on a rear bracket for the hanger.

[edz]

We have been running slipper springs on our camper T, built it about 8 years ago now, I fitted heavy duty nylon pads ( the stuff that they use on boat trailer sliders ). we do Fraser most every year and have got  about three years out of each set so far.

[Jeepers Creepers]

Yeah Dirtpilot, i had thought about replacing with eye to eye.
Any idea on costs?

Hey Edz, i hadn't thought about nylon though. To mount them, do you just recess the bolt/tec screw heads into the nylon or how do you fix them to the chassis rails?

How thick is the nylon you've used? Can't say i've ever looked real hard at a boat trailer slider.

[griz066]

My Boat trailer has slippers with no issues, there are 5 million Jayco vans out there including mine with slippers as well. I see it as they wouldn't be factory fitting these springs if they weren't up to the job.

[prodigyrf]

I have a Jayco with slippers and have yet to hear of one wearing out the slipper end before, age general condition and canvas replacement would junk them as uneconomic.(think chain-weakest link)

Greasing the slippers is simply out of the frying pan and into the fire re attracting sand and grit, but perhaps an annual application of powdered graphite (as you use in lock barrels) would help calm the nerves of some.

PS: Spotted a pro fisherman at the boat ramp a few years back retrieving a Nereus on a fancy flatbed galv trailer and his black leaf springs were fully greased and wrapped in HD black polythene with cable ties for the obvious, but then he was only launching and retrieving on tarmac. Made sense for him.

[Teabag]

Much will depend on your intended use but for me, if your intension is Off Road then Shackle Spring (Eye to eye leaf springs) are the go. They allow you to easily fit bigger tyres if need, give better/softer ride off road. If your intention is mainly on road with only a very little dirt road stuff the slipper is a fine option.  Suspension comes down to intended use...........

[BigJules]

We have been running slipper springs on our camper T, built it about 8 years ago now, I fitted heavy duty nylon pads ( the stuff that they use on boat trailer sliders ). we do Fraser most every year and have got  about three years out of each set so far.

Edz, any chance you could post up how you fitted these in a separate post.How did you fix them to the chassis.

There is a big difference between on road use and offroad use when it comes to spring movement.

[edz]

Get a blue nylon slider from a boat shop about $15, ( BCF sell the same stuff ) its a block about 400mm long x 60mm wide x 100mm high.
Just cut two slabs about 30mm thick, a bit longer than the contact area of the slipper, welded a shallow stopper plate to the trailer chassis at the rear end of the pad, and countersunk screwed the pad to the trailer chassis..No lube used, If you wanted you could drill a couple of  small holes through the slipper end of the spring and put a thin pad on it aswell so you had nylon slipping on nylon.
On the the new trailer Im building, Im thinking I'll use a couple of small solid bronze bushed greasable axle nylon wheels ( AKA skate board type ) to roll on the slipper.
Ford used a similar set up on their factory Escort rallye cars, rear slipper springs with success in the 70's 80's.
My old camper trailer weighed in at 410 kgs fully loaded for two a week trip to Fraser .

[hairymick]

I have allways run slipper springs on the trailers i have built,  These include Boat Trailers and box trailers. My oldest one was built in 1982 and although the chassis, sides and bottom have been replaced, the springs, hangers and slippers aren't even half worn out. This particular trailer has done probably ofer a million kilometres, much of which was off road and on sand. There is very little sign of wear in the slipper saddles.

I think eye to eye springs MIGHT be better but have never used them. My argument for the slippers in relation to sand diving is this. If the sand is going to get between the slipper spring and the saddle base (and it will) then it will just as surely get into the bushes in eye to eye springs.

If the slipper saddles are worn out, I would be much more concerned about the rest of the trailer as the entire trailer should have done the same  amount of work. Actually, I have never even seen slipper saddles that were worn out. If you are serious about buying this camper, i would recommend that you have a MUCH  closer look at the rest of the CT  as well.

Just my thoughts mate.

[way-t-go]

I used to manage an Equipment Hire Service for 13 years and we got fed up with replacing Shackle Bushes on our single axle trailers, so when ever a trailer needed to be replaced, it was replaced with trailers with slipper springs.

My CT has slipper springs and I have just recently fitted Electric Brakes to it, while I was at it I fitted the nylon wear plates (PE Plastic actually) to the chassis where the Slippers rub and I expect them to last many many years before needing to be replaced.

Gary

[Eski]

I didn't like the look of the slipper springs wearing through the chassis on my Cub so I swapped them for shackle springs..

I got my springs and mounts from an on-line shop in Queensland and it cost less than $200 and an afternoon with the welder.  They even upgraded the pins to greasable for free..

Seems to ride better now..