Road clearance

Barree42 · Member

Road clearance

erad · Guru

I have a 16.5 ft Jayco Poptop caravan. It doesn't have much ground clearance. I cannot flip the axle on my van because my shed had just enough clearance to get in under the door as it is now. I also have a ground clearance problem in getting out of my driveway, so I am between a rock and a hard place...

One option I looked at was getting an adjustable air suspension, but the costs were far too high for what it is worth. I finished up fixing some castors to the bumper bar mounting - they have taken a beating over the years. I also dismantled the rear stabilisers and reversed them so that the feet now point forward. They no longer scrape the ground. To do this requires that you remove the shear pin from the screws and undo the screws. I also had to remove and later replace a pivot, but cannot remember exactly where this was. It was a simple job once I had worked out the logics of the mechanism.

The local council redid my driveway crossing (at my expense) and now it is worse that it ever was, so I just S C R A P E my way out onto the road as I go out or into the driveway.

If you flip the axle, you will need to remove the brake backing disc because the handbrake levers will be facing the rear. The axle should theoretically have zero toe-in for the tyres, but seldom is this the case. If you currently have toe-in, you will have toe-out when the axle is flipped. The axle manufacturer for my van is AL-KO and they told me that some toe-in is necessary to provide stability for the towed vehicle. I think this is rubbish - they cannot reliably make an axle with zero toe-in. I had an axle which had 9 mm toe-out and it wore the tyres out in 18000 km. AL-KO, to their credit, tried to align the axle, but tyres still wore out. I went through 3 sets of tyres and eventually they replaced the axle at no cost to me other than a lot of hassle to remove and refit the axle. The new axle still has toe-in and I still have doubts about this but thusfar the tyres are wearing OK and certainly have lasted a lot longer than the original set.

If your tyres are wearing OK, you could flip the axle and rotate the axle horizontally as well (left wheel goes to the Right side). This way, the axle will have the original orientation but the axle will then be on top of the springs rather than underneath. This is a simpler switch - you only have to change the electric brake connections. The handbrake levers will still be OK.

Whichever way you choose, you will have to realign the axle relative to the caravan. The springs are located by a centrebolt - a small bolt which runs through the spring leaves and projects slightly. The projection engages with a hole in a plate welded to the axle. This locates the axle to the spring and the U bolts then clamp the whole assembly together. Without the centrebolt, the axle could slide along the spring leaves and the caravan would then not track properly (it will crab along the road). You will have to align the axle and then weld the plates to the axle.

-- Edited by erad on Thursday 20th of December 2018 09:27:17 AM

villatranquilla · Guru

Jayco in Perth did this for us on our Heritage as we couldn't get it up the driveway without scraping - made a big difference to entry and exiting driveways for fuel but no noticeable towing difference.

yobarr · Guru

Barree42 wrote:
i have a Jayco Starcraft which I am travelling Aus. In and am having trouble crossing gutters and culverts in country areas would there be a problem if I under slung the axle ,it would give me approx. 80mm extra height and would stop damage to the rear legs and plumbing on the van.any advice would be appreciated, thank you.

Hi Chris...I am NOT speaking from experience,but I seem to recall reading somewhere that one of the major problems is that,if the axle is underslung and your U bolts fail for whatever reason,the axle is free to exit the premises for places distant! If the axle were still on top of the spring,it could only move back to the rear spring hangers.Personally I would simply weld a couple of packers between the existing mounting points and the chassis.No doubt we will now have some eggspurt tell why this cannot be done,but I have seen this modification many times over 40 years.Cheers

erad · Guru

I forgot to mention in my blurb that you should check the tension in the U bolts after a while - say 1000 km so that as the spring leaves settle in place they may compress up around the U Bolts. I checked mine after a year and I got up to half a turn on a couple of the nuts. If the U bolts come loose, they will allow the axle to move relative to the spring leaves and ultimately the head of the centrebolt will fail and you lose everything.

Barree42 · Member

Thanks for the info folks much appreciated. Travel safe.

Eaglemax · Guru

1. Enquire if you can get larger tyres (circumference)

2. consider rear stabilizer legs with small wheels inside them

3. engineer to extend shackle mounts

Tony

Warren-Pat_01 · Guru

Barree, erad,
I have similar issues with our Discovery, another 25-50mm in height would be good but ! So now I know the cons of having a rear entry van!
As we live on a crescent, I have learnt to go out of my drive to the right instead of the left (the angle is different) so there is no scraping. The same goes for going out of driveways of service stations eg Woolworths Fuel at Roma.

I had thought of adding longer spring shackles but the experts here suggested that wouldn't work well so it's back to the thinking board!

griffo1962 · Member

I'm sure I read somewhere that reversing (bottom to top or vice versa) was not allowed (in Qld anyway)

PeterD · Guru

The best way to raise the van a bit is to put a packing piece in between the spring hangers and the chassis. Hardings, now Swift Caravan Services have been doing this for years and promote it as being the best way to taiseyour van. Doing it that way maintains the integritary and geometry of the suspension. See Raise Your Caravan. This is the way I have had my van raised.

yobarr · Guru

PeterD wrote:
The best way to raise the van a bit is to put a packing piece in between the spring hangers and the chassis. Hardings, now Swift Caravan Services have been doing this for years and promote it as being the best way to taiseyour van. Doing it that way maintains the integritary and geometry of the suspension. See Raise Your Caravan. This is the way I have had my van raised.

Thats exactly what I wrote earlier on the thread,but your recommendation of a company to do the work will no doubt be of assistance to the OP.Cheers

Warren-Pat_01 · Guru

Thanks everyone for your advice - I recall former "Oldmate" macca17 mentioning the best way was to slipper in a piece of 50 (or more)mm box section between the hangers & the chassis.
Looks as if I'll have to go to Melbourne in the not too distant future.

PeterD, have you added this to the "Recommendations" tab?

PeterD · Guru

yobarr wrote:
PeterD wrote:
The best way to raise the van a bit is to put a packing piece in between the spring hangers and the chassis. Hardings, now Swift Caravan Services have been doing this for years and promote it as being the best way to taiseyour van. Doing it that way maintains the integritary and geometry of the suspension. See Raise Your Caravan. This is the way I have had my van raised.
Thats exactly what I wrote earlier on the thread,but your recommendation of a company to do the work will no doubt be of assistance to the OP.Cheers

I was not so much recommending someone to do the work. It is easy for anyone who is a competent welder to do the job. I was using that page as a good explanation for explaining the situation. Perhaps I should have spelt that out.

Warren, as any competent repairer can do the job I will not be recommending any company. I had a 50 mm square piece of RHS inserted as a packing piece as part of a regular service visit locally.

-- Edited by PeterD on Monday 31st of December 2018 12:23:29 AM