trailer suspension bolts

quick question.

i just put all new suspension on my car trailer. everything between the frame and axles is new.

the bolts have a knurl so they bite in the shackles and hangers. the nuts are locknuts with a bit of a flat pressed into the end.

what i do not know is how tight to make them. if i blow the nuts all the way down it'll bind, but how much play do i want? the old stuff was so rusted and worn to hell that it is not a valid reference point. the hangers rusted paper thin and the u bolt tie plates were almost gone. pics will follow at some point.

Should be bushings in there? If so, you tighten them down with the trailer on the ground or maybe loaded a bit, and the rubber flexes to allow movement.

there are skinny little nylon bushings. trailer bits are not like car bits.

http://www.tractorsupply.com/en/store/carry-on-trailerreg%3B-spring-bushings-pack-of-4?cm_vc=-10005

they are pretty lame and i'm not sure how they last longer than a few days. nothing is in between the steel spring and the shackles/hangers. nor is there anything between the hanger/shackles and the center pivot equalizer guy. i tightened everything up with jacks under each spring to load things, but i fear binding if i don't back them off a hair. i've never done trailer springs before.

there is a picture of the hanger/spring on one side. you can see there is pretty much no room between the spring and hanger.

If there isn't either a stepped bolt, or a steel sleeve for the bolt to tighten up against, you have done it wrong.

This is a reasonable idea of what you should have:

They should be torqued down tight, squeezing the steel sleeve between the shackle,so the bolt cannot rotate in the shackle.

If there is no steel sleeve, the bolt should have a larger shank where it goes through the bushing, and a smaller thread to tighten completely.

Or I suppose you could have junk like this, in which case I'd tack weld the bolts to the shackle to keep it from rotating.

i concur. it likely the sleeve rusted away, and wasnt included in the kit. but the idea is either the sleeve stops the bolt from binding the bushing, or a shoulder on the bolt shank does the same job. either way, if the nut and bolt can compress the shackle enough to bind the spring, theres something missing/wrong.

-J0N

Usually the nuts go on the inside, so they rust less. Tighten until the knurling fully seats then back off enough to take out the bind.

What Opel guy said with one added step after you back the nut off use a punch and F up one thread so nut can't back out even knowing there lock nuts this will insure they don't leave on you...

Streetwiseguy wrote: Or I suppose you could have junk like this, in which case I'd tack weld the bolts to the shackle to keep it from rotating.

that is exactly what it is. trailer parts are crap compared to car parts. no steel sleeves, no bolts with a shoulder to stop against. i'm more than familiar with automotive leaf spring stuff coming from the 2nd gen F body and pickup truck world.

I'd upgrade, personally. Its piss poor engineering practice to put a bolt in shear like that, let alone one highly susceptible to rust and wear.

That's the way 98% the leaf spring trailers on the road are built, so changing stuff just means when it breaks on the side of the road no one will have parts.
Sometimes good enough really is

indeed. it was good enough for 16 years unpainted before it rusted out, it'll be good for at least 16 more with the insane amount of rustoleum i brushed on.

you can't really upgrade when there is nothing to upgrade to. plus i just dropped about $400 for 4 springs, 6 hangers, 14 bolts, 8 u bolts, 4 tie plates, 4 sets of shackles, 2 equalizers, a bunch of grade 8 stuff, and some plate to make gussets for the hangers. i mean, what's the point of putting their hangers on out of the box without adding a bunch of triangles?

either way, i put it together tight but not blow the piss out of it with the impact tight. i'm going to pull it for work today and see how it works. any adjustments need to be made before saturday, when it goes on an 800 mile round trip to virginia to bring back more clean southern car for me to molest.

Everything's been pretty well covered, but I wanted to add that you should not be afraid to tighten the bolts snug. The friction in the bolts and between the leafs of your leaf springs, is the only dampening you have in the suspension. It's crude, but you need some sort of dampening to prevent the springs from resonating, with bad consequences.

And to those that think this isn't safe, my 1930 Plymouth has that exact type of suspension. Heck, I've been using trailer parts to rebuild the leaf spring parts (which are NLA) of my suspension. In practice, it's very sturdy and safe, because I discovered that the front springs have even been run without bushings for a while. It trashed the bolts and the springs, but it didn't prevent the car from running.