Has anyone had a lorry transported? Is it hi - NOW BODGE 50 HORSEBO11OX THREAD (Now with added turtles)

[Angrydicky]

Great news on the wheel cylinders! They are normally well knackered inside, due to commercial vehicle = neglect.

Re. the blasting, it's fine to use the fine glass media but ideally they'd still need a light hone with 600 grade W&D afterwards before fitting the pistons and new seals.

Watch those bleed nipples too, we often get Dodge cylinders sent in by customers who have snapped them off trying to bleed them. If they're tight, best thing to do, is take the pistons out and heat the bleed nipples up to cherry red before attempting to remove them.

Bore diameter should be 7/8" or 22.2mm but this is worth checking as the same casting was used with about three different castings and some 50s have ended up with different ones on there as it's been impossible to find new ones for years. Those Dodge repair kits are one of our best sellers - in fact sold two clutch slave cylinder kits to different Dodge customers on Friday!

[Angrydicky]

Cylinder ports should be M10x1 iirc, but worth double checking as those cylinder castings were made with imperial ports too. If you're not sure, get a new M10x1 tube nut or tap and try to screw it in. If it's 3/8" x 24 UNF it won't bite.

[DSdriver]

The depth of knowledge amongst Autoshiters is the eighth wonder of the World. A person with experience for every challenge.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Just ordered a 13/16 slave cyl rebuild kit from PP and some new stainless bleed nipples. Also expecting to pick up my leaf springs this week which have been refurbished (at great expense!!!!), so hopefully should have enough raw material for a decent update fairly soon

[jonathan_dyane]

How do they fix the old leaf springs? Do they dismantle them then put then in some sort of jig and retemper them?

[beko1987]

1 hour ago, jonathan_dyane said:

How do they fix the old leaf springs? Do they dismantle them then put then in some sort of jig and retemper them?

[greengartside]

@Mr_Bo11oxjust seen you’ve got something else for the truck....if it’s what I think it is, then it will look AMAZEBALLZ.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

This is intriguing!!!! What have I got?

 

[greengartside]

1 hour ago, Mr_Bo11ox said:

This is intriguing!!!! What have I got?

 

These.....? I saw the number and thought it may be your truck....

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Ha!!!! Yeah that is me!!!! You're on the ball - theyve not even arrived at my house yet!!

[loserone]

Where did you see them @greengartside? They look the business

[greengartside]

51 minutes ago, loserone said:

Where did you see them @greengartside? They look the business

Prestige Plate Sales on Facebook. Just happened to come up on my news feed and thought, I know that number.....

[loserone]

They look like a good supplier, liked and remembered

[Mr Laurence]

1 hour ago, greengartside said:

Prestige Plate Sales on Facebook. Just happened to come up on my news feed and thought, I know that number.....

They do look good quality. I may have to order some of those myself. Thank you!

[Mr_Bo11ox]

So, time for a quick update on this old horse. Hoped to have more to tell you by now but nowt ever goes to plan does it.

Last time I was on about getting the leaf springs out for some lovin and I was mulling over whether or not removing a lorry axle on my own on the drive was a) possible or b) stupid, after a lot of thinking about it I decided I would give it a whirl.

The big difficulty really was getting the spring bolts undone. Theyre an M24 thread, you need a 36mm socket to get em and afer 30 years sitting there, theyre FRIGGIN TIGHT!!!! also the U-bolts needed loosening and the lower shocker bolts. I spent a day workign on undoing all these one at a time before trying to actually lower the axle and detach the springs.

I bought a tin of plus gas and gave them a repeated soaking for a few days before having a go at them.

The only way I was gonna get these was with the torque multiplier doofer. Its got a reaction arm on which needs to react against something solid as the force on it is colossal.

I tried various combinations of blocks of wood etc and eventually got a set-up that worked. With those in place I was able to crak those bolts and work them back and forth till they were turning nicely.

Lots of hammers and levers!!!

The brake pipes were all rusty so I chopped those, and the flexi from the chassis to the axle.

Eventually I was ready to try and drop the axle sowith the jack under the diff I removed the 2 aft bolts

That allowed me to lower the axle onto two little axle stands with some shaped wooden blocks on the top

Locking tabs are a bit sad-looking, might need to replace those

got a piece of timber under the nose of the diff in case it got any ideas about dropping down

A bit more tugging and wrestling and we had these!!!

Can you believe it? It was actually pretty straightforward TBH apart from the big tight bolts. I whizzed these up to Owen Springs in Rotherham to see what they made of them

They came back a day later saying they could supply brand new springs, but the cost was like £700. Just too much. SO instead we agreed that they would make 2 new main leaves for each spring and reassemble with the old lower 'helper' leaf. They would fit new bushes too. Total cost: £400!!!! Thats friggin lot of money to spend on something that probably wouldnt even have failed the MOT but they did seem saggy as hell and that was before Ive installed my whirlpool bath and 2000-item 'Royal Doulton' figurine collection so I felt it was a cost I just had to swallow.

Anyway a week later I picked these up:

Got to be honest I was expecting a bit more curvature (camber) to them but what do I know? I'm not a leaf spring expert. Anyway I rushed home with them and got ready to chuck them on.

Getting ready involves cleaning up the U-bolts:

Attacjed them with the wire brush in the angle grinder then used an old nut with some slots cut in it to clean the threads up a bit more.

also made a few new 'locking washers' from 1.2mm zintec

Reassembly went amazingly well. Now that everything was turning nicely I got them on in like half an hour!!!

Bought new Nylocs for the U-bolts. Theyre an M16 fine thread and I need 8 of them so I bought a pack of 10 off ebay. Typically 3 of them in the bag were M16 standard so i had to reuse one old nut. Annoying!!!

Now then - I bet you can't guess what happened.

Unloaded:

With lorry weight sat on em:

 

Theyre pretty much as bottomed-out as the old ones FFS. I foolishly didnt measure the ride height on the old springs, but there are loads of marks inside the placca wheelarches where the tyres have been rubbing. I think the new springs have maybe gained 1-1.5" of ride height compared to the old ones, but i reckon the old ones were 3-4" lower than they should be so its still not great.

Now I had spent £400 on these, so was not happy at this stage. I rang Owen Springs back 3 times who fobbed me off each time with 'I'll just speak to our technical guys and call you back' (no call returned) but after about 4 days someone did email me back. I have tried to get them to tell me what spec they made these springs to, e.g. what is the spring rate? What static load are they designed for? How do you know theyre the right ones for a 5.6 tonne Dodge 50 and not a 3.5 tonne or a 4.6 tonne? (they didnt ask for the reg or owt). Did you test them before sending them out?

I have not got answers to any of this stuff other than 'we made them to our spcification for this model which goes back to 1986' which isnt much help. I think I need to keep bugging them till I can speak to one of their technical people. I suspect their spec tells them only what section of bar to use, lengths, what the dimesnsions are for the bushes and eye bolt positions, and what camber/curvature to put on. I might be wrong but I'm getting the vibe that their spec doesnt tell them a spring rate or set deflection for a particular laod or whatever.

My truck is a 5.6 tonne GVW model, and the plate says the empty weight of the truck is 3600kg. But, that is from when it was new and I suspect it was not a horsebox at first so now the empty weight might be different. The horsebox body looks pretty hefty to me, I could easily see that weighing over a tonne with its heavy ramp mechanism, stalls, and steel-skinned 12mm ply walls etc etc. SO I don't actually know what the axle weight is that these springs should be rated for.

The sales woman at OS said they could put some extra camber on the springs if I wanted. That could help, but if the problem is that the wieight of the horsebox body is overpowering these two-leaf springs, then the real cure is to beef up the springs presumably with an extra leaf rather than add preload to the existing springs. Im at a bit of a loss how best to tackle it with OS. I really need to be able to give them some numbers to describe what i want. If they have tested these springs and know the rate, I suppose I can measure the position of them loaded which could at least give us a number for the static load value and they should be able to then tell me if I'm overloading them.

The other point is that Ive got a friggin hefty stash of car mags in the back of the lorry:

Ive been meaning to clear these out for yonks. I know a 5.6 tonne lorry shouldnt have any problem carrying s few boxes of mags, but car mags are flipping HEAVY BASTARDS and really if I'm going to start arguing with OS about their springs I should not be complicating matters by having this lot in the truck. I dont know what these lot weigh but i do remember them visibly affecting the suspension of the VW transporter hire van I shifted them with originally. Its mostly behind the axle line too, so the force on the leaf spring is gonna be amplified. I'm thinking the best thing I can do is have a fairly brutal cull of these mags, re-measure the ride height then decide whether to a) just say 'fuck it' and ask for like 2" of extra camber on the springs, or b) try to get into it in more detail somehow with their tech people and work out whether I need another leaf or not.

In other news:

overhauling the rear wheel cyls:

Got a rebuild kit off Past parts, 2 new stainless bleed nipples off eBay, and I even found some new (oddball imperial thread) bolts and spring washers to fasten them on with. Gave the bores a good polish with 600grit paper and WD-40 - they were not quite as perfect as i thought they were but not bad, i think they will seal up OK.

New brake pipes, clips and hoses across the back axle! The hose is some landrover job, its very slightly too long but I think will be OK, its not fouling on owt. Hopefully tomorrow I will get the drivers side rear brake assembled then I might be able to bleed them through and have operational brakes for the first time in a year or something. I think if I need to remove the springs again I can do it without breaking into the hydraulics.

These beauties turned up yesterday:

Trigger mentioned this 'prestige plate sales' on FB and I looked them up. The guy made them up using the old 90's Renault font, the postcode is that of the old Dunstable works where these heaps were made. Got the old pre-2001 font on the number plates too. They were £40 all-in which seems good value to me for the fannying about of designing the things individually, making them and posting them out. No pissing about sending V5's and passports and whatnot either!!! They seem good quality and should brighten the thing up a bit.

Uh-oh whats that slung down the side of the house?

Its only WINDSCREEN NO. 4!!! Some lad on the Dodge 50 group was selling off a parts stash recently, so a week or so back I got up super early on the sunday and zipped down to Ipswich to bag this for £90. I am going to try to fit this myself when I have plucked up the courage. I think with lots of patience, hot soapy water, placca levers and some Vaseline I have a decent chance of getting the friggin thing in the hole, cant do a worse job than the last two kekkers eh.

Thats all for the time being.... Lots of money spent but dismally slow progress as usual.  Any tips for dealing with those poxy springs gratefully recieved!!!

[Fabergé Greggs]

Amazing progress as ever! I now feel thoroughly lazy having put off doing some brake shoes on a tiny Vespa.. 

Regarding the springs, could rate be roughly calculated by sag? Ie, you know how much they’re sagging by, you know roughly how much you want them to sag by, therefore I’d imagine that’s a fairly linear calculation assuming leaf springs aren’t progressive in any way. Assuming that, you could badger the spring people to toughen them up by xx%? 

[Tickman]

I would keep hassling about the springs. If they can't tell you what specification they made them to then I would argue that they didn't make any consideration to the weight of the thing.

Those magazines are unlikely to weigh more than the whirlpool bath and figurines so if that is the new position it is only get worse.

You have paid good money for a service which they really haven't supplied to a good enough standard. If they didn't ask any questions about weight and use how did they calculate the specification for the new springs.

Stand your ground, you are not being an arse about asking and expecting detailed information.

[cobblers]

How thoroughly catpiss soaked are those mags?

FFS, there's nowt worse than doing a "big shit job that costs a load of money" to get no real result.

I'm no springologist but simply adding some more bend into those existing leafs doesn't look sufficient, I mean the thing is kinked backwards in the middle! Do you reckon maybe someone has changed these springs before and put the wrong ones on?

that said I'm procrastinating at work while necking coffees so I went on that dodge50 site to look at the parts lists and they seem to do two types of springs, 3 leaf "not 7.5 ton bus" springs, and 4 leaf "7.5 ton bus" jobs. Seems a bit basic to me though considering all the different load capacities of these, but I suppose it was the 1980s.

 

 

Maybe you could cut the curved ends off your old middle leafs and add them to the stack to turn your springs into an approximation of the 7.5 tonne ones? Or perhaps see if you can "take a rain check" with Owen Jones Springs and come back to them once you've got the back end all kitted out and at your correct weight?

TBH I'd have probably just left the springs original and tired and wedged a pair of airbags where the bumpstops would go, and pump them up with a footpump til it sits right. Bags are only about £50 a shot and it's a method that seems to work pretty well for most modern substantially overloaded boomer motorhomes.

[cobblers]

BTW shift that windscreen, it's windy out there man!

[Jikovron]

I wonder about a big ass block between the axle and spring being used to raise it up as that would additionally maintain the diff nose angle, bags as mentioned or a pair of universal coilovers could assist but there again maybe an extra leaf would be less elaborate ,,,lots of possibilities 

[Mr_Bo11ox]

23 hours ago, cobblers said:

 

TBH I'd have probably just left the springs original and tired and wedged a pair of airbags where the bumpstops would go, and pump them up with a footpump til it sits right. Bags are only about £50 a shot and it's a method that seems to work pretty well for most modern substantially overloaded boomer motorhomes.

I wish I'd done that now!!!! I did think about it, but I thought i was just looking at a set of worn-out tired old leaf springs. I thought replacing them would solve the problem. Now i am in for £400 and the problems remains!! If I get nowhere with Owen Jones that might be what ends up happening I suppose.

[dozeydustman]

Just a thought- do you know the unladen weight of the horsebollox? I’m just wondering if all assembled it’s pushing the 5.6t limit hence the springs being a little less banana shaped than they should be.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

No, I don't know the weight unfortunately. think the chassis cab weighs about 2.6 t from looking at the brochures. I doubt the box weighs 3t though as if it did you couldnt carry a horse in it!!! I could do with knowing some of these numbers if I am gonna get to the bottom of the problem. Maybe if i get the brakes working I could insure it and have a cheeky drive to the local scrapper and stick it on their weighbridge to see the total weigh and axle weights. I reckon the 3600kg plate weight can't be that far off.

[DaveDorson]

I was at Santa Pod over the weekend and saw one of these with a 5th wheel that's being used to move a drag rig about for sale.

I was tempted, then I realised the following:

• I don't need it
• I probably can't afford it
• I've no need for it
• I'm meant to be selling stuff
• I really don't need it.

Still wanted it though.

[Parky]

Stupid question from a leaf spring idiot.  Would it be possible to fit some sort of spacer to raise the ride height, I.e some daft shiz the Greenlaners do to their Suzuki SJ’s to make them Godzilla height?  My knowledge is based entirely on Edd China spunking Mikes wedge on an SJ that failed on structural rot.

Maybe there should be a spacer that has been removed in the past by someone looking for that low rider look for their horse box?  Snoop Dogg perhaps...

[cobblers]

Lift blocks are commonly used, but they won't help the fact that the spring is bent past flat when the truck isn't even loaded.

Leaf springs shouldn't generally bend as far as that and it's probably not good for them, so there's definitely something amiss here. Also VOSA etc see a flat spring and their monacle pops out.

[jonathan_dyane]

It’s all very odd. I‘ve never seen new leaf springs as flat looking as those ones before, I can’t help but wonder if something major has been lost in translation, IE they’ve basically just remade the old ones, faults and all.

I could be talking complete crap and/or totally wrong but as I alludes to earlier in terms of leaf springs I thought there were two failure modes, physically broken/fractured leaves and all sagged out like these original ones were. In terms of how you fix this I thought it was more a case of retempering them in a jig rather than replacing leaves?

Or am I talking utter shite?

[jonathan_dyane]

Maybe I wasn’t talking shite, this describes the sort of thing I was thinking about:

www.hagerty.com/media/maintenance-and-tech/re-arching-leaf-springs-a-lost-art/amp/

[Mr_Bo11ox]

the one number I have got out of them was that their 'specification' says the spring should have 4" of camber (curvature) unloaded, which I think it does have.  But on its own thats pretty meaningless I think. I guess that does mean theres only 4" of suspension travel till the things are flat. I'm guessing that the springs should be capable of at least taking the full payload of the truck before theyre flattened.

If the axle weight is 1800kg (half the truck weight of 3600kg) then theyre on 900kg per spring static load, plus roughly 1000kg per spring payload. So you could say under static load with the truck empty, the spring should be roughly halfway through its travel, certainly no more than that anyway!!!! I'm totally guessing at this lot but it seems plausible.

[jonathan_dyane]

Your guestimations sound entirely plausible, if anything conservative given that the axle weight of the rear axle will be greater than the front.

I’m sure that you’ve spent hours more looking at brochures and stuff than the 10mins I’ve been googling on my phone but it’s interesting that the chassis cab in the brochure here https://hooniverse.com/the-carchive-the-dodge-50-series-trucks/

clearly has a lot more leaves than your springs which does lead me to fear your truck might have suffered a broken spring and been fitted with smaller springs off a lighter weight 50.