Unlike today’s air suspension systems that level off whatever weight is carried the steel suspensions would lower considerably when fully loaded and with the fifth wheel on the tractor being mounted higher a noticeable slope would be seen from the front to the rear of the trailer as opposed to having a straight and level look that we see today. I also think this angle of slope gives an attractive look to an articulated outfit and I had to carry out one or two test fits to determine the right sized spacer to fit under the front axle before finally fixing in position. Once that was done I could add U bolts from paper clips and torsion bars and brackets from below the axles to the spring brackets. Finally I made up the brake chambers and shafts to add to each brake back plate from bits and pieces of rod and tube, a fiddly, time consuming job but worth the effort.
For the trailer wheels I decided to convert a set of old AMT spoked types, I removed the wheel nut heads with a mini drill router and cut and shaped four plastic discs, the centres were drilled out the same size as the wheel hubs and they were then pushed inside the wheels, a slightly tight fit so they dished a little when pushed over the hub caps. Once they were secured with liquid glue I cut ten short slices of rod for each wheel and spaced them around equally as wheel nuts and once dry I drilled ten holes in each dish for the air vents. This actually didn’t take up too much time and the result was a set of dished wheels for the period.
- Posted on
- Tuesday 15 September 2015
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