174BH Baja Edition Suspension Modifications

[TWX]

Awhile ago I modified the 2019 Jayflight SLX 174BH Baja Edition by putting taller wheels and tires with adapters to let me run the same wheels & tires as the tow vehicle uses. I was due for new tires anyway and I hadn't done the best job of keeping the tires that came with the trailer covered while parked, so they had dry-rotted and the sidewalls were cracking.


I had noticed on coming back from a recent trip that the tongue of the truck appeared to be bent. After some further thought this might have been the way the trailer has been for awhile, and the bending was not very severe, but I had noticed on the trip that the back end of the trailer sat very high and that with my weight distribution bars installed I was white-knuckling the steering to keep everything nice and straight. I hadn't adjusted the weight distribution hitch after putting on the taller tires, so that was my bad, but the extra height shifted the weight distribution at the axle and on the tongue anyway.


On measuring the trailer at the front of the frame right below the quarters, not at the front of the tongue) and at the back of the frame:

Call it 20.5" at the front.


At the back:

Just under 26.25".


Difference was almost six inches front to back.


Now, since this is a Baja Edition trailer it already sat quite high from the factory due to the spring-over setup. When I put the new tires on it I added more than 2" over the already high suspension. This nearly 6" rake front to back is unacceptably high, it would mean that we wouldn't be able to sleep at say a rest-stop without having to level and probably having to unhook in the process.


I had been looking into what I could do to change this, and I found that there are both alternate rear spring shackles at different heights, and some trailers have front spring perches that are much shorter than the Baja Edition trailer has. So I bought a set of replacement rear shackles and decided to drill the front perch to lower the height.


Before I could change the ride height though, I needed to deal with the bump stops. The factory bump stops are tall to go with the tall suspension. Fortunately when I modified my '15 Nissan Frontier's rear suspension to install Timbrens I had kept the factory bump stops. After pulling the perch hardware to lower the axle down for clearance I removed the factory bump stops and drilled some holes in the new bump stops and installed them to replace the factory setup:

On the subframe I used one of the existing holes, but I ended up having to drill a fresh one since the bump stop bracket is shorter on the Frontier part.


With the bump stops sorted, I had temporarily installed the new spring rear shackles first (going from 3.13" centers to 2.25" centers) and used that to figure out where I wanted the fronts. I ended up settling on 2.5" from the bottom of the front spring perch:

And then with a front spring perch that is 3" across, I found center at 1.5":

Then I center-punched the marked spot for drilling.

To be continued...

 

[TWX]

...continuing.


Drilling through the perch was surprisingly difficult. Granted, it might have been partly due to my own drill bits, but the final hole had to be for the 9/16" bolt, and even drilling it in steps with cutting fluid was tough.

I didn't get a picture of it, but I have a metal sleeve that's something like 1.25" across, and is something like 7/16" ID. Before I drilled all of the way out to 9/16" I used this sleeve and a 7/16" center punch to transfer a mark to the inside part of the perch square/straight to the outside hole, before stepping through the various size drill bits up to 7/16". Then I drilled the final 9/16" holes on both sides for this result:

I then reassembled with the 2.25" rear shackle:

We did some tests, using the floor jack to load up the suspension, and it was able to flex as it should.


I did end up having to make one more change, the inside trim on one of the wheel arches was longer than it needed to be and hung down where it was at risk of contacting the tire:

I used a small coping saw to cut off the yellow-marked part. This is aluminum, so it was easy to remove.


Once I got it back on the ground with its wheels on and torqued I measured the heights again. The front is almost unchanged, similar enough to not be worth noting, but the rear of the frame is down nearly 2" before even taking it for a drive to cause the suspension to flex and settle out:

This is with around 15 gallons of water in the tank out of the 30 it's capable of, nothing in the black or gray tanks, a little bit of camping gear in the bed of the truck (folding chairs, air pump and hose assembly for airing-up), and the truck's second spare and three full jerry cans of fuel mounted. Not quite loaded for bear, but not exactly empty either.


Taking it for a quick test drive I didn't use the WDH bars, just towed it at the ball. I'm very happy with the result. Even with SL-rated 32" tires it felt more solid/planted than it did with the LT-rated 27" tires that were on it before I started modifying things. I suspect that the suspension height was allowing for the front perch and rear shackles to flex (the old shackles were actually bent) and the new shorter setup removes some of that flex.


I forgot to take a picture of how it's sitting before I unhooked and stowed the trailer, I'll have to do that sometime this week. The 32" wheels/tires look good at this ride height, they fill in the wheel wells nicely without being too close, and there's no longer that weirdly huge gap that the Baja Edition trailers are known for. The total ride height is very likely similar to what it was before I started all this.


I did get one picture of how the work area looked:

I had the trailer hooked to the truck at the ball, with a wheel on the truck chocked and the parking brake set. I had the tongue jack with the wheel installed at the ground, and I supported the trailer with a pair of jack stands that are reach rated to 3 tons sitting on massive timbers as cribbing, and I had lowered the rear leveling legs as a last-ditch bit of safety. Since my driveway slopes down at the street a little this seemed like the best way to do this where the truck would prevent any real shift.



I may still end up putting a taller tow ball on the truck, I took some measurements and I do have some clearance between the lowered tailgate and the top of the mounted tongue, we'll see. And of course I will need to get a photo of the after look with the tire to wheel opening clearance.

 

[Bob K2]

A previous post said you have a Husky WDH. Could you have raised the height of the ball on the Husky WDH rather than altering the spring height in order to take out the trailer rake? I have a 185RB Baja with a Fastway e2 hitch. I have a touch of rake with my Yukon tow vehicle (it has soft, long-travel shocks) that I need to try to adjust out by raising the height of the WDH head a notch or two.