When the road gets rough, you don’t want your trailer bouncing around or your cargo taking a beating. The built-in AEON rubber jounce springs absorb road shock and carry the load, while the rebound springs cut down on body roll, rattle, and bottoming out. Together they keep the ride stable and quiet whether you’re running loaded or empty.
Traditional axles hang low and tie both sides together, but this axle-less setup gets rid of that beam completely. Each side works on its own, so one wheel taking a hit doesn’t upset the other. The independent action smooths out turns and helps the trailer track better. With no axle hanging down, you gain extra ground clearance for off-pavement travel.
The built-in 4" drop spindle brings the trailer deck closer to the ground, making loading and unloading a lot easier. Its long spindle design fits wide off-road tires, and the E-Z Lube grease zerk keeps bearing maintenance simple. The 5-bolt brake flange is ready for compatible hub and brake setups, so you can build it out the way you need.
This suspension is made from heavy-gauge steel that’s built to stand up to off-road abuse. A black powder coat finish fights rust and corrosion, so it keeps its strength season after season. With a 3,500-lb total weight capacity and 2-5/8" of suspension travel, it’s ready for demanding loads and long stretches of rough terrain.
Each of the two suspension units bolts right to the trailer frame and fits any frame width. If your frame doesn’t have a crossmember, you can run a piece of 2" x 3" steel tubing through the built-in holes for support or reinforce the frame from the inside. The setup keeps the frame square while maximizing clearance and flexibility for custom builds.
| A | B | C | D | E | F |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14-5/16" | 18-3/8" | 1-1/2" | 6-1/4" | -3/8" | 5" |
| G | H | I | J | K | L |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5-5/8" | 8" | 5-3/4" | 2-1/4" | 3-1/4" | 5-1/4" |
Alternate Instructions
Videos are provided as a guide only. Refer to manufacturer installation instructions and specs for complete information.
Today we're going to be taking a look at, then we'll show you to install the Timbren Axle-less Trailer Suspension System. These are available in multiple configurations to fit most applications. Just check our website out for details. Today specifically we're going to be using part number ASR3500S05. This is a spindle only configuration for 3,500 pound axles. With the spindle only configuration we're going to be reusing our bearings, we're going to be reusing our brakes and our drums.
You may want to pick up some new seals if you're going to go this route. We also have the full kits available with the brakes, the drums, and everything that you'll need. The Timbren Axle-less Suspension is an excellent, excellent product. You can tell an immediate difference as soon as we start hauling our trailer with the items installed. It's much, much quieter, much smoother, you don't feel the weight in the truck nearly as much as you did with that standard suspension. You can see as we're cornering there's no transfer of weight.
They're working independently to keep our trailer nice and level. Here's what our kit's going to look like installed. This axle-less suspension system from Timbren is kind of a solution for all that noise and everything that we typically get with our trailers; real rough ride. Now, they use 2 rubber springs essentially, they're Aeon rubber springs. We've got our larger one here in the back. This is the main body of the system, and as we load it more and more and more it constantly kind of adapts to that to give us just the ride of support that we need. To keep this constantly under tension so we don't have to ever worry about a lot of that rattling and stuff, we've got a rebound spring right here in the front.
These are designed to work with really any style of trailer frame, no matter of the thickness here. Depending on the application if you've got a really wide trailer, well then you're just going to put the 3 bolts in the side, 3 bolts up through the bottom. We're dealing with a little bit narrower angle channel here, so what we've done is we've put the square tube across the front. You could also design a bracket to go on the side, if you wanted like a gusseted bracket. There's a lot of options out there. We went with the spindle only design.
It's really heavy duty, too. You can really tell about the quality that they've put into the design of it. Going to have a black powder coat finish on all of our surfaces and this real nice thick steel fully welded around all of our points with reinforcement gussets right where we want them. You can just tell it's a really well built system. Another advantage that we're going to see with the axle-less suspension is going to be increased ground clearance. We don't have that axle that typically hangs down here lower. Even with us using the cross tube design or the cross bracing design, it's tucked up right underneath of our trailer. It's even up higher than what our cross members are here for our flooring, so really tucks it up. Then this area down here, you can see smooths off. The axle-less suspension system can also help us with getting our deck height of our trailer where we want it. These are available in both drops and lifts. One of the added benefits that we get out of this axle-less system is that we're not tying this side of the trailer to that side of the trailer with one of those through axles that are going to go right through down here where all our movement's going to actually take place. This allows these to work independently of one another. If we hit a bump on that side it doesn't transfer all the way over here and then cause this side to go too. Now, they've set this up with tow and camber adjustments aligned 00:04:02 already, so we should have great tire wear as we track down the road. However, if need be they do provide us with some nice alignment shims here if we do want to change it up a little bit, or maybe our trailer's frame wasn't exactly square. Another great thing about the Timbren Axle-less Suspension set up is that they use urethane bushings here at our pivot point. It's going to be very very long lasting. It's going to keep everything nice and tight, and we don't have to worry about lubrication. To begin our installation we need to get our factory axle out. Now if you are going to reusing hardware off of the original axle it's best to do it when it's still on the trailer. That way you're not fighting the roll. All right, now you'll notice here on the frame of our trailer, this is our rear spring perch. We've removed the front to allow room. You may have to do that on yours, and there was a couple welds here and then here that kind of stuck out on the frame rail. We've gotten rid of those. Just use a grinder, get it nice and clean. We want a nice smooth surface for this to mount up against. We're going to mock it up now just by bringing this edge up and letting it sit on our trailer. You can see the 3 holes we're going to use for attachment. Now the key to getting this set up properly, you can see we've got some plumb bobs here. Basically it's just a string with a nut tied to the end of it. We've gone off of both of our spindles here in the same location, and then we've gone from the center of our coupler in the front so we've got them at 3 locations. Now we're going to measure from that string back to this string, and then we'll measure from the front over to the other side. It's very important for us to have these within an 1/8 of an inch. What this means is that we've got the perfect triangle from the coupler back to each of our spindles. We won't have to worry about any kind of side tracking. It's going to keep our trailer running straight behind us, and it's going to make sure that we're getting proper tire wear. Adjust as necessary. We want to make sure if you're using plumb bobs that your trailer's level. After that it's just a matter of getting them lined up to where they're going to be just right. We'll measure, mock it up, measure, mock it up, and then once we have it right where we want it we can get our holes drilled. Now we want to take a punch and I'm going to mark the middle of my rear hole. Then we can start stepping up to a 1/2 inch hole diameter is what we want to end up with. We start with just an 1/8 inch and then kind of move up as we go. All right, that created a little too much movement, so we want to get this hole drilled perfectly to get that suspension out of the way and get our hole drilled out. We'll bring it up, slide our bolt through the hole there, and then put our hardware on the inside. That's going to do a good job of holding that in place while we get the rest of our holes marked. I'm going to use a jack stand again here just to apply some upward pressure. I'm going to tighten this nut down temporarily. That's going to draw it right over into position we want to make sure it's pressed up firmly all the way in the front. We don't want any kind of gaping between the top of our enhancement here and the bottom side of our trailer. Now we can use our center punch or our 1/2 inch bit here and get the center of our holes marked. You see I've already mocked up what would be the passenger side of the trailer. Anything I do on this side, I'll do the exact same thing on the other side. Now we're ready to get these pulled down and we'll get our holes drilled out. All right, now with those holes drilled out let's get our suspension back up into place here. What I want to do is just get these 3 started and I'm going to get them snugged down. This isn't a permanent mount, so we don't want to torque them all down. We've got to measure for that cross tube. We're going to be using this opening here for a 2 inch by 2 inch cross tube section that's going to give us additional strength. There's a few options on the additional strengthening process that you can check out in the instructions. That's mainly for just like the trailer that we've got here, just your simple utility trailer that just has an angle iron frame. If you see channels and things like that, typically once we're putting these on the heavy-dutier trailers there's going to be plenty of thickness in the frame. You really don't have to worry about having that cross tube. Now to figure out how long of a pipe that we're going to need here we're just going to measure inside to inside. There's going to be a couple little lips there. Right here there's a little bit of a lip. We just want our pipes to sit just inside of those, and we'll want our square tube to fit right inside of that. Now with our pipe cut to size all we'll need to do is slide it in all the way across, and we'll want to make sure that it engages our other side as well. All right, that's held in place there kind of by those little lips we saw in each end. We need to get our bolt holes here marked so we can drill our holes and install our hardware. Those should be marked so let's pull our tube back out of there, get those holes drilled, and we can put it back in. Now we can get our center punches taken care of here. Just like before we'll just step up our bit size as we go, makes it a little bit easier. Now with the tube back in we'll take our hardware, got kind of a tight squeeze here but we're just going to place that through. Place that flat washer inside of there on the bolt, then we need to get our nut started. One of these little flexible magnets is a really good way that bolts quite a ways back in there. If you've got a different method that works for you, great. My fingers won't reach in there. Maybe a pair of needle-nose you could get to work in there. These little magnets are pretty readily available and pretty handy to have, so that would be my recommendation. We'll just leave that one loosely installed. Now we're going to take our other bolt, we want to place it through both of our holes but we don't want to have it poked all the way through. What we're going to do is have that stay there as we get our spindles torqued down, as we get our brackets to our frame torqued down. Then we'll torque down our inside bolt, then we'll be able to get to this and torque this down. We'll just at that point either thread it in by hand or with a wrench, put our stuff on it and get it torqued. If we we're to leave this out completely so we could get to that back bolt, it's likely that our holes would then be slightly misaligned and it would be real difficult to get it in. Now we want to look in the instructions and find our torque specifications and we want to go through and torque everything down in the appropriate order to those specifications. I had these pretty snug when we we're doing the install just so we wouldn't have to worry about any movement or anything with the spindle. With those done we'll move up to the 3 here in the side. Once those are properly torqued we'll go to the ones that we've got inside of our tube. With everything torqued down that's really all there is to the install. I would here on this cut piece of tubing, just a little bit of black spray paint there. Just kind of seal that up, prevent any rusting there. Then, depending on your set up if you're using, if this is on a braking axle then you'll put your brakes back on your flange and then rebuild your hub per the instructions. If this is on a lighter-duty trailer and if you don't have brakes then you're just going to rebuild your idler here. Good time to replace the seals, repack the bearings, inspect those bearings, or just order a new kit to fit right on here and then you'll know you're going to be safe as you go down the road. All right, now we'll lower it down until the tires touch the ground and you'll want to be sure to use a torque wrench and get all of your lugs torqued down appropriately. That's going to complete our look at the line of the Timbren Axle-less Trailer Suspension Systems.
Ratings & Reviews
We made an amazing creation out of those two axle-less axles.
We made a large fuel cell that is used for offroad use and it has worked excellent this entire time.
They are really great products and we would love to work with them again.
Actually, we do a ton of social media stuff and youtube and if you ever have interest in sending us products to build content around, I would love to have the opportunity!
Thanks,
Michael Brandt
Garage Bound, LLC (On Youtube and Instagram and all the other socials)
Be warned! I would not buy from Etrailer ever again. We received our order and Etrailer failed to send the entire trailer axle kit. They did not include one spindle in the kit, rendering our order useless without ordering an additional spindle. Because more than 30 days had elapsed before reporting the issue, Etrailer refused to send the spindle, in addition to insinuating that I was deceiving them. This must be how they increase their revenues…don’t send the entire order, and if the customer does not catch it within 30 days, the customer loses and Etrailer makes more money. Absolutely horrible customer service from the company who failed to fulfill their end of the contract while accusing me of being deceptive. One star is far too generous for Etrailer and their scams.
I mounted these axels on my off road trailer, this trailer has 37" tires (same as my jeep) tracks perfectly on the road at 60 - 70 mph, Last summer I pulled this trailer on the Rubicon trail were while on the rocks the lean angle was so extream my trailer turned over on its side, when I winched my trailer back on its wheels all the weight of the trailer was on one axel. Timbren Axle-Less trailer axels are so well built and strong nothing bent, everything stayed intact. There is no sag in these axels as well. I could not be more pleased with the Timbren axels.
Very pleased with the design and heavy duty construction of these axles. Used them to build an off-road trailer and they performed flawlessly throughout many challenging trails and off road situations. My only complaint is that the ez-lube hub design does not take grease very easily. I've had to disassemble the hubs to properly grease both bearings due to the inadequate amount of grease flowing into the bearings.
I replaced a failing torsion bar suspension and replaced with a timbren suspension it was a straight forward installation.
I installed these on a small jeep style camping trailer that I built. I plated my frame and also used the suggested two inch square tubing to tie them together. It rides very well, looks like it should be very durable, it's a simple design, simple to install, more economical than other independent systems, has less parts to go bad than other systems, I would highly recommend to any body using a trailer on rough roads!
Hello I just received my order today that I only placed on Wensday. That night at 7:30 pm. I received an email stating your order is ready for shipping! I received my order on Friday WOW FAST FREE SHIPPING. Great product fast shipping. I'm going to start building OVERLAND TRAILERS.
building a ground loading motorcycle trailer the bed drops down flat threw the frame resting on the surface under the trailer allowing the motorcycle to be driven on without ramps or tilting the trailer bed the axle less trailer suspension is the only way to go and it rides better .
I think their axle-less design is very clever. The build quality of the suspension part looks good. I have heartburn over the spindle build quality. The spindle is mounted to the suspension and then the trailer wheel mounts on the spindle. The spindles I received are warped from welding. The plate that bolts onto the suspension does not mount flat due to this warping. I called Timbren. The gentleman that helped me was very pleasant. I described the problems and he said he would check his inventory and call me back. He did call me back and said they are all like that. He said get out the grinder and fix what you can and just tighten the bolts super tight, maybe the gap will go away. Really? Wow. The other problems are a LOT of weld spatter where the bolts are supposed to fit and they made a bend in the plate too close to the bolt holes so two bolt heads hit the bend and dont fit flat against the part they are supposed to hold together. Yikes! I am taking the spindles to a machine shop to fix them but I would not have ordered this Timbren stuff had I been warned before hand. So, fair warning.
I love them ride is great. Quality product and easy installation
Great looking parts, robust design, professional looking welds....Nothing missing...
I contacted Timbren prior to my purchase and received a prompt, helpful reply...
The supplied instructions are complete and straight forward, i'm confident should i have any issues, contacting them will get them resolved...
Well made quality axle. The box it was shipped in failed. I hope all the parts are there.
Love these axles. Will install in a week or 2. Fast shipping
Great product so far after 1 year. Everthing is holding up and i have put it to good use on multiple occasions. The lift kit made my trailer off road capable and performed to my expectations.
Outstanding product. I installed this set up on a M1102 military trailer. Straight forward install once the original axle is out of the way. The ride is much better and handles the roughest of trails very well. Also, with the more modern hub you have a lot more choice in electric brakes and wheel bolt pattern.
I love these. 30k miles and still going. Almost 1k offroad and they're still holding up. Fully loaded my overlanding trailer weighs 2k lbs, empty 1360 lbs. They did settle a little, but I just raised my fenders a little.
In one word: awesome! I used these to replace a wimpy torsion suspension on a small trailer. Torsion is not made for offroad and I also wanted to add some lift to the trailer. This thing improved the ride and handling a lot. Before when the trailer was empty it would actual jump off the ground when I hit a bump or speed hump. Now it actually has travel in the suspension whether loaded or not and the improvement is noticeable right away.
Notes:
1) This is a trailing arm suspension, so in order to stay centered in the existing wheel wells it needed to mount about 8 inches further forward than the existing torsion suspension was. My trailer didn't have frame where I needed it, so I had to do some fabrication to mount the Timbren forward the 8 inches needed.
2) My original suspension the wheel center line was actually above the bottom of the frame rail by a few inches. The Timbren as you can see in the pictures the hub (wheel center line) is 6 or 7 inches below the bottom of the frame rail that it mounts to. So in the end the Timbren with no lift or drop actually lifted my trailer about 9 or 10 inches. This was perfect for my needs because it was WAY too low before and I am using it on really hilly dirt roads and it handles them like a champ!
3) You are most likely going to need a 2 inch square bar tube to connect the two sides for stability. If you are doing the install DIY, I would wait until the Timbren are installed so you can measure exactly how long you need. This stuff is really, really hard to cut so it is nice to be able to tell the metal shop to cut to length when you are buying it. I got mine at a local metal shop.
4) IF you are replacing leaf springs with Timbren, notes 1 and 2 will still apply but you will need to make the measurements to make sure you get the wheels in the same spot under the wheel wells and also measure to see if you need to get the no drop, drop or lift version of the Timbren
After a great deal of research, I ultimately chose the Timbren long arm kit to replace the torsion axle under my teardrop trailer. My initial impression is that there is simply no comparison between the two. It now rides better, pulls better and handles better than I could have imagined. The Timbren axle system is incredibly well built and is much more confidence-inspiring. While the spring rate closely matches my trailer weight, the components are much more rugged and robust. The spindles, bearings and brakes are rated at double the capacity of my old axle which gives me great peace of mind. I pull my trailer, both on and off road, anywhere it will fit and the long travel and heavier components are a game-changer for my travels. Installation, while requiring a bit of forethought, was otherwise straightforward and methodical. Documentation available from etrailer and Timbren, is second to none. Instructions were clear and concise with drawings and detail taking the major guesswork out of the equation. Even though, due to the odd frame design of my trailer that required a bit of work to adapt, I ended up making some frame stiffeners, the adaptation was as simple as it could possibly be. I've ordered from etrailer in the past and they were 100% accurate on this order as well. I ordered the Timbren kit without backing plates and hubs due to the requirements of my trailer and etrailer suggested, explained availability and supplied all of the components I needed. They truly a stress-less bunch of folks with an extraordinary website. I'll no doubt turn to them again...
Here are some pictures of my Timbren axle installation. I used a 2000#
axle and a 3500# spindle combination. I am running a original 14" tire.
It was a moderately easy installation.
Incredible system. Handled our Overland trek through Colorado and Moab. These axles on our 1917 Ford bed ran multiple Jeep Badge of Honor trails. The suspension handled flawlessly. Handles off camber rocks and drop offs smoothly. We ran the 4 inch lift and off road offset to fit the factory Jeep wheels.
Used this on a camping trailer behind our Jeep. The suspension handled 1000 miles of washboard gravel roads and mild rocky offroading with ease. We don't drive gently and had the trailer airborne at one point. The brackets that we opted to fabricate for them were straightforward and simple to install. I especially like the ground clearance under the trailer that you gain due to the lack of a solid traditional axle. The ride quality overall was excellent, especially given where we took it. In hindsight we should have gotten the 4" travel version as it may have been able to soak up deep ruts at 40mph a bit better. Only mild complaint is that the powdercoating on the leading edges had already begun to flake off when we received the suspension. I hit it with a can of spray paint, but I would have hoped it would be more durable. Overall, I will definitely be purchasing this axle-less suspension again for my next trailer build.
Excellent, helpful customer service sold me this product, and trust me when I say it's worth the price tag. Pulled the old axle and leaf spring off a 60's era Bantam and swapped out for this with a support bar in between. Bumped up tires to 315/75r16 BFG TA/KO's to match my rig and am amazed at how much better this trailer now pulls. Empty it wad bouncing all over the place with the old axle and leaf spring setup. Now I hardly even know it's there. Was very easy to install, took a couple hours but I am happy with how it turned out. A+++ product and customer service!
I was looking for a low profile axle system for my motorcycle trailer. The primary requirement was to be able to load my motorcycle by myself which required a low-profile trailer. With the 4" drop provided by Timbren, this setup turned out great. I originally intended on using ramps but after I swapped the leaf spring axle out with the Timbren, I found I was able to ride my motorcycle on/off without the need for the ramps.
Originally, I was going to go axle-less but I found when torquing down the assembly to my frame it started to compress the aluminum rail. To take the pressure off the frame I added the 2" bar from axle to axle. Pulls smooth and effortlessly.
I've had several people comment on the trailer height with one wanting to buy the trailer from me. This person worked at the local Honda Dealership. He thought it was a great design and I would imagine he's seen a variety of trailers come through his lot.
The other option I considered was a torsion axle but I was looking for the lowest profile I could get. Therefore, cost was not a key factor. I also like the soft ride the Timbren system provides. Not sure if the torsion design would have been as smooth over bumpy roads. Regardless, I'm pleased with how this project came out.
So we had a torsion axle / frame failure and these and a new subframe was our solution! Amazing product upgrade with 12" brakes and 7000lb HD Running 16" BFG ko2 tires ! These are truly bolt on if you don't have frame problems also if your running single axles on the west coast and mountains the 12" brakes are a huge upgrade!!!
Timbrens work great! They make my homebuilt camper tow smooth, straight, and no bounce. Off road they give me better control and don’t make my light camper jump around on the trail. Install was straight forward, instructions were adequate and overall went pretty well. Staff at etrailer helped me pick the right bearings and provided great customer service as usual. I would recommend these to anyone looking to improve their trailers handling and towing characteristics.
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