Rubberized, pivoting trailer suspension system replaces your leaf spring suspension to provide a smooth ride. Pivoting arms help keep your trailer level on rough ground. Fitted rubber springs absorb road shock and eliminate bounce and rattle.
Features:
Specs:
Installation Notes:
Ride on rubber springs with Timbren's Silent Ride suspension system. This suspension system consists of 2 rugged steel units that work with your trailer's existing axle and hubs to absorb road shock, minimize trailer bounce and rattle - regardless of load size - and help to protect your trailer's components and cargo.
Silent Ride replaces your trailer's existing leaf spring suspension to ensure that your trailer will ride smoothly and comfortably, no matter what road conditions you are faced with on your journey.
Timbren Silent Ride Suspension vs. Leaf Springs
The Timbren Silent Ride suspension system is a definitive upgrade over leaf springs. Although leaf springs deliver a stable ride when supporting a load, a trailer with leaf springs will often bounce and rattle when it's empty or supporting a light or off-center load. On the other hand, your trailer can bottom out on bumpy roads if the load is too heavy.
With Timbren's Silent Ride suspension, you'll enjoy a smooth ride whether you're towing an empty trailer or a hefty load. The Aeon progressive-rate rubber springs of the Silent Ride always deliver the same reliable performance, no matter the load size. If your trailer is carrying a light load, or no load, the springs will compress just enough to counteract any bounce. As more weight is added to the trailer, the springs compress and become stiffer, offering more support for heavy loads. And because they rebound in a more controlled fashion than metal leaf springs, the Silent Ride springs do a better job of absorbing road shock to keep your trailer from bouncing and rattling.
The springs activate only when needed. This reduces body roll and delivers top-notch performance. When your trailer with leaf springs takes a turn, one side of the suspension compresses and takes on more weight, and the other side becomes looser and bounces. This causes rattle and can make the trailer lean to one side. But when a trailer with a Silent Ride suspension takes a turn, one side compresses and becomes more rigid to absorb the weight, and the other side expands to normal height to help steady the load and minimize bounce and rattle. The load stays better balanced, even if it is off-center.
Timbren Silent Ride Suspension vs. Torsion Axles
The Silent Ride suspension system is a great alternative to torsion axles as well, in part because it offers greater flexibility for off-road use. While both systems allow either side of a trailer's suspension to operate independently, the Silent Ride offers better shock absorption thanks to the Aeon progressive-rate springs. Not only do the Aeon springs in the Silent Ride units activate progressively to give just the right amount of support and shock absorption, they also respond immediately. Torsion axles have rubber inside the beam that counteracts shock using compressive resistance, but this doesn't happen until the bar inside the axle twists in response to one side of the trailer going over a bump, for example. This built-in resistance can be effective in maintaining a steady ride, but the design doesn't allow the system to absorb shock as well as the Aeon springs in the Silent Ride setup.
In addition, one frequent complaint about torsion axles is that they cannot be repaired in the event that something goes wrong. But the individual components of the Silent Ride suspension system can be repaired or replaced if needed.
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 the Timbren line of silent ride suspension systems. Now, these systems have been designed to work for trailers with capacities anywhere from 2000 pounds all the way up to 14,000.Now, the silent ride system from Timbren is really one of the best upgrades you can make to a trailer suspension. This is going to give you excellent handling out of your trailer. You're not going to have so much of the side-to-side. You're also going to feel it less as you haul it.As our suspension system works here up and down, whether you're got your trailer loaded to capacity or empty, you will hear any feel a noticeable difference in the ride quality on your trailer. Now, I really appreciate that, because we haul a lot of trailers around here, and it's just aggravating, always hearing that noise, and always hearing that rattle behind you.
This has almost completely eliminated it on this trailer.This is also going to be very important when it comes to car haulers. You've got cars in here, sometimes race cars, expensive cars. You don't want them being beat up, your tools that are in there. You don't want them shaking around a whole lot. This is also going to work out really well for our camper trailers.
We've got dishes, we've got stuff in there that's important. We've got our tools stored in there. We just don't want them getting beat up.Installing a suspension system like this is really going to smooth all of that out for you.Now, the setup we have here today is the single axle configuration. You can see, we've got or 2x2 cross tube here, our axle here. This is also going to be available in a tandem axle configuration.
This body here becomes a little bit longer, we're going to have one of these off the back, we're going to have one of them off the front. Basically, you're going to have the same cross tube, but it's going to be 2x4, and it sits between them. Right up flush against here and the other side. All in all, it's going to give us a really good solution.Basically, the way this system works, we're going to mount the upper bracket to our trailer. We've got our lower arm here, that's free floating.
We've got an Aeon rubber spring here, and also here. This one is constantly trying to expand out slightly, and it's applying upward pressure on our arm. This one's applying downward pressure on our arm. As we hit a bump, of course, this is going to go up, as this goes up, this is going to expand. This one wants to pull it back, wants it get it back to its normal configuration. This one pushing out wants to get it to its normal configuration.If we think about a regular leaf spring style suspension, it's just sitting there in the middle. It's just going to wiggle when we hit bumps and stuff like that. Where, this is fighting to remain nice and steady and calm, over all those different bumps.Now, let's take a look at our conventional leaf spring suspension, versus our Timbren suspension. As you can see, there's a lot less movement, the trailer doesn't bounce up nearly as much, so it's generating a lot less noise. Overall, it's going to offer a much smoother and more controlled ride.Now, let's take a look at just the silent ride system, as we go through our test course. You can see as we're hitting the different bumps, you're not seeing as much movement as what we're used to with a conventional suspension system. It recovers very quickly. Now as we're just doing some maneuvering around our parking lot, you can see there's no trailer roll side to side. With them working independently, it helps kept everything level.These are also going to offer a variable spring rate. If we load our trailer with a light load, these are going to be compressed slightly, and that's all the effort they're going to have to put out, so it's not going to stiffen up our ride tremendously. As our load gets heavier and heavier, these compress more and more, they're going to get stiffer and stiffer, so they're almost going to adjust for the load that you put on, to maximize your ride quality.Now, the brackets we have here, of course, these are going to be heavy duty steel construction. They've got the black finish on it, help resist any kind of corrosion or issues like that for a long time to come.Now, on your tandem setup, there's a huge advantage in how the Timbren system equalizes the weight equally across your axles. With this single setup, we're going to have our upper bracket, we're going to have our base arm. With the tandem setup, we're still going to have our upper bracket, we're still going to have our base arm, but there's a walking leg that goes in between those. It's going to have a single pivot point right here in the middle, so as the tire gets pushed up in the back, it forces that front tire down. As the tire in the front gets pushed up, it forces that rear tire town. It maintains equal load across both axles at all times. That's something we don't see in leaf spring suspensions, even with equalizers installed. They just don't transfer that properly.Now, one thing to keep in mind when installing this system is that we need to reuse your existing axle. Where it meets the silent ride here, they provide us with this axle seat, so essentially, you're going to remove your old axle, you're going to grind those spring seats off of it to get it nice and flat. Get everything pre-assembled, place it up here, and you'll lay that weld across the back.Now, once we've decided where we're going to be positioning the silent ride, I've marked my holes in center punch. You can see here. You can leave the silent ride clamped into position, as if when you we're setting it up, and use those holes as the guide, if you want to do it that way, that's going to be completely up to you. What we need to wind up with a 5/8th inch diameter hole, we're going to use a step bit. We're going to 3/16ths, go up to a 3/8th, just slowly work up to that 5/8th. Generally, that's the easiest way to drill through this steel.We're going to get both our holes drilled out on this side, and do the same thing on the other side. Now that we got our holes drilled, we're going to take our hardware, get it put in place, we're using 5/8th diameter bolts, you want to use at least grade five, these happen to be grade eight. On to backside, we're going to put a flat washer on. Put a lock washer on. Also, our nut. Now we can snug out hardware down, ours takes a 15/16th, as long as yours is standard 5/8th, it should be the same. All right, now we'll torque those down to the specifications, which are listed in the instructions.Now, we've got our axle up in position. We've got our perches, our spring perches here on the bottom. Now, we had our welder take care of this, we had it all mocked up. We had him pre-weld this, although in your application, you're just going to have to out a bead across this side, and right up here. In the instructions, they tell you just to weld this up after you've got everything bolted up, so you might want to do it that way. It's going to be up to you.We just want to make sure we get our axle centered. You measure from your brake flange here, out to here, or to the center of your trailer, whatever you want to do. You want to make sure that's equal on both sides. Now, we've brought our U bolts down and around. You can see here, each one of those gets a washer, and a nut, and we're going to use a crisscross pattern, get those snugged down, and then we're going to torque them per the instructions.Now, here we've installed our crossmember. This needs to be a 2x2 inch squared piece of tubing. You can see it's 3/16th of an inch thickness. We want it 2x2, 3/16th inch wall. We've got our holes, we got one here, one here that we need to drill. Now, those are going to go in, all the way through, and then they need to come out that upper bracket. I'm going to mark my bottom here. Just using a center punch.Now, for our upper hole location here, it's going to be really tough to get anything in there to mark it. I'm just going to use a right angle pick. I'm going to go all the way around that elongated hole. Then we can just mark the center of that.All right, now we're ready to drill them out. These need to go to a half inch in diameter. We're going to use this step bit process, just like we did on our trailer. Gradually enlarging it.Then once we have the four drilled out here on this side, we're going to flip it over, and use our marks to drill our holes on this side.Now we've got our crossmember put back in place, we're just lining up those holes. We want to take our bolt. We want to pass it up through. On the top, we're going to be using a nylon locknut. Now, depending on your application, this might be a pretty tight fit in here. You could also use a flat washer, a lock washer and a nut, if you have space. It seems like for us, this nylon locknut's really the best solution. We're going to put one in each hole, so two on this side. We've already got the two on the other side. Now we'll get them tightened down.Most of your half inch bolts, you're going to need a 19mm or 3/4, unless you're using something odd sized. Now, we'll want to get these torqued down. Now, once we've got all that torqued down to specifications, we've gone through everything, make sure everything's nice and secure, it's time to just basically rebuild our axles.That's going to complete our look at the Timbren line of silent ride suspension systems.
Average Customer Rating: 4.7 out of 5 stars (54 Customer Reviews)
Rubberized, pivoting trailer suspension system replaces your leaf spring suspension to provide a smooth ride. Pivoting arms help keep your trailer level on rough ground. Fitted rubber springs absorb road shock and eliminate bounce and rattle.
This suspension was a game changer on my 2001 20' travel trailer. After multiple broken springs over the years, and loosing the rear axle on a bump heading out of town I bit the bullet and installed the Silent ride. What a difference in handling and overall feel, it's solid & quiet. No worries about road conditions, potholes, or gravel. I have had them on the trailer for a year and about 2500 miles. Towing is a little less stressful.
Been great so far..fabbed removable axle system with the timbrens
I installed this on a 2018 wildcat 383mb 5th wheel which has a GVWR of 14,059# and with a weeks worth of stuff for a family of 3 I have 10,700# on the campers axels per CAT scale so this is a perfect fit for the application. Now the hard part was figuring out what the ride height (bottom of my frame to the center of the axels) would be since Timbren's documents only show the unloaded ride height at 6.125", with the stock leaf springs my ride height was 9.375” so that is a 3.25” difference but that doesn’t account for suspension sag. I called timbren they said the ride height at 14,000# would be 4” so basically the suspension would sag 2.125" so I guessed my ride height at 11,000# would be 5” or 1.125” of sag. Based on those numbers I would need to make up 4.5” of ride height so I put a 4”x4” 0.25”wall square tube between the frame and Timbren suspension. Well the Timbren sagged more then I expected, and my final ride height ended up being 8.25”, a full inch lower than factory. I have a lot of overhang behind the rear axel and would drag on occasion at the stock ride height so this inch lower is going to make it worse. I’m going to make a few trips and see how much more the suspension settles then I might go back and add a 2” spacer to raiser camper.
The install took me 2 8hr days with the first day being removing the stock leaf spring setup and prepping the axels/removing the leaf spring pads. The hardest and most time-consuming part was removing the spring hangers off the frame man they did not want those to come off. The instructions don’t tell you where to set the axel camber/arch so it set it to the same angle as the suspension arm when unloaded, 19deg which when loaded and on level ground turned out to be perfect. The instructions also tell you weld the axle to both sides of the axle seat well you can’t get to the inside axle seat since it’s so close the rubber spring.
Now as for the ride what a major difference I used to dread hitting bridge expansion joints now it’s no problem, the bucking has been drastically reduced. We would always have open doors and draws when got to a location now they all stay closed. Items in cabinets are still where we left them, cereal boxes are still upright.
they have worked great as i pull my trailer daily . until one the axle u bolts broke for some unknown reason. and you can not purchase them from any parts supply house
Installation was a bit more intensive than I anticipated. At the end of our first 6000mi trip, I lost a wheel and the weight of our 7500lb toy hauler was on 3 wheels for up to 60 mi without me even knowing. The suspension and remaining upgraded wheel/tire handled the weight, I doubt the stock leaf suspension would have done the job.
My worries about my trailer have been removed. I am very happy with the suspension system and would recommend these suspension systems.
Awesome product, awesome smooth, awesome load handling. So awesome I'm back ordering jounce-spring helpers from Timbren for my truck. Item # TGMR15MR
Perfect replacement for my car carrier axles
A more stable ride Wolf-Pup Forrester RV trailer.
Disappointed beyond belief in both Timbren and etrailer. I not only lost a 20plus year customer I also lost a good friend ontop of being out of pocket the entire cost of this silent ride suspension setup and 8 hrs of Labor .I don't even know what to do with the suspension now because its going to cost me $200 plus to ship it back but the original boxes were thrown so doubtfully it will be accepted and lets not forget about the restocking fee per etrailer I will have to pay as well For what ultimately was their mistakes and lack of honesty that caused all off this.. I paid full price plus expedited shipping costs for complete suspension setup that once again(as it seems by other reviews) was missing all the hardware upon arrival..Then it took 3 more weeks to get that totaling 5 weeks when I paid for and was guaranteed by etrailer to have in 1 week..
This system is a 100 times better then the spring system that was on it new. We put about 5000 miles on our 5th wheel per year. It is a 2015 Columbus and we love it but the suspension was the typical junk under most RV’s. Springs that are as wide as the frame so the perch mounts stick out past the frame. Basically they are like what you would buy at [generic retail]. They sheared off at the frame and the axle cocked. Over a short amount of time the tire blew and wiped out the side of the RV. The suspension I bought from etrailer was great and fixed all the problems the original suspension had. It was a bit of a trick to figure out ride height of the new suspension. You have to add spacers under the original frame to achieve original ride height. Sounds hard but it is pretty easy.
Seems like a great product and service was excellent. UPS lost one of the three parts and was a week long in delivering it, and then said that it was because it was packaged poorly from etrailer. I used a 4x6 steel rectangular tube spacer to get my trailer back up to the original height. Seemed pretty straight forward, but it would be nice if the system could be designed so the user doesn't have to cut the mounting brackets off the axle and re-attach the Timbren brackets.
I have had both leaf suspensions and torsion suspensions on pull behind campers. I decided to try these when I had to replace my torsion axles. The Timbrens are without a doubt the best suspension I have ever used. The trailer rides much smoother as it creates an independent suspension for each wheel. The rubber pad absorption design adds to the smoothness. The camper is also much more stable when towing and I don,t end up with stuff all over the floor of the camper from a rough ride. I am extremely satisfied and highly recommend this suspension system.
I used these to replace the leaf springs and equalizers on a 20’ gooseneck cattle trailer that I rebuilt. The ride is great and the usual rattling and clanging of the trailer going down the gravel road is gone. So far I am very happy with the ease of installation and the performance of the suspension. I guess only time will tell about the durability of the rubber components in the long run.
As far as etrailer, service was quick and delivery was also fast. As for the product itself, I would rate it a 1. Even after speaking to a sales rep at Timbren, the suspension has not performed as was hoped and assured that it would. (Although Timbren has attempted to make things right.)
As stated, this is no reflection on etrailer, and would use the company again if needed.
Probably the best upgrade I will ever do to our Roof Top Tent trailer. Rides absolutely amazing. I’ll never run leaf springs again.
Placed these on my 24’ center console trailer. There was an immediate improvement in ride quality. I make several long hauls each year and want suspension parts I can count on. I believe this will be my first suspension that is reliable!
This system is well worth the money. By eliminating the steel on steel contact when my trailer bottoms out on bad city streets, my axles have not been bent in over two years, where before I had a bent axle every six months. No rattles, bangs, or noise loaded or empty. This is on a 14k tandem flat trailer used to haul an 8k forklift (7k dexter drop axles).
This is a very nice outfit for a dual axle conversion. The only problem I had is that the axle saddles and u-bolts either got lost or didn't ship out. Gave e-trailer a call and they answered right away and were very friendly and helpful. They sent me the parts that I needed and they arived in 2 days. As far as the suspension goes, they seem to be very well made and I can't wait to put these under my boat. Looks to be very little fabrication to change from single axle to this dual axle walking leg suspension. It will definitely be easier and cheaper than than dual leaf spring suspension, and should be a lot better.
Great suspension system. Some of my customers require an air ride system, but some of them have accepted this system as they do provide the smoother ride that their tools need. Well worth the price, plus there is no spring hangers to wear out ever. Overall great system thanks.
In my honest opinion this is absolutely the only way to go to upgrade your suspensionI have installed the 10K and the 14 K models there’s less resistance while towing and the trailer tracks much better it is smoother the bumps are almost not noticeable highly recommend it
It all looks great, but I found other problems with the trailer so have not installed them yet.
I like the product. But the instructions aren’t the best one part of the instructions tell you to bolt the cross member on then when you look at the picture they tell you to weld it. If you look at your videos they showed a bracket on the front of the hanger that you can bolt it on. To weld it on you have to be careful not to burn the rubber part of the suspension that is right where they want you to weld it.
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