Trailer torsion arm lowering help needed

[Brett B]

Hello all, I need to lower my boatmate trailer a bit to to more easily clear the header of the garage at my new house. Even with the garage clearance hoop, and removing the tow ball and board racks, I still have to drop the air pressure in the tires to clear the header. There used to be an article on here called "Extreme trailer lowering guide" but it seems to have disappeared with the new site. 

I know I can re-index the torsion spindle arm, but I do not remember how much each tooth of change lowers the overall height. I believe the old thread gave an example along the lines of each tooth = 3/4" change. Can anybody give guidance on how much adjustment you get per spindle tooth change?

Thanks!

[Andrew63]

There you go

 

[dalt1]

I put my 2012 vlx in my 7 foot tall door for 2 years. Lowered torsion axle till I only had about 1.5" clearance to fender at top of tire, never rubbed. Didn't go back and look at above mentioned topic but did drop both my 12 and 06 models. Just loosen the pinch bolt and may have to use large hammer to beat them off. My 06 was very tight, my 12 was nearly new at the time and they came off very easy. mark them before removal then reclock them maybe 2 teeth at a time to see what you get.

[wdr]

My BM trailer uses UFP axles and TAs. I imagine the Extreme does as well so it should be a good guide. The UFP website says 1 tooth = 6 degrees, whatever that equates to. I used a cold chisel to open the gap enough to get the TA off when I replaced my axle main beam last month. Be careful you don't have your face stuck down there when you smack it in. The chisel wil come screaming out if you hit it on an angle. ? The pinch bolt will have to come out to pull the TA, the shaft is grooved so the pinch bolt is a safety if the nut comes off. I cleaned and greased the splines on both the TA and sway bar in the axle main beam itself to make it easier to reinstall.

Edited July 6, 2016 by wdr

[Brett B]

Thanks guys. I dove into the project last night and was able to get it figured out. With the suspension unloaded and wheel off I had 15" of clearance between the top of the hub and the fender directly above it. Each tooth decreased this distance by 1/2". I re-indexed by 3 teeth for a 1.5" drop, so the clearance between the hub and fender unloaded is now 13.5". Since the spring rates and geometry were basically unchanged this looks like it resulted in a 1.5" total drop of the trailer. Not too bad of a project and now much easier to get the boat in without dropping the tire pressure.

One interesting note is that both my old garage and new garage have a opening of 6'11". To get into the old garage all I had to do was slide off the board racks and fold the tower. The new garage required that I also remove the board rack brackets, tow ball, tower speakers, and drop the tires down to 20 psi. The old garage had a pretty steep incline leading up to the entrance that I guess was helping me more than I realized. The new garage still has an incline leading up to the garage but it's not nearly as steep.

Edited July 6, 2016 by Brett B