Wednesday, March 15, 2006

NOISY Y-FRAME, SOLUTIONS

Hi,
I've just bought a large y-frame trailer and think its a great design but bringing it home unladen from Oxford - the rattling was getting to me. Is there a way of stopping the arm from rattling in the frame?? I was thinking of fixing it permanently with self-tappers.
There are three causes of rattle on the Y-Frame. The hitch, where the handle meets the frame, and where the wheels meet the frame.

There are three causes of rattle on the Y-Frame. The hitch, where the handle meets the frame, and where the wheels meet the frame.

HITCH The U bracket that hooks onto the bike bracket is usualy adjusted so its two faces are slightly wider than the bike bracket. This bolt can be tightened to give a snug fit.

SPRING PINS The spring gated pins hit of the frame and rattle during use. The best solution is either to sleeve the spring part of the pin with a rubber tube, or to wrap it with electrical tape.

HANDLE/FRAME The Handle/Frame joint is a loose fit, to make sure that even if the handle is damaged it will still fit Ok. some people pack this with grease to cut down the noise, also electrical tape applied along the four edges from front to back helps. If securing permanently use rivits rather than self tapers. Use four rivits two on the top face, and two on the lead face. Two rivit should be close to the end of the handle(where it sits inside the frame), and the other Two should be close to the frame end.

If riviting also use electrical tape, or ptfe tape, or plastic strip tape to create a tight fit.
We would recomend using an M6 bolt through the existing hole rather than creating new holes for self tappers or rivits.

WHEELS This is often overlooked, but is also a source of noise. The wheels can move slightly to the left/right on their axle, and hence hit of the frame. This looseness is to make sure the axle engages properly. The easiest solution is to face the end of the frame(where the wheel hits it) with electrical tape. Alternatively tighten the axles as tight as possible making sure the axle still engages properly( the push button should pop out once engaged).

Noise from the Y-Frame bugs a lot of people but it is only really noticeable when the trailer is empty. We traded noisiness for simplicity and robustness, though in the future we aim to formalize these noise solutions I have outlined above.

2 Comments:

Blogger Bottled said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

9:06 pm  
Blogger Bottled said...

Today I received, assembled and test drove the large Y frame trailer. I found it really quite noisy unloaded. Of course I will need to test loaded too but the empty trailer load bed seems to act like a soundboard for the wheels. I will take the board off and see if that helps. Possibly adding a metal framework instead of the board will do the trick and make it all a lot more bearable. Of course I could always stick my earplugs in and turn my iPod up high....

9:10 pm  

Post a Comment

<< Home