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Changes to the Cameo
page 5
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| February 27, 2008: One of the economy moves by Carriage for the manufacturing year of 2007 was to eliminate the shock absorbers. I talked to Carriage about this and was told MorRyde said they |
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| were not needed. MorRyde makes the suspension system for the Carriage Cameo. I called MorRyde twice and talked with two different engineers. Both backed up Carriage, "they are not needed". Yet on the 2006 model and earlier, the shocks are installed with the same suspension system. During our Arizona trip, I felt the trailer did some "dancing" on the rough roads which it would not have done with shocks. You will also see an animation of "The RE system in action" if you follow the MorRyde link above. In the animation, the suspension has shock absorbers. This convinced me that eliminating the shock absorbers was not done "because they were not needed" but to hold the price point down. I decided shocks really were needed. |
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If you recall, I built a Web page for our neighbor Glenn in trade for a stair. In addition to the stair, Glenn agreed to do the welding of the supports I needed for the top mount of the shocks. But Glenn had to borrow the welder from a friend. We soon learned that |
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| we could not plug into the 220 volt plug at the RV park. Glenn is a Rube Goldberg expert, he shoved the wires into the plug while I taped them into place. We both stood back as Glenn flipped the switch on the welder. It worked! We had 220 volt power to the welder. I had already purchased the four upper mounts needed for the shocks from a welding supply. |
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The only welding needed was the four top shock mounts. We carefully measured and Glenn put them in place after first grinding the paint off the frame to give raw steel. You can't weld to painted steel. You can click this photo to enlarge. |
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| Once Glenn was done, I primed the raw steel with metal primer. The directions wanted the primer to dry for 48 hours. I then painted over the primer with flat black paint. I let it sit for 24 hours, then mounted the shocks. It was an |
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easy install except for squeezing under the trailer axles. The final mounting of the shocks took only 30 minutes. You can click this photo too if you wish a closer look at my new shocks. By the way, I got some help from the folks on the Carriage forum with this project. Joe sent me some photos of his pre-2007 model Cameo showing how the shocks were mounted. David actually sent me the Monroe model number (#555025) of the shocks and the cheapest place to order them. Thanks guys! |
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