We were due to have the caravan serviced by Paul, he turned up , took one look at the wheel, which is the one generally hidden up against the fence, and proclaimed that the rubbers looked to have perished. The axle suspension is of a torsion bar design, think of a towel being rung out to dry, by a person twisting it at either end. Eventually the twist becomes so strong that there is no further movement possible except by extreme force. Now imagine that the towel is encased in the caravan axle, under tension, and that is how our caravan bounces up and down. Technically there are three towels or rubbers twisted around the axle. We were due to go away, but that was put on hold.

Al Ko were quoting weeks of delay, and squillions of pounds to replace the axle, but to the recue came Fraser Brown Engineering in Scotland. Paul removed the axle in an hour or two, we crated up the axle, Fraser arranged pickup, and turned the job around in three days at this end, the axle was back the following weekend !

Superior rubbers were replaced, taking the axle from 1800kg to 2000kg and re-wound, in very simplistic terms. We didn’t need to know the technical aspects, but change from £400 made us very happy customers, and we were back on the road. Looking at the profile of the once round rubbers we could see the deformity of the old ones. We don’t know what caused it ,probably just unlucky said Fraser, but we’re glad we got to know him !

Fitting the axle was simple, the brakes were reassembled , and we got back on the read, fully serviced and ready for our Irish Trip.