Frame Broken at Pinbox Mounts

[masdixdragon]

Good news, congratulations and glad to hear lippert is accepting some responsibility without a law suit.

[jdpm]

Excellent! Glad for you that you are getting some resolve. The sad part is that it took so much effort on your part.
Regardless of price paid for any make or type of RV, the frame should not fail!!!

[wingnut60]

Originally Posted by buc1908

I don't see so many FW of the other brands .And I look all the time what on sale and any given day you find over 5 DRV on their lot.

Today on PPL website fiver listings:

Forest River-----53

Keystone--------41

Heartland-------23

Jayco------------11

Dutchmen-------11

Grand Design----8

Highland---------8

DRV--------------8

This is at all 3 locations inclusive.

[Tdave]

Originally Posted by StevenCGay

It has gotten ridiculous! DRV says it is a Lippert issue and guess what Lippert says. DRV sees (as I do this time and at the last incident several years ago) a weld origination. Lippert says the beam penetration by the screws/nails is the root cause -BO’Rourke, Lippert. When I posed this to DRV I was told this was a common practice used “thousands of times”-GWeldon, DRV.

Glad you are getting this resolved, but what I see from the last photo, the one from underneath, is that the box tubing is split at its mill welded seam.

And it looks like it probably split due to the nail penetrating the tubing right at the seam, most likely starting a stress riser that propagated across the weakest point: the mill weld. I think this is the initial failire point.

Maybe if the nail didn’t penetrate exactly where the tube seam was, or if the boxed tubing was flipped so that the mill weld was on top, this might not have happened, and might be why they had success “thousands of times” before.

I’d make sure that the mill weld is not compromised next time around.

(Mill weld is how the metal mill constructs the beam. Flat steel is formed into a box and the two edges are then machine welded together. It’s a flat weld and hard to see from the exterior once painted. Extruded tubing eliminates the weld, but is more expensive.)

[StevenCGay]

Originally Posted by Superslif

When you said "they" repaired it a few years ago, was that under warranty where they covered it? You mean Lippert? If so, they didn't repair it completely. Because if they did, you wouldn't be in this situation again.

To the untrained eye, this whole thing is a design / build issue. They either DRV or Lippert owe it to the general public to build safe units, if not they need to make it right. It looks like they want to wash their hands for their deficiencies in putting out a less than premium product. God knows these units are $100+...

Lippert covered the repairs back then and DRV did the disassembly and reassembly of the cap and filon.
I agree that it was an incomplete fix back then and, if I had to guess, they have recently come to the same conclusion given they (Lippert) are agreeing to fix it again.

Thanks.

[mobilemike]

Originally Posted by StevenCGay

Lippert covered the repairs back then and DRV did the disassembly and reassembly of the cap and filon.
I agree that it was an incomplete fix back then and, if I had to guess, they have recently come to the same conclusion given they (Lippert) are agreeing to fix it again.

Thanks.

Since it is the second repair I would request to see the work before it is covered up. I would also demand that someone more qualified than a 3 year old do the welding. I would also demand some of those old ****** welds be repaired. Take pictures and take them to a real welder for inspection.

[jacknife]

Not to beat a dead hoarse but l have a Hensly air ride hitch and would never use a solid hitch again . Six years never picked one hanger off the floor in the closet . You cant beat them .

[jelag]

I've seen that at least 20 times for the past 5 years.... and it happened to me.... I first noticed that the pin box moved up and down as I loaded the trailer to the truck... it was like drive home, don't pass go, go directly home...



On my 5th wheel that piece of metal is 2x6x1/8 wall.... I carefully cut it out and replaced the whole piece from side to side with 2x6x1/4" wall and re-did the cross bracing when my failed.... I'm guessing I had 40 hours to pull the front fiberglass, and the material under the 5th wheel and related siding to prevent damage from cutting, grinding and welding.... and than put it back together... We added 4 times the insulation under the fiberglass cap.... and did some other work that was needed...



I had a local guy with a water jet make me some special braces where that beam connects to the frame and also where the pin box connects... I had a neighbor a mechanical engineer come and look when I was finished.. his first comment was.... geez, I've got this to look forward to with my 5th wheel.... But he blessed the work and guessed it was at least 3 times stronger than what the factory had installed..

[jdpm]

Originally Posted by jacknife

Not to beat a dead hoarse but l have a Hensly air ride hitch and would never use a solid hitch again . Six years never picked one hanger off the floor in the closet . You cant beat them .

Ditto!

[egwilly]

We found out early on that our 2016 Glacier Peak from ORV was recalled for the pin box issue similar to this post. Affected about 40 fifth wheels 2015/2016 model year. The work was done before we took delivery. Fifth wheel trailers are ugly without the caps on.

Some guy had it fail on the way back from Alaska. ORV decided to recall all of them with that frame to modify the pin box and place additional supports.

Guess this is not uncommon after all. ORV did this the right way in our opinion.

[ronc297550]

Originally Posted by ALLOY

I've mentioned before that it is a good idea to check the pin box deflection.

This is done by jacking/lifting the pin box up until the front landing gear is 1/8" of the ground.

The difference in the measurements up to the bottom of the pin box before lifting and with the landing gear 1/8" off the ground should not be more than 3/4"

When I check our 5th it was +/- 1 1/2". I then welded 2-3/16" x 2" x 4" HSS (hollow tube) on each side of the pin box. These run back into the front storage compartment.

When I talked with a Lippert frame and chassis engineer, he told me 1/4" OK. I had them de-skin the front of my rig and do the measurements ... mine was deflecting 3/8" ... which was 50% more than "allowed". 400 lbs of structural steel added bracing later, my deflection is 1/8". I only point out that 3/4" is too much deflection, based on my conversation with the engineer.

[ronc297550]

I found it interesting that while the Lippert welder was working on my rig, I was lamenting that I should have bought a DRV, he said "this happens to DRV's too". I guess it happens to all of them ... possibly. An air hitch is preventative, but brand selection is not. Mine wasn't broken, just my OCD worried about what I thought was too much flex in that area. The repairs done to my rig were a joint effort by the manufacturer and Lippert ... all on warranty (or at least at no cost to me).

[NeilV]

It is unfortunate that across the board RV manufacturers push the load limit on the frames they purchase regardless of the type. They are making them taller and heavier pushing the capacity envelope to the limit.


Chassis manufacturers unfortunately are cutting specs a bit too thin and not allowing enough wiggle room to deal with rough roads and chassis being loaded to capacity.


The advent of computer modeling should make this a less frequent issue however it appears to have had the opposite effect as builders use the computer models to cut things to the bare minimum to keep gross weight down or meet a price point.


Glad to hear that they are taking responsibility for their combined errors and working together to make you whole again.

[xrated]

Originally Posted by keymastr

Those welds look awful too.

No kidding! I haven't done any welding in probably at least 12-13 years and I guarantee mine would look better than those.