Check your propane tank mounting bracket welding!

[NXR]

While both of these failures occurred on Forest River Georgetown Class A's, a 2020 and a 2022, I believe that the actual installation of the tank and supporting frame is done by a large third-party chassis upfitter, not FR. If so, that means this is not just a Georgetown motorhome problem.

The owners were flagged down by passing motorists pointing and the owners found the propane tank hanging down and visible from below the coach.

On ours, the end of the propane tank would need to drop at least 6" to be barely visible by a passing car so their tanks probably were dropping more than that and bouncing up and down on the remaining bracket.

Both owners used a strap to hold the loose end of the tank up to get to someone who could weld it.

Both people who re-welded the brackets drilled two horizontal holes in each bracket and installed bolts to hold the tank if a bracket weld failed in the future. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be drilling a few holes and installing bolts this summer...

The brackets that broke loose are tack welded, three places along the top and once along each side on ours.

Those are not welds I would normally check and the front bracket takes a bit of a contortionist to even see it on ours.

Three of the pics show our tank and its brackets. The other two show the ones with the failed welds, both on the front bracket apparently.

Ray

[DustyDriver]

Something the average owner wouldn't even THINK of checking on! Thank you for the information.

DD

[chuckftboy]

I would think those brackets were added to the frame by the house builder. I don't think a manufacturer would bring in a third party to install an LP tank when they have staff that modifies the chassis for other things. Its pretty common to find bad welds by various RV builders.

[Skip426]

OK ; maybe it's just me , but both the tank brackets and the additional brackets on the frame tubes are forward of the square tubes that run across the chassis frame rails.

Why not drill through the tubes and mount the tank 2 1/2 > 3" to the rear , brackets and welding seem totally unnecessary to me.

[NXR]

Originally Posted by chuckftboy

I would think those brackets were added to the frame by the house builder. I don't think a manufacturer would bring in a third party to install an LP tank when they have staff that modifies the chassis for other things. Its pretty common to find bad welds by various RV builders.

Forest River ships the F53 chassis directly from the factory to MORryde to have the floor structure, the hitch, the jacks, and other structural changes installed. The tank mounting structure looks like all of the rest does. As to who actually tack welds those angle brackets on, I don't know but it would make little sense to have MORryde do everything except that. Once MORryde is finished the chassis goes back to FR to have the house pieces-parts installed.

Our model year had a recall for under-torqued hitch bolts due to a tooling problem at MORryde. They issued the bulletin with the corrective action. That's actually how I know what the hitch bolt torque is supposed to be.

https://www.morryde.com/chassis-division/


CHASSIS UPFITTING

CONSIDER US A PART OF YOUR PRODUCTION LINE

We’re here to make production easier, so it means a lot to us when our customers look to the MORryde chassis division to install the primary chassis structure, right down to the trusses, outriggers, baggage compartments, leveling jacks and slideouts. During this process, we work closely with each manufacturer to identify critical dimensions. We utilize custom-engineered, precision-built fixtures and tables to assemble and hold these details.


Ray

[NXR]

Originally Posted by Skip426

Why not drill through the tubes and mount the tank 2 1/2 > 3" to the rear , brackets and welding seem totally unnecessary to me.

I wondered that myself. It may be that drilling the square framing directly on the top and bottom would weaken the tubing and hanging the tank directly under the framing may cause the holes to crack due to the vertical stress. With propane it looks like it's about 200 lbs that's being supported.

It may also be that the tank manufacturer specifies how much metal is needed to mate with their mounting bracket and it's more than the width of that framing.

The weakening and cracking potential is one thing giving me some pause because it would suck to create the problem I'm trying to prevent. I may go with a single small bolt near the center of the bracket instead of two that are as large as the picture seems to show.

I used to work in aviation maintenance and it's a science about where and how to drill holes to minimize the cracking potential and crack propagation.

Ray

[NXR]

The attached two pics were just posted by someone with a Forest River Georgetown. They just returned from a two-week trip and found this. The front of the tank was hanging down and the rear bracket is bent.

This person also owns a 2020 GT5 34H5, just like we do...

Ray