The Mad Dash collapes at an exit ramp...

[mnormand]

Yikes.. Yes glad no major problems!

That happened to me last year with a pre built camper and all welded frame. Combined forces of light trailer, stiff truck suspension, and bad interstate highways. Discovered within a few miles of home after 800m round trip! Nightmare averted!






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[39Ratrod]

okay got the bolts on... I seem to recall that the 3/8" bolts are like 4 times stronger than the 1/4" bolts. So I'm comfortable with that part of the frame.



The front brackets seem solid enough...

90 miles to go... We'll drive really really slow... okay, that's about 60 to 65MPH. And the backup plan is to take the side roads home if the highways get uncomfortable...

I have never really looked a an HF trailer. That said, I can see any bolt used in this situation loosing it's clamping force over time. Not due to fastener stretch, but due to the unrestricted compression of the bracket. That should be sleeved to diminish the crushing effect.

Glad you got it home safely!

[Trebor English]

From the picture it appears that the tongue didn't fail, the bolt holding the back end fell out.

A four times stronger bolt is still zero strength when it falls out. If nylocks and lock washers fail try the jam nut with thread locker. That usually holds. If the bolt goes through something soft like a channel that you don't want to crush then the jam nut lets you tighten the first nut enough to be snug and tighten the second nut enough so that the nut/bolt interface never moves. If it is loose enough to have any movement it will fail.

I think that a hovercraft, cushion of air, type of suspension is necessary to survive I-10 through Louisiana. That road will beat to death anything pulled over it.

Trebor

[GPW]

QUOTE: “ I think that a hovercraft, cushion of air, type of suspension is necessary to survive I-10 through Louisiana. That road will beat to death anything pulled over it.” Actually that’s quite True .... We use it regularly for Off Road test driving ...

[Tomterrific]

Did the original bolt have a nylock but? If it did then the bolt must have sheared. That is a lot of stress and wear to shear a bolt. If a nylock was not used, then the nut just vibrated off and the bolt fell out.

T

[Nobody]

When I bought my HF 1800# in Jan 2006, it came with half inch bolts & 'Nylok' nuts, for assembly. In the places where I used different length/size bolts I added an extra 'locking' nut with a 'split' lock washer in between. Ten years & upwards of 30K miles since then & nuthin' has vibrated or shaken loose, over every kind of road surface/terrain there is in the USA. It came with the 'tilt' bed feature but sometime during TD construction I replaced the 'pins' in the tilt locks with automotive strength bolts (the tongue 'A' frames are formed 'C' channel except at the ends where they fasten to the frame. There, the flat side of the 'C' fastens directly to 'angle iron' brackets bolted to the side rails so there's no 'crush' factor to consider or worry about. I noticed recently that one weld, above the 'tilt' mechanism had broken at its junction with the 'C' channel side rail, but since I had seriously modified the original tongue to include a center piece of tubing (see my gallery) I'm not too worried about it. I will repair it before the TD goes on the road again... I've been well pleased with the quality of my HF 1800# trailer. When my TD was rear ended Labor Day weekend of 2011, I credit the strength of the HF chassis, with minimizing the damage to relatively easy-to-repair stuff. My modified, strengthened tongue probably contributed to destruction (eventual) of the factory hitch receiver but the other driver's insurance replaced that.

Heres pic of the 'tilt' mechanism (with broken weld) & the end of 'A' frame fastener

[noseoil]

Glad no one was hurt, but light weight frames are an accident waiting to happen for me. The tongue & its attachment at the frame should be the strongest part of the frame. You should look at it and say "well, at least that's not going to break!"

I complained about my frame being too heavy (over 500# rolling weight before the build started) but it's not going to break anywhere. I found a used trailer which was heavier than I wanted, but the price was right. It's made out of 4" heavy flange "C" channel. The frame is the foundation, like a house. Build it strong!

[beakman]

P.S. Can we conclude that the tongue has to handle the highest loads? and that we should pay extra attention to the tongue?

Well, I'm not an engineer, but I did go to engineering school for a couple of years before switching to IT, and I grew up (and still live) on a farm, where we fix almost everything ourselves.

The tongue wasn't handling the most LOAD, but was under a fair amount of STRESS. And from what I've seen, you didn't have any structural failure at all, only welding/fastener failure. Now from the pics there's no way for us to know if the weld was inadequate or if the design wasn't up to the load or stress, or both. Personally, if I had been welding that, I would have wanted some triangular gussets at the intersection of the tongue pieces and the frame pieces, along the sides of the pieces.



(this image is from http://weldingdesign.com/processes/usin ... -correctly)

This pic only illustrates the basic idea. I know your frame pieces lapped over, didn't butt together.

Not only would those additional welds spread out the load, but the vertical weld would trying to pull the pieces along the axis of the weld rather than perpendicular to it. A properly sized and designed weld should be strong enough regardless of the direction of the stress applied to it, but I'll say I've seen more failed welds due to perpendicular stress than shear stress. This seems to be mostly due to perpendicular stresses causing one or both pieces to flex, and the welds can't flex like the material can. So then you get tiny cracks, which allow moisture in, which weakens it further (and repeats until failure).

I'm an amateur welder at best, so if any of you welder pros can correct me on any of this, please do.

[DezPrado]

S. Heisley wrote:

Mike, sometimes, you have the worst luck.... So sorry this happened to you.

You might have some bad luck Mike, but you are to be commended for your honesty/integrity in sharing your mishap.(I know of many individuals [not on this forum] who would stay silent on this 'embarrassment') Looks like we're learning lots from this first hand practical experience.
Glad to see you & your family were okay thru all of this

[beakman]

S. Heisley wrote:

Mike, sometimes, you have the worst luck.... So sorry this happened to you.

You might have some bad luck Mike, but you are to be commended for your honesty/integrity in sharing your mishap.(I know of many individuals [not on this forum] who would stay silent on this 'embarrassment') Looks like we're learning lots from this first hand practical experience.
Glad to see you & your family were okay thru all of this

Ditto on the thanks. I lurked for a long time, but I've learned a lot by people sharing their mistakes, oops, second thoughts, etc. I have no doubt I'll have more than a few with my first build, so I look forward to sharing those.

[Nobody]

I've since carefully inspected the 'broken weld' mentioned in my above post. The 'break' has lotsa 'what appears to be old rust' actually inside the break so I'm reevaluating my conclusion. Since the passenger side weld is still solid & appears to be in excellent condition, I'm wondering if maybe the break occurred during the rear end collision in 2011. The major impact & most of the damage happened to the left (driver) side of my TD, underneath. I've been unable to find or induce any flex in the trailer chassis at or around the 'break', using jacks, pry bars, etc. The left side longitudinal 'frame rail' appears to have sustained the most impact from the collision and the weld may well have broken at that time. I 'called' myself doing a thorough inspection after the wreck but the break is so tiny that I may have missed it?? It has obviously been there for some time, & we, & our grandaughter & her husband, have made several 'extended' trips in the past couple of years with no problems. I just don't know if the break is recent but I'll definitely get it fixed before the TD goes out again. A re-check of all the chassis bolts & 'ny-lok' nuts reveal absolutely no looseness anywhere so I'm still confident of the quality of the HF trailer...

[Mary K]

Hi Mike... and all y'all.... Been long time!

Glad everything worked out okay!

I bet this post has everyone getting up under and checking their trailers. I know I will this weekend. Mine is almost 10 years old. (OMG where did the time go? ) I haven't had it out much so hopefully it will be ok. I use the Red Trailer 5x8 bolt together.

Thanks for sharing.

[mikeschn]

Well, the trailer has been repaired.

Took it back where we had it welded, and the guy said the metal ripped.

He welded it back up, and put in some 1/2" bolts.

It's not coming apart any time soon!

Mike...

[GPW]

Hey hey !!! Great news !!!