Chassis (frames) mfg??

Northwood Manufacturing (Arctic Fox, Desert Fox, Fox Mountain) makes their own frames and they are legendary for strength and reliability. I have never heard of welds breaking or frames cracking on Northwood products.

R12RTee wrote:

GMCDMax wrote:

Me Again wrote:
I heard that Lippert has decided to improve their quality control and will be out sourcing their trailer frame engineering and fabrication to the chinese

I haven't heard or seen this before, where did you find this about Lippert using the Chinese??

I believe that was an attempt at humor.

Sometimes the truth hurts! Chris

GMCDMax wrote:

Me Again wrote:
I heard that Lippert has decided to improve their quality control and will be out sourcing their trailer frame engineering and fabrication to the chinese

I haven't heard or seen this before, where did you find this about Lippert using the Chinese??

I believe that was an attempt at humor.

Me Again wrote:
I heard that Lippert has decided to improve their quality control and will be out sourcing their trailer frame engineering and fabrication to the chinese

I haven't heard or seen this before, where did you find this about Lippert using the Chinese??

If your a high pressure pipe welder like myself its best you just dont look underneath your camper, when putting my reciever hitch on for my boat on our new laredo i made the mistake of inspecting some welds and the fabrication.... needless to say i spent about 5 hrs under there repairing, and re-doing some of the most shotty welding and terrible "reinforcement" jobs ive ever seen.

I heard that Lippert has decided to improve their quality control and will be out sourcing their trailer frame engineering and fabrication to the chinese!

Chris

I toured the Jayco fiver plant recently. Their Lippert frames are built tougher than others I've seen. More reinforcements. I suspect, but don't know for sure, that the Lippert frame problems are in the past. I used to want to avoid them but at this point it would be a non-issue for me.

Excel & Lifestyle makes their own. Although DRV uses Lippert frames, I don't think this frame is any worse than the other two. Oh yes, New Horizon also makes their own. All are stronger than I-frame designs used by others, and still in business.

Northwood makes their own frames.

I am pretty sure my STARCRAFT off-road RT14 frame was built and wired by someone else... I am basing this on the wiring of the delivered trailer.

My trailer frame looks great wiring wise - All nicely wrapped up and installed out of harms way.

The under floor wiring that was done by the STARCRAFT folks after they apparently mounted their chassis on top of the trailer frame really could have used some professional touches here and there.

My trailer has some five two-inches that penetrate the trailer floor from inside the various cabinet floors and the 12VDC 2-conductor wiring came thru these holes and then went directly to where they was suppose to hookup to. If I were doing this I have made up cable looms and wrapped every up and installed out of harms way just like the trailer lights and electric brakes wiring was done.

The first time I was off-road way back in the woods I drug off several 12VDC 2-conductor wiring with heavy underbrush which I had to temporary wire back up to use the appliances and lights they were feeding.

When I got back from my trip I went ahead and ran 3/4-inch flexible PVC conduit in a neat round robin configuration connecting all of the five or so two-inch holes thru the trailer flooring with upside-down PVC junction boxes with a large hole drilled out in the center of the box. Then all of the electrical junction boxes were connected together with the 3/4-inch PVC conduit. I can remove the weather-tight lids from the junction boxes and re-route all the 12VDC two-conductor cabling in a secured out of the way cable path. No more dragging off these cables anymore for me... This also allows me to route all of any additional cables inside the PVC conduit for future things as required. I stopped up a bunch of insect access holes also.

My under floor arrangement of the electrical junction boxes and pvc conduit are shown here in BLUE.


A neat job if I say so myself... I also got to increase the 12VDC two-conductor wire size from 14-Gauge to 12-Gauge as well. All of the cables got marked with my KROY cable marker kit too.

Roy Ken