Possible frame rail, hitch receiver issue..
..Was under the Motorhome a few weeks ago, looking at some things, and noticed at the back, where the hitch receiver bolts to the frame, that the frame rails seem to have bent, twisted slightly. I kn...
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I know better than to even TRY to get Forest River to be responsible for this. That, would be an absolutely wasted effort. Not worth the hassle to go down that route.
However, Bruce makes an excellent point, that Forest River needs to know about this. Sooo, I probably will be giving them a call, although I don't expect a penny from them for fixing it. Will probably send them a link to this thread, let them see for themselves. :)
No, I do not think anyone, even the dealer before I bought the unit new, ever towed a trailer with a heavy tongue weight. I know when we bought this thing, I crawled under it, looked it over REALLY good. If the frame rails were bent like this when it was new, I would have noticed, and raised cane. I would not have bought it in this condition.
Sooo, either something I did caused this, or the frame rail extensions are really, really weak (or maybe both, haha).
I was thinking of one way I may have contributed to this: I use a 4" drop receiver, to get the tow bar close to level with the toad. Every time we come back from any trips, when I back the Motorhome up the driveway, due to the incline of the driveway and that drop receiver, the bottom of the receiver does scrape a little back there. The scraping seems very minor, but scraping when going in reverse would indeed push down on the receiver, or to say it more correctly: It would put torque on the receiver consistent with direction the frame has twisted. Even though its been very light scrapes, maybe that's been enough over time to cause this. That is only thing I can think of that I've done, that could have caused or contributed to this.
I think, after I fix this, I'm going to get another drop bar that doesn't drop the tow bar so far, to reduce or eliminate the scraping. Sometimes we just have to chose the lesser evil - tow bar being slightly angled, not level, or using too much drop, to the point you scrape up and damage your hitch receiver or frame. I think the tow bar not being perfectly level is the lesser evil here.
Let me ask one more time: Can anyone recommend or help me find a frame shop around Charlotte, NC, that would be able to handle this? I do a lot of repairs myself, but I'm not a welder, not going to try and take this one on myself.
However, Bruce makes an excellent point, that Forest River needs to know about this. Sooo, I probably will be giving them a call, although I don't expect a penny from them for fixing it. Will probably send them a link to this thread, let them see for themselves. :)
No, I do not think anyone, even the dealer before I bought the unit new, ever towed a trailer with a heavy tongue weight. I know when we bought this thing, I crawled under it, looked it over REALLY good. If the frame rails were bent like this when it was new, I would have noticed, and raised cane. I would not have bought it in this condition.
Sooo, either something I did caused this, or the frame rail extensions are really, really weak (or maybe both, haha).
I was thinking of one way I may have contributed to this: I use a 4" drop receiver, to get the tow bar close to level with the toad. Every time we come back from any trips, when I back the Motorhome up the driveway, due to the incline of the driveway and that drop receiver, the bottom of the receiver does scrape a little back there. The scraping seems very minor, but scraping when going in reverse would indeed push down on the receiver, or to say it more correctly: It would put torque on the receiver consistent with direction the frame has twisted. Even though its been very light scrapes, maybe that's been enough over time to cause this. That is only thing I can think of that I've done, that could have caused or contributed to this.
I think, after I fix this, I'm going to get another drop bar that doesn't drop the tow bar so far, to reduce or eliminate the scraping. Sometimes we just have to chose the lesser evil - tow bar being slightly angled, not level, or using too much drop, to the point you scrape up and damage your hitch receiver or frame. I think the tow bar not being perfectly level is the lesser evil here.
Let me ask one more time: Can anyone recommend or help me find a frame shop around Charlotte, NC, that would be able to handle this? I do a lot of repairs myself, but I'm not a welder, not going to try and take this one on myself.
