SAFETY WARNING FOR TOADS

sundancer268 wrote:
Looks like an old crack with what I think I see is rust where the metal cracked. This probably has been growing for a while if it was a fresh break there would be a bright shine to the broken pieces.

This was also my observation. What you can't see in the photo is the inside of the crack or the grain structure of the crack itself. If you see a very fine grain structure along the crack that would indicate work hardening along the crack caused by fatigue of the lower flange, especially if you see some rust at the rear of that crack. If the grain structure is large that would indicate more of a catastrophic failure that happened all at once. I would expect a fatigue crack. In order of strength a boxed beam extension is best, then I beam, then C channel. I just checked mine and found that the extension was a C channel but had a 2 ft section of box beam welded on to the C channel were the hitch is attached. The hitch is bolted vertically to the side of the box beam/C channel with 3 1/2 in dia. bolts. Bolts in shear work better than in tension. Mine is 23 years old so thanks for posting this. For a fix for your brothers hitch I would re weld the crack and weld on a end plate to prevent the lower flange from flexing or weld in a box beam to the inside of the C channel. Let us know how he makes out.