Drilling into the A frame

I've drilled into the frame on mine to install new propane line hangers. Just use high speed/temp drill bits; start really small and work bigger with larger bits.

"er78mph"....."RoyB" has the best idea and cleanest setup with sufficient support for batteries. Go to Home Depot or Lowes and buy enough 1" angle to span across your tongue. Rather than drill 1/4" holes, buy four (4) large self tapping screws and screw both pieces of angle iron down at each end. Use some smaller self tapping screws with large fender washers to secure the battery boxes to the rails.

Once done, spray the steel and screws with some gloss black paint and you'll have a nice battery rack. You can also buy some aluminum diamond plate at HD and Lowes and cut a piece that fits between the rails and make it look really nice by trimming it at an angle that matches the "A" frame. You can rivet it on or use the self tapping screws.

If you want to get fancy, you can buy some plastic coated cable at HD or Lowes and make some cable locks.

Roy b. That's cool! Slick setup and like you said, if the atv deck isn't loaded heavy then your batteries are a lightweight addition.

Just a quick question. Don't the manufacturers weld the battery angles and propane mounts to the a frame? If it was such a bad idea I don't think it would be a standard practice for as long as it has been done. Just wondering.
RichH

PackerBacker wrote:
Just use high speed/temp drill bits; start really small and work bigger with larger bits.

Thanks for that bit of information. I have now tried twice to drill into the frame on two different campers (the second time just this past weekend) and all it resulted in was a "walking" effect on the bit, and I ended up ruining two of the bits. Couldn't figure out what the problem was.

PackerBacker wrote:
Just use high speed/temp drill bits; start really small and work bigger with larger bits.

jackquontee wrote:
Thanks for that bit of information. I have now tried twice to drill into the frame on two different campers (the second time just this past weekend) and all it resulted in was a "walking" effect on the bit, and I ended up ruining two of the bits. Couldn't figure out what the problem was.

Trailer A frames are soft steel so I've never had an issue drilling holes using high speed titanium drill bits. Heck, dealer techs regularly drill large holes in the A frame to mount sway control and some models of weight distribution so there's no way a few small holes for mounting battery boxes are going to have any impact on the integrity of the frame at all. I personally have always used clamp on WD brackets but likewise have had no concern about a drilling a few small holes for mounting various items on the trailer tongue. Recently I moved my propane tanks to the rear of the A frame, then installed diamond plate as a tongue platform to which I mounted my battery box and Fresh Water Transfer Pump box, all of which required a few small holes being drilled in the A frame ... but that was much simpler than cutting and welding, especially since I don't own a welder and wouldn't know what to do with one even if I did. :W

Drilling two 1/4" holes in the trailer's tongue frame, especially if later filled by a bolt, is not going to change the integrity of the tongue frame 1 percent. I would bet that tacking on a cross piece to support other things would have the same result, near zero. With welding, I would think it impossible to take any temper out of the steel to the point where it weakens the frame to the point of failure.
But what do I know, I've done this many times with zero failures. Perhaps, more modern trailers have some type or configuration of steel that I haven't seen. All the ones I've played with have a full box steel frame.

aguablanco wrote:
Just a quick question. Don't the manufacturers weld the battery angles and propane mounts to the a frame? If it was such a bad idea I don't think it would be a standard practice for as long as it has been done. Just wondering.
RichH

That's the first thing that came to my mind. TTs typically come with angle iron welded to the underside of the A-frame and they use thin angle iron, not the usual 1/8" stuff sold everywhere. If welding to the side of an A-frame, you are only supposed to make vertical welds. Not sure why. If installing angle iron to the top of an A-frame, the connection is not weight-bearing and nowhere near as critical compared to welding it to the underside.

Propane tank trays are thin sheet metal and are screwed in place (#8?). If you consider all the large dia. holes that get drilled into the side of A-frames for Reese dual cam brackets, friction sway bars, ground lugs and sometimes snap-up brackets, a couple of little 1/4" screw holes are nothing. Using self-tapping screws for the new angle iron is probably a better choice so you can remove or relocate it in the future if needed.