A Couple Small Issues After Frame Repair Work

westend wrote:
One thing noted: Why is the drain plumbing against the spring shackle bracket? I see a piece of foam between them but that is a very poor setup for the pipe's longevity.

Yeah, I noticed that after I first bought the trailer. That was one of the items I had looked at under warranty and Komfort (now long gone) said it was normal. It was the dealer that installed the foam block as some added protection and it's held up for 6+ years and about 50K miles. I keep a close eye on it though and figure I can re-plumb that section to give a little more clearance if it ever starts wearing through.

myredracer wrote:
Curious - what is the story on the frame and what weight/length of trailer? You have a length of 2x2 under the frame. Not many TTs have that and it was somewhat stronger to start with. I also note that the spring hangers aren't very tall which should be another thing that would reduce the chances of stress cracks in the vertical area of the I-beam. Have you maybe towed a lot of miles on rough-ish roads? Is it one of those frames made from sheet steel welded together and *look* like a regular I-beam? Hard to tell exactly from the photo.

The trailer is about 27 feet long tongue to bumper and shipping weight is listed at 4,800 (it was way heavier than that new with nothing in it) with 7,500 GVWR. I added the Dexter wet bolt kit and E-Z Flex Equalizers when the trailer was less than a year old, but the rest of the suspension is as it came from the factory. I've weighed the trailer many times loaded for camping and am always close to GVWR and axle ratings, but never over. The trailer has seen some rougher paved roads as well as some miles of washboarded gravel (which I always drive really slow over when it gets bad), but nothing real extreme. Most of the miles are freeway/highway, but it has seen about 50K miles.

I'm pretty sure the frame is one of the ones that is just sheet steel welded together to look like an I-beam. The A-frame started ripping on me about two years ago as it goes under the front wall of the trailer, so the whole tongue had to be cut off and rebuilt with heavier gauge tubing. Last May I broke a spring coming back from Moab, so I replaced all those, then took it to a shop for an alignment last July after buying new tires only to discover the frame cracks. They finally had some time to fix those last week, and did so much cross-bracing and gusseting in addition to the fish plating of the frame, I think I could hook a strap up to the springs and drag it sideways without any damage to the suspension.

I hate sinking so much money into this trailer, but the box itself is in fantastic condition and everything still looks and works like new inside. I figure these repairs are cheaper than a new trailer, and now I should be able to get another 4 years out of it until the truck is paid off. I also have a hard time finding a new model I like that isn't longer and more expensive.

We're finally supposed to have one dry day this weekend, so I'm going to find one of those electric conduit clamps Todd suggested to fix the plumbing hanger. As far as the tank monitor and sensors go, I had to dump all the tanks before taking it into the shop, and they all showed empty when I dropped it off, so I'm sure it's a wire damaged during all the welding work. It could be a fried piece of electronics, but I doubt that. I plan to test all the other systems this weekend just to make sure though.

Thanks again everyone! If I do crawl under the trailer this weekend, I'll be sure to take and post some pictures of the welding job the shop did. I was very impressed, and it might give others on the forum some ideas that face similar repairs.