Crap! Quite Litterally

[Poppy_s_5th_Whe]

I took the trailer to a local muffler/welding shop who does custom hitches to have a hitch and 2 trays (for carrying my Honda generators) made.

They did a great job and created exactly what I wanted but I ended up with a problem and I don't know how severe it is.

I'm driving off and I smell sewage really bad. I pulled over and took a look around and I have raw sewage draining out from my coroplast (sp?) around the front jacks and I also noticed water dripping around the drain valves for the rear grey water tank! Yikes

I have no idea how it happened. They did have the trailer on a lift but I don't remember if anything came in contact with the sewer pipes. I thought if so it may have pushed them up into the black and grey tanks and broke them or the seals around the drains or something.

Crap! I'm at a loss. I suspect I need to drop the coroplast and take a look. If nothing else the insulation is going to need to be pulled out and replaced because it stinks to high heaven!

That doesn't look like an easy job. At least 5 million screws and lots of stuff protruding that will keep it from just dropping down.

Anyone with any ideas on what may have happened or experience dropping the bottom of these?

We are planning to leave for 3 months on August 18th so I'm going to need to get busy in a hurry.
I took the trailer to a local muffler/welding shop who does custom hitches to have a hitch and 2 trays (for carrying my Honda generators) made.

They did a great job and created exactly what I wanted but I ended up with a problem and I don't know how severe it is.

I'm driving off and I smell sewage really bad. I pulled over and took a look around and I have raw sewage draining out from my coroplast (sp?) around the front jacks and I also noticed water dripping around the drain valves for the rear grey water tank! Yikes

I have no idea how it happened. They did have the trailer on a lift but I don't remember if anything came in contact with the sewer pipes. I thought if so it may have pushed them up into the black and grey tanks and broke them or the seals around the drains or something.

Crap! I'm at a loss. I suspect I need to drop the coroplast and take a look. If nothing else the insulation is going to need to be pulled out and replaced because it stinks to high heaven!

That doesn't look like an easy job. At least 5 million screws and lots of stuff protruding that will keep it from just dropping down.

Anyone with any ideas on what may have happened or experience dropping the bottom of these?

We are planning to leave for 3 months on August 18th so I'm going to need to get busy in a hurry.

[tvman44]

Are those 2" receivers welded to the original bumper? Sure hope not.

[BillB3857]

I did a repair on both my black and fresh tanks where the spin-weld fitting let go. So far no leaks after a year. Clean the area well with MEK and use fiberglass saturated with ABS joint cement and make your own repair. Drill a small hole at the end of the crack to stop it from traveling before the fiberglass/ABS cement. Let the first layer cure for a day, then add a second layer. With the crack your picture shows, a third layer wouldn't hurt a thing.

[Poppy_s_5th_Whe]

Okay. I fully drained the black tank and flushed through the toilet for a good hour until I was getting completely clear, clean water. Then I topped the tank off with fresh water and dropped the coroplast.

Bingo, the black tank has a major crack on the front corner. It is clearly very old as the tank has a build up of sludge. My suspicion is that when they loaded the trailer on the lift it was tilted down in front enough to have all the contents rush forward and out the crack.

My problem therefor has nothing to do with my fabricator. Interestingly, a little over a year ago we were on a trip and we were getting a terrible odor that I couldn't seem to control. I suspected that a rodent had somehow gotten into the sub-floor, died and was rotting. I guess this answers that question. I never let the tank fill completely, so, unless the trailer is in a radical nose down position, it probably seldom overflowed and maybe only slopped out the crack occasionally while driving.

So, now the problem comes in replacing the tank and replacing and patching the coroplast. Luckily the tank is clearly labeled with manufacturer and model number.

Here's some pictures:







I just got off the phone with the tank manufacturer, they referred me to their distributor and the tank is $285 and a 3 - 4 weeks out. That didn't include shipping. Next I tried a local RV repair facility I have used and they don't like to quote jobs over the phone for, for obvious reasons, but he said he would have to order the tank just like me and that their labor would probably start at $500 and go to $1,000 or more depending on what they need to do. Yadda, yadda.

Finally, the RV repair guy told me of a local plastic welder so I called him and he thought it might be fixable. They charge $85 and hour. I need to pull the tank out and sanitize it and he will do a "test weld" to see.

I think that is my plan. I will first see if it can be repaired, if not then I will order a replacement myself and install it myself.

[d-mac1]

Heres another theory....the forklift was under the pin while they raised the lift, but it didn't go up in sync with the lift and in the process they pinched the sewer line, causing a break.

Clearly they did the damage if it didn't leak going in, but did coming out.

Something else....I'd climb up top and see if you see anything up there. Its awfully close to the top of the garage door in that one pic and if they creased the top of your trailer, or broke something loose on the roof, you want to find it before you get lots of water damage from up there.

[cummins2014]

Vulcaneer wrote:
From a quick look it looks like they did a very neat and professional job. However, A few things that would make me wonder.

They mounted three trailer hitch receivers to the rear bumper? They probably did some bracing on that bumper. And hopefully those receivers go through the bumper and are welded to significantly more support. If the bumper has all the support, the bumper alone is not strong enough to support any trailer hitch weight. That bumper is simple cold rolled steel. And very thin walled, at that.

Of course, the other thing I wonder about is....Why on earth, did they need to raise the trailer on a lift?

I can understand, that they had the lift and the fork lift...so why not? "We do it all the time." But the "why not" would be...if not really needed...better to keep it on the ground. Should have been plenty of room underneath to do as good a job.

And to your question, Unless they crunched something in the lifting process, I doubt they melted anything without knowing it. Maybe talk to the guy with the real foul smelling shoes. Or else the guy with NEW shoes.

You have a point on the strength of that bumper,very thin walled tube, hopefully they did some unseen bracing. One fifty pound generator assuming he has two 2000 watt honda's one on each platform, plus the weight of the platform is not a lot of weight, shouldn't take a lot of beefing up.

As far as lifting the fifth wheel if I had the option of laying underneath, and welding or standing to weld it up, I would raise it up. Never any fun anytime I had to lay on my back and weld . Any welding on the bottom of that bumper is going to be laying on your back unless raised up.

[jalichty]

I also don't understand why they needed to lift the FW off the ground to do this work. When I had my hitch put on, it sat on the ground and they worked on it there, including removing the bottom covering and reinforcing the frame about six feet towards the tires. If your guys didn't do some sort of reinforcement for the bumper and the hitches, the first time you put something on those hitches, you might have a problem.

[Vulcaneer]

From a quick look it looks like they did a very neat and professional job. However, A few things that would make me wonder.

They mounted three trailer hitch receivers to the rear bumper? They probably did some bracing on that bumper. And hopefully those receivers go through the bumper and are welded to significantly more support. If the bumper has all the support, the bumper alone is not strong enough to support any trailer hitch weight. That bumper is simple cold rolled steel. And very thin walled, at that.

Of course, the other thing I wonder about is....Why on earth, did they need to raise the trailer on a lift?

I can understand, that they had the lift and the fork lift...so why not? "We do it all the time." But the "why not" would be...if not really needed...better to keep it on the ground. Should have been plenty of room underneath to do as good a job.

And to your question, Unless they crunched something in the lifting process, I doubt they melted anything without knowing it. Maybe talk to the guy with the real foul smelling shoes. Or else the guy with NEW shoes.

[spud1957]

Come on guys!! Give it a break. Who cares whether he has sewer in his tank or he has 3/4s water?

[Water-Bug]

You keep your holding tank 3/4 full of water? Why carry around that weight?

[Poppy_s_5th_Whe]

just me wrote:
Why do you carry a full black holding tank and then take it to have work done on the trailer? More weight up front.

Oh please. Are you serious?

Our trailer stays at our home and we just had guests for a week and the adults used the trailer. I hadn't had a chance to empty the holding tanks yet. It wouldn't have avoided the problem, just the mess. I wouldn't even had know until we were on the road and away from home!

Even if I had flushed the tank before the work it would have been 3/4 full of water. So what's your point here?

[just_me]

Why do you carry a full black holding tank and then take it to have work done on the trailer? More weight up front.

[Poppy_s_5th_Whe]

Thanks everyone. Today will tell a lot. More inspection of the rig and a talk with the shop owner. We'll see where it goes. One way or another, I suspect there's pretty good odds this will delay our long awaited trip at the very least and maybe even cancel it entirely.

[ksbowman]

Look on the roof too. They may have hit the ceiling with the vent tube if something was hanging down from the ceiling shoving the vent tube down into the tank enough to break the seal at the tank or rupture it (the tank).

[BillB3857]

Looking at the picture of the trailer on the lift, I see that the dump fitting is right above the break point for the ramp section of the lift. IF, and it is a big IF, they raised the lift before putting the fork lift support under the king pin, the tip of the trailer would have allowed the lift to hit the fitting. Look for signs of impact on the dump fitting. That should tell you a lot.

[loulou57]

Your wife knows best...don't we all? LOL! I would call them or better go in face to face and ask a few questions.