bent a-frame

JCR-1 wrote:
Talk about Chinese junk...are we any better these days ??? Everybody blames China these days for substandard tools , steel , tires etc etc.. Many of these companies are American owned and part and parcel to this influx of inferior products. American companies produce this stuff and import it to America and knowingly put this **** in our markets without any inspection or oversight as to quality.We used to have oversight and regulatory requirements for products to meet. No body's looking, no nobody's checking..its the wild wild west.. US made products have much better oversight and comply with regs, but no one checks the overseas stuff for compliance or if it meets US standards or not.

I agree, but the trailer frames are made in America. Not sure on the steel they use, but if it's too thin it's on the builder because they need to check the stuff they are using! The TV industry is so substandard when it comes to building techniques that it's downright scary what they roll out he door and we tow behind us and live in!

Talk about Chinese junk...are we any better these days ??? Everybody blames China these days for substandard tools , steel , tires etc etc.. Many of these companies are American owned and part and parcel to this influx of inferior products. American companies produce this stuff and import it to America and knowingly put this **** in our markets without any inspection or oversight as to quality.We used to have oversight and regulatory requirements for products to meet. No body's looking, no nobody's checking..its the wild wild west.. US made products have much better oversight and comply with regs, but no one checks the overseas stuff for compliance or if it meets US standards or not.

dodge guy wrote:
There was a member here years ago that had the same thing happen. He had a Mobil welder come out and repair it with new steel and a coupler.

It was dutchmensport. I'm sure he'll be along at some point and comment on what he did. I'd repost one of his photos off the internet but since they're photobucket images, you can't anymore (unless a PB member pays their ransom). But you can view the photos by doing a google search "rv.net a-frame break dutchmensport" and clicking on images.

I'm surprised this doesn't happen more often considering the vertical dynamic forces involved. If you look at how they weld the A-frame to the I-beams, the weld quality isn't that great and sometimes not complete (fully welded along the joints). We had a previous brand new TT into a gov't certified inspection facility and the owner said it was the worst frame he'd ever seen (Lippert), including the substandard welding. The Spree line of TTs employs this weak frame design to start with, and has I-beams made from 3 pieces of mild steel welded together which looks like a regular cold rolled I-beam. These 3-piece I-beams flex a lot more when travelling down the road and thus puts more stress on the I-beam to A-frame connection. Also, the OP's TT is over 33' which likely increases the stresses between the I-beams & A-frame. There are some other makes & models out there with the same type of frame besides KZ.

Don't know the model year of OP's Spree, but I do know that in 2014, KZ looked at switching to BAL/Norco frames and they produced a run of Spree Connect TTs (lower cost line of the Spree) in the earlier part of that year with them but they apparently couldn't get a commitment for enough quantity and went back to the Lippert frames. Wasn't long afterwards that KZ sold out to Thor and not sure if that had anything to do with it as well.

I absolutely would not hire anyone other than a reputable certified welder to do the repairs or a frame & axle shop that has one on staff. Might be a good idea to have the entire frame and suspension inspected for any other damage . It might also be a very good idea to add some strengthening in the I-beams above the spring hangers as this is a high-stress area and fatigue cracks in the I-beams can sometimes occur.

Another thing to consider is to add shock absorbers to tame the bouncing while traveling on roads. We added them on our Spree and they made a huge difference.

I had that happen to me on a 2013 trailer. The manufacturer had seen it several times on frames they sourced from a popular frame supplier (based on an email that was accidentally forwarded to me...I'm leaving names out because I don't feel like dealing with butt-hurt manufacturers who want to claim I'm making false claims).

It was a pain, but surprisingly easily repaired. AAA sent a flat bed out, picked up the trailer, and took it back to my storage yard +100 miles. That part was a pain--hours waiting for a tow, hours to get it home, transferring everything to my tow vehicle, etc.

After we decided where to have it repaired, AAA picked it up and delivered it to the repair facility. The repair shop took the old A-frame off and welded a new (much thicker one) on in its place. They also replaced everything else that had been damaged (lock arms, jack, stabilizers, wiring, etc).

Total bill with towing was about $6,000. I didn't pay any of it. My collision insurance covered the repair (...all single-vehicle incidents while moving are considered collision no matter what the real issue is...) and the manufacturer paid my deductible.

Still....scary and irritating. It happened on the freeway at +/-55 mph.

But props to AAA. After an initially frustrating period of time getting them to understand the difficulty of moving the trailer (they first sent out two different regular tow trucks), they stepped up and called a commercial towing service and took care of everything from there. It was easy.

FWIW, the repair shop told me the A-frame was an accident waiting to happen--in their opinion, the walls were not thick enough for the application.

There was a member here years ago that had the same thing happen. He had a Mobil welder come out and repair it with new steel and a coupler.

Some 5th wheels of that era had similar problems with pin boxes collapsing.

Won't hooking up and pulling with the trailer brakes on fix it? Maybe chain the bumper up to a post? I'd say now would be a good time to take a welding class and get in some practice and then tackle this project. Doing it right will increase the weight of your tongue, but it will be worth it. Did you just check on your trailer and find it this way, or did it fall off something?

Now that there, that is ugly but nothing that fire and steel cant fix.

Well I'm going to take a wild guess and say that is an early 00's trailer. If it is they were having problems with weak A frames (too thin of metal).

Good luck in getting it fixed. It can be fixed, just call a Mobil welder and tell them what you have.

What the heck did you do next ?.....have it towed to a welding shop for a quick fix ?

That stinks...