dragging the propane tanks...

A390GT wrote:
My camper is a 16 jayco White Hawk 24 mbh,
We had the two 30lb LP tanks fall off the trailer on our last day of a 3 week vacation. I drug them for about 5 miles or so until we figured out what was happening.

Everything that holds the tanks on plus the cover were missing. The hoses, tank switch and regulator seem ok. The tanks still holding propane but are shot.

Luckily the tanks did their job an held together.....

I would check the top wing bolt every time we would get back on the road and it always seemed tight. The only thing that I can think that went wrong was there was no lock nut on the stud that holds the tanks to the base and it shook loose. I never had the tank cover off and I assumed it was locked in to the base and wouldn't unthread.
Does that stud require a lock nut?
John-











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If you drug the tanks by the hoses for miles then you should change the hoses. They may look fine but, they are bound to be stretched and shot internally . Swap them out they are shot !!!

I think you should carefully check the rest of it too.

Beware - there's another failure mode as well!

I must have over-tightened the wing nut one time, because the nut at the base pulled through the baseplate!

My safety is a cam strap over the cover. Even if the retaining bar came loose, there no way the tanks could fall off if the cover is secure.

opnspaces, I think the big wing nut is not enough -- secure the rod at the bottom with a nylon core lock nut. Inexpensive and easy!

My wife was taking the popup down to southern Illinois with other women for a weekend of horseback riding. The propane tank came loose and was bouncing along the road hanging by the hose. A ways down the road she was pulled over by a state trooper. By this time the tank had rubbed through and lost all the propane. No explosion luckily. $50 for a new tank.

tll wrote:
I have seen several posts on a variety of RV forums about this happening. Having the rod not securely retained in the bottom of the tank pan is a poor idea. If this were any other vehicle, there would be a recall across all manufactures for this problem. The problem is that we all put a nut on the bottom and go on with our life. This safety issue should be reported to the NHTSA so they can track complaints.

http://www.nhtsa.gov/Vehicle+Safety/Recalls+&+Defects

Thanks for sharing the NHTSA site I did not know it existed, but will check it from time to time. Happy Camping

I'm wondering if I tighten the big wing nut on top of the tanks and then drill and zip tie the wingnut to the hold down bar beneath it, would that prevent the threaded rod from vibrating loose?

check the tank holder to trailer frame fasteners too.
my tank holder base was fastened to the trailer with two self tapping screws

Probably a good idea to put a nylock nut on top and on the bottom of the pan.

Sure enough, when I pulled my propane cover off this morning to put on a nylon core lock nut, the whole vertical threaded bolt was pretty easy to turn by hand. It certainly could have come undone, given enough time and enough vibration.

Worse yet, this is not something that is immediately apparent -- the bolt was not wobbly, and the whole assembly would tighten up normally when I would spin the big wing nut on top. So without this thread, I am not sure when I would have discovered this issue.

I installed the "missing" nut (standard 1/2-13) on our TT in it's first season of use. I only discovered it because the propane regulator was installed backwards and you could not see the indicator that says it's switched over from the empty tank (just another stupid thing they do). So I turned it around and in the process found the vertical threaded rod flopping around.

Why wouldn't they install one to begin with? Well, to quote the dealer we bought our TT from "it's just a travel trailer" when discussing various issues we were having. There's many things on TTs that make you ask yourself "what the fig?". Today I get to replace the crappy WFCO converter that died a few days ago with a new PD one. I could probably write a book on all the ridiculous things I've found on the 3 TTs we've owned...

BTW, when you add the missing nut, it becomes a jamb nut and you only need to adequately tighten it up against the existing one.