Today while repacking the wheel bearings, I noticed a hairline crack about 4 inches long on the frame above the rear springhangar. The middle and fronthangar areas arefine. It is horizontal and about an inch up from where the hangar was welded to the I beam.
I then checked the other side and found the same thing except the crack is a bit longer.
I am pretty certainthis is stress cracking caused byframe flexing during tight turns.
The trailer is out of warranty and I want to fix this before it gets any worse or starts to tear and then cause big problems in the middle of nowhwere.
I plan on fixing it by:
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- <LI>Pull off the bottomcover to check the inside rails and check for any fire hazardsbefore welding.</LI>
<LI>grinding out the cracks.</LI>
<LI>welding to fill it (will do both sides of the I beam if required.)</LI>
<LI>grind it smooth.</LI>
<LI>weld a plate about 3/16"X6" h X 12 " long along the Vertical I beam above the hangar.</LI>
* My dadadvised me not to weld the ends of the plate or it may crack vertically along the weld later from future twisting . He used to be a heavy equipment rapairmanand says they never welded the ends of a framepatch (only top and bottom)
To try to stop the flexing on turns, I am going to install 2"x 2" square tubing between the two rear hangars.
I just wanted to let folks know that they should take a peek above their rear spring hangars and make sure they don't have this problem. If you see a rusty horizontalline look closer.
From reading other posts regarding this kind of problem most advise tojust fix it and don't waste your energy trying to get Lippert to step up and make it right.They only have a 2 year warranty on the frame and I think the new ones are only a year.
Anyone else had something similar with their cruiser and if you did, how did you fix it?</BLOCKQUOTE>