Maintenance & Restoration

brownrecluse · 03-03-2013, 10:31 PM

So I have one side of my trailer that seems to sit lower. At the back, where the 2 sides of the frame stick out and connects to make the bumper, one side has a bigger gap. When I crawl under and look around, I don't see any cracks or anything. The frame looks solid and there's no cracks that I can see. It just seems to be cut a little different than the other side. Has anybody else seen something like this before? Should I be inspecting somewhere for a possible crack or something?

Roy in TO · 03-03-2013, 10:42 PM

Is the floor soft on the "low" side or bowed upwards from the frame? A straight edge will tell you.

floyd · 03-03-2013, 11:18 PM

All of the trailers of this design of which I am aware appear to sit lower on the door side due the fact that the main floor is low and the door must cover below it. The "skirt" is molded to accommodate this. Look at any Scamp for example.
Could that be all you are seeing?

Roy in TO · 03-03-2013, 11:26 PM

He is looking at the rear streetside floyd. The second close up shows an extra cut above the original cutout for the frame, then further damage higher up where the rear wall is setting on the frame.

Ron in BC · 03-03-2013, 11:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roy in TO

The second close up shows an extra cut above the original cutout for the frame, then further damage higher up where the rear wall is setting on the frame.

I agree, the original profile of the cut is visible. Where the frame is now is in a recess made by contact with the shell. If the frame appears sound I'd suspect a soft floor in that area.

brownrecluse · 03-04-2013, 12:36 AM

It's the driver's side that is smashed in a little. I didn't see it bowed up and I pushed up against the floor, but it all seemed ok. Not mushy or soft. But I will dig around some more. That part of the floor is right about where the rear bench connects inside. The only difference I could find is the size of the cut. One the door side, the top-to-bottom depth is more than the street side by an extra couple inches. Therefore, that side had to smash down the fiberglass a little bit so it could sit on the frame.

Steve Hammel · 03-04-2013, 04:21 AM

You might also check to see if your bumper is level. Sometimes people set their jack up farther out then they should and slightly bend the rails.

Also, it looks to me that the "good" side has been trimmed up further and squarer than the "bad" side. Just trim it up square and you should be good.

pauly42 · 03-04-2013, 12:30 PM

hI, I would check for rotted floor, if you look at the closeup you will see the fiberglass is broken by the frame water has probably found it's way in. Find a flat surface and take measurements on each side.

Francesca Knowles · 03-04-2013, 01:20 PM

It looks to me like there's something active going on there- if you look closely above the "cut", you can see what appear to be stress cracks that may be spreading (under paint?). I think the body's bouncing/moving on the frame. It may be that whatever spacers/shims that should keep it off the rail are gone. If I were you I'd at the very least mark the ends of those cracks with a lead pencil, and keep an eye to see if they continue to travel.

Francesca

rabbit · 03-04-2013, 01:40 PM

It's a crunch injury rather than an intentional notch as Francesca's blowup reveals. Put a straitedge on the underside of the frame rail. If it isn't bent, then the carcass is settling on that side and we ALL know what that means.

jack

Ian G. · 03-04-2013, 01:42 PM

I would consider 2 things: first these notches on trailers I have seen are not consistent, they were probably quickly cut out by hand during manufacture and are not necessarily even or the same.

Second and more serious I would check all the all the body to frame bolts, on my Boler these bolts had become loose over time which allowed the body to rock back and forth on the frame. This rocking caused the left frame rail (drivers side) to actually bend down from the axle to the rear bumper. Hopefully if this is the problem you caught it before any frame damage, just a little fiberglass damage on that side.

Francesca Knowles · 03-04-2013, 01:51 PM

Something else that possibly indicates active movement to me:

The perspective of the pic doesn't allow for the correct angle to verify this, but that "rust spot" looks to me as if the fiberglass edge that's hitting the rail has actually worn the railpaint off down to bare metal.

Francesc

brownrecluse · 03-05-2013, 08:12 PM

After digging around and pulling things out, it looks like I found part of the problem. The floor under back driver side bench is a little cracked and bending over the trailer beam a little. That back left corner is sagging. I'm not sure exactly what else is going on, so before I started unscrewing stuff and getting in deeper and deeper, I thought I'd ask you people.

Is there a diagram somewhere of how that back end is put together?
Isn't there some sort of plywood subfloor under the fiberglass?
Would I need to pull the whole thing off the trailer to repair?

I've searched and can't seem to find anything about this exact problem. Maybe I'm not searching the key word. I really wish that Kevin Henry would have already faced this problem and made one of his awesome videos about the repair.

james kent · 03-05-2013, 08:38 PM

Mine looked like that before I replaced the tiered .axle on our Boler. The street side will go first because of the weight of the kitchen unit. Looks like you might be bottoming out when you hit a bump. The problem was corrected with the new axle.
How old is your Boler. Twenty five years is a long time for a torsion axle.

brownrecluse · 03-05-2013, 09:19 PM

Thanks everybody. James, you pretty much made up my mind. It's time to pull the frame off and make sure it's solid. I've been avoiding it, but it's time to just get after it. My trailer is 37 years old an should be bought up to date. Maybe even some brakes. And then I can tackle a few other things while a new frame is getting built.