Broken frame crossbeam?

[Rivernerd]

6 hours ago, rideandfly said:

Question, would doubling the crossmember material create more stress on the welds due to less flexibility?

I am not a metallurgist, but it seems to me that less flexibility should=less stress on the welds, not more.  And, intuitively, doubling the crossmember material should strengthen the entire assembly, reducing stress on the welds.

[rideandfly]

Thanks,

Another friend here thinks it may be some bad welds. Will see how the repair goes Friday.

[Geronimo John]

On 4/9/2024 at 10:07 AM, Patriot said:

After talking with @rideandfly I went out to the Ollie Hangar and rolled up under “XPLOR” and took a good hard look at ALL the frame/chassis welds. All appear to be solid.

Good news Patriot.

Just noticed the yellow "thing" on your spring shackle.  What is it?

thanks.   GJ  

 

 

[jd1923]

2 hours ago, Rivernerd said:

I am not a metallurgist, but it seems to me that less flexibility should=less stress on the welds, not more.  And, intuitively, doubling the crossmember material should strengthen the entire assembly, reducing stress on the welds.

@rideandfly wrote this first and I have to side with this argument:
"Question, would doubling the crossmember material create more stress on the welds due to less flexibility?" Yes.

You must consider vibration. When materials are flexible, they absorb vibration and put less stress on the connection, in this case the weld. The stiffer the material, it will move less and the vibration is passed it on to the connection. I've never seen Aluminum C-channels or even angle iron welded together in the manner. I believe the hulls with this design will always fail at this weld point.

[Geronimo John]

3 hours ago, Rivernerd said:

I am not a metallurgist, but it seems to me that less flexibility should=less stress on the welds, not more.

Short answer often not.  Think of earthquake proof buildings and those that are not.  The ones that flex and bend under the stress survive.  The solid ones crumble.  An efficient solution is to have more cross members properly attached to the main frame members.  Load distribution is the idea.  Less load, less overload, less failures.  The supported tanks would like it much better as well.

GJ

[rideandfly]

The added piece of channel is only stitch welded (doubled) onto the channel welded to the mainframe on our Ollie. The doubled piece could be removed by cutting the stitch welds off with a 4" grinder. One side is stitch welded on the bottom and the other side is stitch welded on the top to the other channel.

To give more strength additional cross-members could be welded on (added) in different areas, if needed.

This has me wondering why the original cross-member was doubled when all others were not. I have not inspected the campers with new  stye frame like Patriot's, but guessing none of their cross-members were doubled. Hope someone will let us know that has the new style frame without telescoping hitch tube.

 

 

 

 

Edited April 11, 2024 by rideandfly

[Patriot]

10 hours ago, Geronimo John said:

Good news Patriot.

Just noticed the yellow "thing" on your spring shackle.  What is it?

thanks.   GJ  

 

 

My local Dexter rep told me the yellow paint swatch is to quickly identify a particular spring in their warehouse.  I noticed the painted end is also where the leafs are steel banded together. 

[rideandfly]

1 minute ago, Patriot said:

My local Dexter rep told me the yellow paint swatch is to quickly identify a particular spring in their warehouse.  I noticed the painted end is also where the leafs are steel banded together. 

David, Does your Ollie have any doubled cross-members?

Thanks,

Bill

[Patriot]

8 minutes ago, rideandfly said:

The added piece of channel is only stitch welded (doubled) onto the channel welded to the mainframe on our Ollie. The doubled piece could be removed by cutting the stitch welds off with a 4" grinder. One side is stitch welded on the bottom and the other side is stitch welded on the top.

To give more strength additional cross-members could be welded on (added) in different areas, if needed.

This has me wondering why the original cross-member was doubled when all others were not. I have not inspected the campers with the new frame like Patriot's, but guessing none of their cross-members were doubled.

 

 

 

 

Bill,

You’re always welcome to come by and take a look under XPLOR. Yes it has cross-members.

Edited April 11, 2024 by Patriot

[rideandfly]

1 minute ago, Patriot said:

Bill,

You’re always welcome to come by and take a look under XPLOR. 😊

That would give us all a chance to go out to eat, too? 🙂

[Patriot]

Just now, rideandfly said:

That would give us all a chance to go out to eat, too? 🙂

Now you’re talking! 😄👍🏻

[routlaw]

Another update for those interested. Heard back from tech support on my ticket this morning asking for photos which I forgot to initially send. Uploaded those, received a quick reply that all info would be forwarded to the higher up engineering folks and that the ticket would be closed. Not much really to go on, oh well.

In the meantime, after considering another post earlier on, apologies don't recall who posted it, but they are correct the fresh water tanks are quite a bit further forward than this one doubled up L channel supports. Its curious that all of the people who have had these weld breaks are at the same place, same brace and yet have nothing to do (directly) with the support of the heaviest item the water tank. 

Why did they not use a square tube, instead of stitch welding two L brackets? Why is there so much apparent weight distributed at this one point? I'm baffled. 

Thanks

[jd1923]

5 hours ago, rideandfly said:

The added piece of channel is only stitch welded (doubled) onto the channel welded to the mainframe on our Ollie. The doubled piece could be removed by cutting the stitch welds off with a 4" grinder. One side is stitch welded on the bottom and the other side is stitch welded on the top to the other channel.

To give more strength additional cross-members could be welded on (added) in different areas, if needed.

This has me wondering why the original cross-member was doubled when all others were not. I have not inspected the campers with new  stye frame like Patriot's, but guessing none of their cross-members were doubled. Hope someone will let us know that has the new style frame without telescoping hitch tube.

I had the double C-channel and the one closer to the wheels break (see pic). If you were to take the time to remove the doubled piece, I would weld it in place halfway between the two that broke on mine. It's great that you found the crack prior to the weld failing, as mine had pulled and bent the LP line.

Reasons that I had thought of was NOT the fresh tank, which is flat and long, its weight distributed across many support beams and over the wheels. Instead, running at 80 PSI was one reason I had thought of. Also, given the location, perhaps prior owners had used RR leveler jack wheels up in the air. Now I'm thinking it's the double channel at fault and after this weld failed it put more tension on the one in front that also failed on our hull. I found our broken welds upon purchase. The prior owner had never noticed it, even though he claimed to have just lubed the suspension.

Edited April 11, 2024 by jd1923
Added picture

[Rivernerd]

1 hour ago, routlaw said:

Its curious that all of the people who have had these weld breaks are at the same place, same brace and yet have nothing to do (directly) with the support of the heaviest item the water tank. 

So, the welder who told you to never haul your Elite II with a full tank of water was wrong, since the fresh water tank is forward of the broken welds?

[rideandfly]

Just returned from a road trip looking at Patriot's 2020  LE2 Ollie Hull #634 with the later frame compared to our original frame on our 2015  LE2.

There are some differences on the newer Ollie compared to our 2015 Ollie #75, but the newer Ollie still has the doubled channel cross-member under the hot water heater area. The newer Ollie has more angle replacing some of the cross-member channel when compared to the older Ollie, but my older Ollie has angle cross-members over the axles, too.

You can also see on the 2020 frame the inverted suspension saddle (my description) over the main frame giving a jack location that the older 2015 frame does not have extended as far for a jack location.

Aluminum channel cross-members on both Ollie's appear to be the same size.

2020 LE2 Ollie's cross-member doubled and stitch welded under the water heater:

2015 LE2 Ollie's cross-member doubled and stitch welded under the hot water heater, you can also see the cracked weld in some of these photos, plan to have the crack repaired tomorrow:

If you look at the doubled channel cross-member in this photo of the older LE2

Looks like a downward bow, probably found on most Ollies, I did not look at this on the 2020 Ollie. Would probably need a straight edge to measure the downward bow.

Downward load on the doubled cross-member that is cracking welds.

Edited April 11, 2024 by rideandfly

[MAX Burner]

1 hour ago, routlaw said:

Why did they not use a square tube, instead of stitch welding two L brackets?

Excellent question!

[rideandfly]

2 hours ago, jd1923 said:

Now I'm thinking it's the double channel at fault and after this weld failed it put more tension on the one in front that also failed on our hull. I found our broken welds upon purchase.

Just my opinion,

Agree, too much concentrated stress on the doubled cross-member welds. Load needs to be distributed to additional cross-members (one way to do it), especially for those doing overland type camping. We probably have the lightest LE2 with ready to camp weights of 4900 to 4950 pounds running under 50psi in the tires with 99% of travel on paved roads and empty water tanks. We still had a weld to crack.

I am not a mechanical engineer, just lots of experience in industrial machine rebuild and manufacture, before retirement.

Edited April 11, 2024 by rideandfly

[CRM]

Hull 45 has 1 x 2 rectangular tubing and not the stitched channel.

It has 5 of these from levelers back to the bumper and only one of them has a very slight bow to it.

[routlaw]

2 hours ago, Rivernerd said:

So, the welder who told you to never haul your Elite II with a full tank of water was wrong, since the fresh water tank is forward of the broken welds?

One could come to that conclusion but there are still cross braces under the fresh water tank which could also fail under the right conditions. 

[routlaw]

That downward sag is about the same as on my Oliver too and as others have pointed out these are C channel not L channel as I previously referred to. Regardless the H2O heater surely can't weigh so much with only 6 gallons of water and maybe another 20 lbs for the actual heater itself. 

Mystery to me why so much more structure in this one area and yet so many still break. Still nothing from Tech support.

Edited April 11, 2024 by routlaw

[Patriot]

15 minutes ago, routlaw said:

That downward sag is about the same as on my Oliver too and as others have pointed out these are C channel not L channel as I previously referred to. Regardless the H2O surely can't weigh so much with only 6 gallons of water and maybe another 20 lbs for the actual heater itself. 

Mystery to me why so much more structure in this one area and yet so many still break. Still nothing from Tech support.

How many trailers have had this weld crack or break? 

[rideandfly]

At least 3 that we are aware of. 

[rideandfly]

1 hour ago, CRM said:

Hull 45 has 1 x 2 rectangular tubing and not the stitched channel.

It has 5 of these from levelers back to the bumper and only one of them has a very slight bow to it.

Was your Ollie a LE2 prototype? Wonder if the older Legacy Elites had the same 1X2 tube crossmembers.

[CRM]

4 minutes ago, rideandfly said:

Was your Ollie a LE2 prototype? Wonder if the older Legacy Elites had the same 1X2 tube crossmembers.

It was the first LE2 sold to the public and the last one sold before the shutdown. The only 2010 titled Ollie too.

 

[rideandfly]

10 minutes ago, CRM said:

It was the first LE2 sold to the public and the last one sold before the shutdown. The only 2010 titled Ollie too.

 

Like my Grandchildren say,

Sweet!