SAFETY WARNING FOR TOADS

[aksnowman]

My brother started full timing this year and yesterday while disconnecting the Toad he noticed there was something wrong with the RV side of the tow receptacle. When he got underneath the back of the RV he found the tow hitch was bolted to the frame but that the frame had cracked where the two bolts are installed. The crack is about 4" long and if not discovered likely would have resulted in the separation of the Toad from the RV. I am to sure of the Model but the RV is a Thor product, 38' long and only a couple of years old.


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[tropical36]

aksnowman wrote:
My brother started full timing this year and yesterday while disconnecting the Toad he noticed there was something wrong with the RV side of the tow receptacle. When he got underneath the back of the RV he found the tow hitch was bolted to the frame but that the frame had cracked where the two bolts are installed. The crack is about 4" long and if not discovered likely would have resulted in the separation of the Toad from the RV. I am to sure of the Model but the RV is a Thor product, 38' long and only a couple of years old.

I'd say that once it was welded up properly a four bolt L bracket would be in order for side bolting it to the frame, as well.
Need to look at mine again, to see how it was done.

[wildmanbaker]

Anyway, thanks for the heads up Snowman.

[aksnowman]

hohenwald48 wrote:
Well, I'm not sure the OP was actually looking for a lot of speculative guessing as to the cause of the problem. Seems to me the original point was to warn folks to be aware of the possibilities and inspect your rig on a regular basis.

There are probably dozens if not hundreds of things that could have caused or contributed to the crack. Things break. The point is that we should all crawl under our rigs and look for things that "ain't" right from time to time.

Yes the point is to check your rigs first, second tell your buddy, third see if this is a bigger problem then thought.

Thanks for posting your response... Getting tired of biting my tounge from all the arm chair quarter backs and the sole damage cause when they don't know the people or the equipment. But as much as I hate to bite my tongue, I sure do enjoy people watching for those theories.

[timmac]

Gjac wrote:
Timmac, that is a nice mod did you do that work yourself or did a shop do it for you? That box beam structure looks like it will take more than 7500 lbs but maybe you might be limited by something else like your transmission.

The previous owner had a shop do the work, yes it could handle more weight but my Ford chassis is a 07 20,500lbs with 19.5 tires, I tow 6500lbs and my total weight is 26,500lbs and that's enough weight on my drive train, don't want to wear it out to fast.

[DrewE]

frankdamp wrote:
How come whatever spell-checker (if there is one) in the forum doesn't spot that "tounge" isn't a real word. It's "TONGUE".

The forum itself has no spell checker. It does automatically replace certain bad words with asterisks, occasionally with less than perfect results. Some web browsers and/or operating systems may have one and it presumably would catch tounge and put a squiggly red underline on it or whatever it does.

If perfect spelling and typing and sentence structure were a requirement here, I would have been kicked out long ago (as I suspect would most everybody else). It's generally best to let such errors slide when it's quite clear what was intended and there's no confusion that results.

[frankdamp]

How come whatever spell-checker (if there is one) in the forum doesn't spot that "tounge" isn't a real word. It's "TONGUE".

[hohenwald48]

Well, I'm not sure the OP was actually looking for a lot of speculative guessing as to the cause of the problem. Seems to me the original point was to warn folks to be aware of the possibilities and inspect your rig on a regular basis.

There are probably dozens if not hundreds of things that could have caused or contributed to the crack. Things break. The point is that we should all crawl under our rigs and look for things that "ain't" right from time to time.

[msmith1199]

I’m not going to read all the posts here so I don’t know if this has been covered or not. But who hasn’t drug their hitch on the pavement on a steep driveway? I know I have. You can potentially put a huge amount of weight on the hitch when doing that and it could tear things up down there. I tend to doubt the frame in the photo just broke. I could imagine the hitch was drug on the ground or something else similar happened to it.

[Gjac]

Timmac, that is a nice mod did you do that work yourself or did a shop do it for you? That box beam structure looks like it will take more than 7500 lbs but maybe you might be limited by something else like your transmission.

[Wire_Man]

Can’t see that happening from just pulling a toad, looks like maybe something with a lot of tounge weight causing that, or something with no breaking

[timmac]

I found my old pics on another laptop, here is what was done on my motorhome underneath to strengthen the rear frame and a upgraded hitch, can handle up to 7500lbs, I currently tow 6500lbs without a issue for over 3 years now on a Ford chassis motorhome.

The drop hitch in pics has been changed out, it only drops 6 inches now.

A heavy metal ladder system was built, fiberglass cut so metal ladder could slide into factory extension frame all the way back to Fords chassis, all welded up and hitch also welded to new metal ladder system, zero twist in the back of my motorhome and it has a high tonged weight as well..

[Gjac]

sundancer268 wrote:
Looks like an old crack with what I think I see is rust where the metal cracked. This probably has been growing for a while if it was a fresh break there would be a bright shine to the broken pieces.

This was also my observation. What you can't see in the photo is the inside of the crack or the grain structure of the crack itself. If you see a very fine grain structure along the crack that would indicate work hardening along the crack caused by fatigue of the lower flange, especially if you see some rust at the rear of that crack. If the grain structure is large that would indicate more of a catastrophic failure that happened all at once. I would expect a fatigue crack. In order of strength a boxed beam extension is best, then I beam, then C channel. I just checked mine and found that the extension was a C channel but had a 2 ft section of box beam welded on to the C channel were the hitch is attached. The hitch is bolted vertically to the side of the box beam/C channel with 3 1/2 in dia. bolts. Bolts in shear work better than in tension. Mine is 23 years old so thanks for posting this. For a fix for your brothers hitch I would re weld the crack and weld on a end plate to prevent the lower flange from flexing or weld in a box beam to the inside of the C channel. Let us know how he makes out.

[roam1]

I would argue that most motorhome frame extensions do what they are supposed to (there are a few exceptions where there were recalls). And, outside of the recalls or a few really rare instances, I suspect overstress by owner or some other environmental cause (salt, rust) is the root cause.

otherwise....there would be thousands of failure threads like the OP's

[timmac]

Most motorhome factory frame extensions are junk, I will take pictures of what was done on my gas motorhome tomorrow and post the pics, it has been reinforced from the factory frame all the way out the back and heavier hitch, its rock solid strong, I can now tow up to 7500 lbs..

I have pics on RV.net and a thread about it but my history does not go back that far unless a mod can pull it up.


:C