jdhagan

I know that the shop ordered the kit from Monaco so I assume that they are the Monaco design. They were shipped from a company in Findlay, Ohio which must be a vendor for Monaco. It is entirely possible that either Monaco or the vendor "borrowed" Source Engineering's design. The old trailing arms weigh about 70lbs each and the new ones weigh 140lbs each so the new ones obviously contain a lot more steel than the original design. As can be seen in the closeup photo of the broken arm the cracking started some time ago since there is rust on some of the fracture. A road contruction project in south Louisiana supplied the jolt that led to the total failure, but obviously it was just a matter of time. I will say this, when the arms failed it sure caused the motorhome to drive strangely, but at least I didn't lose total control. I hope these pictures help others understand how the arms fail, and how much better the new trailing arm design is. At this point I would highly recommend that if you have one of the coaches that has the old style trailing arm go ahead and get them replaced. It's not cheap but it is a lot cheaper than replacing the arms AND repairing all of the other damage that was done when the arms broke and the axle is no longer held in place.

Wondering if you are still interested in photos of the Monaco replacement trailing arms? My 2006 Cayman broke both trailing arms about a week ago and the repair shop just received the kit today. I was able to take photos of both the old arms which are broken in half, and the new arms. Interestingly the new arms look the same as the arms that Source Engineering manufactures.