tom73 Report post Posted June 25, 2021 Over the last spring I noticed the pin box was going up into the body of my trailer by about an inch. I nursed the trailer to where we (wife and I) spend the summer (we full time) and tore into it. I found the corners had small cracks, but nothing that would allow the pin box to move like it was. After really looking at things the design of the frame was sorely lacking....... I discovered that there were bolts that ran through the body (from the inside) to the frame in the bedroom. I was able to access six of them but couldn't find others. Out of the six ONE was snug, and two of them were sticking out about 1/2"! Where the 2'X6" frame comes from the front and meets the frame where the drop is they didn't bother to weld the bottom! I bought 20' of 2"X2" angle iron and cut four pieces about 3 feet long. I bolted them to both frame members so that one side was horizontal and the other side was vertical. I took them out and welded them together. There are now 26-5/16X3/4" fine thread grade 8 bolts holding the two pieces so they can't move like they were. I wanted to weld the frame, but it was too tight and the proximity of the body was concerning. I did weld the cracks you see in the pictures. Now when I hook up the pin box only moves about 3/16"!! Woo Hoo!! I guess I will find out this fall if I did a good job or not........ We're heading to the west coast from Minnesota and going to work our was south this winter. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
wildebill308 Report post Posted June 25, 2021 Good job. Some of the welds I have seen on RVs are realey bad. Bill Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
sandyhepburn Report post Posted June 25, 2021 Back in the day we bought a new, 1989 Shasta fifth wheel - 34 foot front living room model. We were about 1200 miles from home when we found the same issue: pin box seemingly "floating" instead of being solid. It turned out that when the chassis was built they start by tack-welding the various pieces together and then go back and run beads for the entire joint, except during the time ours was built the welders were on strike. Apparently a handful of units, including ours, were tack-welded, but never finished off, so after some random time on the road the tack-welds would break. In our case, the ONLY thing holding our trailer together was the wood framing! The solution was to basically disassemble the entire overhang section of the trailer and weld the chassis back together, then rebuild the body. Even though we were a few months out of warranty, Shasta paid for all the repairs, and put us up in a hotel and paid for our meals while the repairs were being done. We sold that trailer shortly after that... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
