Frame camber

[rotaxman]

Hello Everyone

I haven't posted here in several years but I feel that this is serious enough that I should let everyone know.

Like a complete dummy I traded off a perfectly good almost zero defect 06 36TK3 for a 2009 38TKSB3 I said I would never own another DRV unit but we found this floor plan that no one else had and we got a hell of a deal. Money not always being the best reason for making a choice.

I was on a schedule and had extenuating circumstances so when I went to get the trailer I pretty much blew off the PDI big mistake I know but like I said I had to get home as I had to pick Joyce up at the airport the next day. I had also encountered some water that looked as though it might get over the freeway so I wanted to get under the new one and get gone before the high water trapped me in Iowa. Not good if Joyce is waiting at the airport and I'm still in Iowa trying to get home with the new trailer.

When I got home I noticed that the dinning room slide was not in the hole I spent the next week trying to get the gap right on all sides of the slide it was not possible something was not right. I finally enlisted the help of a professional Paul Cross of Indiana Interstate Enterprise. I sent Paul an email last night and this morning he sent me one back telling me to go out and jack up the right rear corner of the trailer about two inches and see how the slide looked then. He said that he would bet it would be just right and he was right it set just perfect.

At this point he told me that the frame had lost it's camber. The spicesretirement bound had posted not to long ago about the same problem. I feel that anyone who is having slide fitting problems that can not be adjusted to meet spec, floor buckling problems or entrance doors not opening properly should look into the frame having loss of camber.

Paul explained to me that the trailer would need to be jacked up at the rear until all wheels were off the ground at this point the underbelly is removed and Lippert welds plates to the box frame tubing. The plates are 10 inches wide and 4 feet long and 070 thick they start just ahead of the front wheels and go to the back of the trailer on both sides.

Paul said that he has done several and I told him that I would probably have him do mine. I called Lippert and got a nice girl named Lisa who arranged for Lippert to come to my residence and perform the repair in my driveway. I was a little concerned about this driveway repair so I called Paul back and asked him about it. He told me that it would be just fine the same guys that do the repairs for him at his place travel all over the United States taking care of Lipperts problems. I had originally wanted Paul to do the welding but he said that it would void the warranty. As most everyone knows Lipperts welding leaves a lot to be desired. He went on to tell me that these two guys really know what they are doing so I'm a lot more at ease about the driveway repair.

Lippert will not be able to get here until around the 1st of August but it will save me a ton of money not having to pull it from Kansas City to Lagrange In.

I have worked everyday for the past 3 weeks about 10 hours a day correcting all of the Amish craftsmen mistakes and short cuts and DRV's dumb engineering mistakes. I am very confident that these people have never spent a day in an RV. I have encountered numerous screws with the heads twisted off and stuck back on with a little dab of silicone. I'm like Mike (Motor31) if I were having a house built and the contractor said he was going to use Amish craftsmen I would run him off. There is no such thing as an Amish craftsman in the RV industry.

If this repair fixes the trailer and I ever get done with all of the rebuilding of the trailer that should have been done at the factory it may be a fairly nice trailer. No matter how much work I do it will never be half the trailer my 06 was.

Sorry for the long post but I felt that everyone should be aware there has been some kind of change at Lippert and these frames are out there and could lead to some serious trouble if not fixed before they fail.

My pin number is 4750 and the unit was built in June of 08 I have trail air pin box with Tri glide and centerpoint which I had on my 06 I would't have a trailer without them. Paul told me that he hasn't had one with trail air have camber trouble so far just More ryde but if mine has it you can bet there are others as well.

I won't take up any more time on the forum with any further posts about this problem. Sorry if I have offended anyone.

One other thing if you have any trouble of any kind I highly recommend Paul Cross of Indiana Interstate Enterprise. He helped me really he told me what the problem was. He could have just said bring it up and we will fix it but he took an interest in my problem and got it diagnosed. He and his company are a stand up outfit.

As always good camping
Jerry