Truline RV in Spokane, WA is making good progress on cutting out the oxidized tubing strhcture.
They'll start welding new tubing tomorrow. There will be no question or worry about bolting the vexed Rolock-fastened bulkhead angle, as they will weld the bulkhead angle-to-tubing frame.
Are the side rails being replaced also?
is that going to be about 3 coach bucks? :o
Unknown at this point.
As to cost—too early to tell. I would be thrilled at 3 Coach Bucks.
There was quite a bit of discussion on welding the angle iron to the box Beam when I was repairing my failed bulkhead five years ago. Consensus was that it would not be as secure as bolting it together as was originally done. I'll search for the thread an supply a link if I can find it.
Roland
Check topic " Bulkhead Blues" reply 96 and 97 from five years ago.
Roland
The problem with welding is the big angle iron is much taller than the tubing and has a sheet metal barrier between the two. The rust/corrosion problem has a least two causes, all related to the design. First, rust jacking along with a terrible choice of fasteners plus no corrosion prevention of any kind in the area of the angle iron and the tubing. The second cause is water leaking into the area of the tubing from leaks, wet bay. This is much harder to detect when purchasing a used coach and won't be seen in a quick glance at the fasteners or even a torque test.
Using proper fasteners along with priming and painting should provide a quality repair. Still not an excuse for driving any coach on treated roads in winter.
Pierce
Ours 97 coach was stitch welded with a piece of 1/4" x 2" wide strip (see pictures), after the front to back was pulled back together with 2 giant come- a -longs.. Been this way for years, has never moved. I will add that the 2 vertical angle irons have solid tube welded inside of them. Has zero bolts
I have inspected Randall's coach personally, it has solid box tubing vertically in place, rather then the angle iron on later coaches. The rear section of Randall's coach has not moved, even though the floor had fell out of it.
Chris
PICTURES OF MY COACH BELOW:
From the pictures, (assuming the last 3 pictures are of Randall's coach) I would say that Randall's coach has the rectangular tubing as an add on after a previous rear bulkhead separation. Note the 2" X 2" ¼" angle on either side of the rectangular tubing. There is a crack right at the junction of the angle where it meets the heavy load bearing horizontal suspension framing above. I am well familiar with this area of the bulkhead construction, having spent so much time underneath during my basement/bulkhead reconstruction. In fact I did almost the same thing with the addition of some gusseting on our coach at that time. I thought it was my original idea, until I saw an 03' that came that way from the factory. Here is a thread in which I posted the mechanism by which the bulkhead joint could separate without causing the wall structure above to suffer deformation and subsequent delamination. Look at reply number 20 for my comments and pictures Bulkhead Separation - Planning for the Worst (http://www.foreforums.com/index.php?topic=23330.msg181095#msg181095There) are number of pictures in that thread that show the cracking of the angle iron and the finished vertical reinforcement, but I will add a few here for convenience.
Don
Edited to add missing link, which I could of sworn was there when I posted this the first time :o
Don
Those pictures are of our 97 U295. Randall's doesn't have angle iron. It came with just heavy vertical box tubing. I have personally inspected his coach. His has not moved a 1/4" (no separation). Mine however did. That is what the crack is , which is welded now.Mine hasn't moved at all in years.
Nice job on your's BTW
Chris
Thanks Roland. I would appreciate any additional information.
Don,
Thanks for the photos of the gussetted frame—that looks extremely strong and well finished.
As for my box frame, there was no evidence of earlier repair that I could see, ut that means little die to my lack of experience with the design. Further, I wonder if anyone would have repaired the frame and then reinstalled Rolocks. The current rusty mess was invisible to me because of the bay floors on top and the belly sheath below. The tel-tale for me was the failed Rolocks which indicated the floor dropping at the rear. I wish I could say I noticed it during the pre-buy inspection, but I was not yet knowledgable enough to recognize the signs of separation.
If you search the Forum for "has this happened to anyone" you will get the beginning of my front bulkhead total failure. Didn't know anything about bulkheads then am a little more aware now.
Roland
I might have missed this but, I hope you are watching exactly what and how they are doing what they are doing. Take notes. And Photos.
Ours was repaired/replaced at MOT.
Have they told you what stock they will be using? Commercial Quality 1008/1010 Electric Welded Steel tube. Could be Drawn over Mandrel and they might be using a higher carbon percentage. You might ask: What the wall thickness of the stock removed is and what they propose to use to replace it.
The material they use as a corrosion resistant is also important - and when it was applied?
If you haven't Searched yet. Lot's of experience here. http://www.foreforums.com/index.php?action=search;sa=results
If you would like to chat, please send me a PM with your stuff and I will share what I know. :)
Good luck.
In manufacturing a lot of grey market bumper supports and door beams for DOT compliance, I used a lot of steel tubing (several hundred feet on each delivery), (rectangular, square and round). So that I could insert the door beams inside of the doors and then expand them to fit and secure at the ends, we used only seamless and DOM (drawn over mandrel) tubing. They had no interior flashing so we could slide one tube inside of the other. The problem using DOM is the huge price difference and in the case of a Foretravel repair, no advantage. Increasing wall thickness would be optional but won't increase the price much.
Difference between ERW, DOM and Seamless Tube | Metal Supermarkets (https://www.metalsupermarkets.com/difference-between-erw-dom-and-seamless-tube/)
The amount of rust/corrosion protection is the main factor here. With a good exterior finish and some boiled linseed oil injected into each chamber of the welded structure, the repair should last forever.
Never buy steel from a welding shop or HD. Shop at a major supplier. Here is the one I use now since moving to Northern California. You can call them for pricing/sizes, etc. They sell to anyone, not just wholesale. You will need a trailer as 20 feet is the usual length and it costs to have them make custom cuts. For major construction projects, they also sell rebar. Much cheaper than your local supplier.
Del Paso Pipe & Steel Inc. | Sacramento, CA | Pipe Cutting (http://www.delpasopipeandsteel.com/)
They don't have a minimum length so will sell one length or one hundred.
Pierce
Thanks very much to all. I have sent the content of this entire thread to Truline for their edification and reference in the selection and treatment of the tubing frame. I will keep a close watch on the progress as it unfolds and post pictures.
I went and looked today. It is coming out awesome.
Chris
Thanks for the clarification and the compliment Chris. That part of the repair was literally just the tip of the iceberg on my bulkhead project. I replaced about 90% of the steel in the last four feet of the basement floor, in other words the floor under the wet bay. Also, I added a number of diagonals under the tanks and used ¼" aluminum plate with insulation underneath instead of two layers of ¾" plywood. What I did was overkill, but I was determined that the bulkhead monster would be forever banished from our coach. I learned a lot about the bones of these coaches in the process. Here are two pictures out of the hundreds that I have posted, one near the beginning while I thought I would be able to save most of the framing and one near the end when the framing was done which shows the changes from the original pattern as well as the aluminum plates.
Don
Thanks Don
I actually mentioned to Chad at trueline today, about the diagonal tubing you put in the bat floors.I remembered seeing it in your pictures last year.Chad said he was already doing that.Randall's coach is going to be better then new. He has it at the right place. These guys are awesome. Know them for years.
They probably did a million+dollars worth of work for me over the 2 1/2 yrs I was recon (reconditioning manager) for La Mesa RV.Never had a complaint.
BTW. It is interesting that FT went to the vertical angle iron on the later coach. The box tubing worked much better.Chad had measured Randall's coach every which way possible. It never moved, even though the floor in the bays were gone.
Cheers