Foretravel Owners' Forum For owners and Fans of Foretravel Motorcoaches September 11, 2025 ...

Truline RV in Spkkane, 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.

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

...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

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. There 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

Thanks Roland. I would appreciate any additional information.

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.

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 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