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Veteran
Posts: 157
 
Location: Perkiomenville, PA | I recently had a relatively minor accident with my 1985 Kingston two horse gooseneck. The front axle caught on a drain pipe, and was pulled off the trailer, in my driveway. What really concerned me is that the gooseneck hitch on the trailer bent and the welds and supports broke immediately. It would have pulled free pretty easily! The reason for my posting is that, after that, I started to pay close attention to how trailers are reinforced at the hitch. Featherlite (probably others too) have huge 1/4" plate steel gussets down to the hitch head. My 1997 Trailet 3 horse slant doesn't have anything nearly as substantial! Should I be worried?  Should I go to a weld shop and have reinforcements installed? I shudder to think what could have happened if the accident with my Kingston was on the road, and if there were horses on board.  I want that trailer to hang on much better than it displayed it would! The Featherlite I inspected looked as if it could take a SUBSTANTIAL hit before it bent or pulled away. The weld shop that fixed my Kingston put a LOT more steel up there and said it would be much stronger than the original. Any info will be appreciated. 
Edited by evallone 2005-08-28 7:51 AM
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Expert
Posts: 2689
 
| I think any welder will (or SHOULD) tell you that a weld that fails is a BAD weld. It should ALWAYS be the parent metal that fails. I'd guesss your trailer had some bad welds from day one and the driveway incident merely precipitated their failure.
So, unless there is a design weakness in your trailer a PROPER repair should be all that is needed. Useless amounts of metal added to an adequate design could actually weaken the total structure. I'm thinking of stress raisers, heat shrinkage stress, things like that.
If you have an adequate repair - all done.
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Expert
Posts: 1416
Location: sc | if the repair was done by a good shop then i wouldnt worry about that trailer. as for any of the others.........the coupler is rated to xxxxx pounds, ive always taken this rating as to a rolling load rating, of course i may be wrong. i would be curious to know if the actual hitch components are rated to a static load such as hanging the trailer in the air. ive seen several winch ratings with 2 rateing on them, one for static loads like pulling a log and a rolling load such as winching a vehicle onto a trailer. either way catching the axle hard enough to pull it off created a temporary static load of who knows how much weight....some thing has to give. i dont think i would worry about it.
Edited by chadsalt 2005-08-28 3:11 PM
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Veteran
Posts: 157
Location: Perkiomenville, PA | |
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Veteran
Posts: 157
Location: Perkiomenville, PA |  Thanks! I feel much better reading your feedback! |
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Veteran
Posts: 157
Location: Perkiomenville, PA |  Many thanks! Help from knowledgeable people is so appreciated. |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 534
Location: Zionsville, Indiana | The Featherlite was re-inforced with steel at stress points because the frame is aluminum. The Trail-et has a steel frame. Look at other aluminum framed trailers. They all use steel gussets, some of them obvious and some of them sandwiched between two pieces of aluminum. This is a GOOD thing (apologies to Martha). |
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Expert
Posts: 2689
| Originally written by Kay on 2005-08-29 12:37 PM
The Featherlite was re-inforced with steel at stress points because the frame is aluminum. The Trail-et has a steel frame. Look at other aluminum framed trailers. They all use steel gussets, some of them obvious and some of them sandwiched between two pieces of aluminum. This is a GOOD thing (apologies to Martha).
Gussets are needed, regardless of the material.
Given that the coupler tubes are ALL made of steel, there is a very limited choice of where the material transition can be made, i.e. they can't weld aluminum gusset plates to the steel coupler tube. MOST aluminum frame goosenecks have a small steel sub frame near the nose, not so much "for the strength of steel" as a simple and low cost way of transitioning from the aluminum frame to the steel coupler tube. Welding dissimilar metals is POSSIBLE, though I'm fairly sure that it isn't practical with steel and aluminum. Adhesives would be possible, probably very good, but would likely have market acceptance problems (-:
The gussets are there more to stiffen the coupler tube (minimize whip) than to add any needed "strength".
Edited by Reg 2005-08-30 10:27 PM
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Location: Tuttle, OK | Originally written by Reg on 2005-08-30 9:47 PM The gussets are there more to stiffen the coupler tube (minimize whip) than to add any needed "strength". they (gussets) minimize whip (and the potential breaking of the tube or other related components) by adding strength to the tube reg.... |
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