my 6 year old East step deck frame is cracked

Don't know how this happened, I've owned it for 3 years and never overloaded it or been in any accidents.

 

Wow that sux! Wonder if it was a weak batch of aluminium.

 

wowsers batman right on the weld, im not a welder but it could have something to do with how it was welded up.

 

i would have a talk with the manufacturer.

a few years back we had a batch of bad frames on some specialty trailers. alcoa repaired or replaced many frames. they were cracking over the rear suspensions. one trl had an entire axle fall out pulling into a parking lot.

that looks like poor welding to me

 

You guys are making me feel a little better. I just can't stop thinking about how it is my fault etc.. I've been off the road for about 3 months doing other things and putting my Kenworth together (retired the Volvo). I should've caught this before I went off the road. Today I went to go load for the first time in 3 months and noticed the cracking.

I can pull a company trailer but my trailer has four tool boxes full of junk. My truck has no storage, just a headache rack.

East already has an email from their local dealer with pictures.

It is all cracked along the welds, with the exception of the first picture where it goes into the actual frame and above the weld as well. That crack into the frame is what has me worried. I'm not sure if that can be fixed.

The timing could literally not be worse for this to happen.

 

they will probably weld that crack and then.plate over it and weld that. at least thats what i would do. actually that is the easier part to fix. grinding that weld.out and rewelding it is harder and it will always tend to crack along the weld. i would find some way to reinforce it all.

our frames the upper and lower rails were pulling away from the center web. alcoa bolted and welded a plate in the web area over the entire 14' section over the suspensions

 

The only thing I would add to this is to drill a small hole at the end of each of those cracks to try and arrest the progress before its welded, good answer, I have spent alot of time welding stuff just like this only in steel , theory is the same, prep time and methods completely different.

 

This is not caused from overloading or anything you did. In photo #1 it is clear to me at the left top where the welder started he was moving to fast as there is a gap at the bottom of the weld from lack of penetration and heat, then as he realized his error instead of correcting the error and starting over he began to run to fast to smooth out and ended up with insufficiant amount of wire in the center of the weld creating a weak weld, very surprised it didn't show up before now. It is quite obvious in the rest of the photos the welding errors, to light of wire in the centers and erratic patterns, my guess, it is a monday morning trailer, welder came in hungover boss got on his ### ect ect ect. All of it that I can see is welded very poorly, I am very disappointed in seeing this as I had a very high opinion of East trailers. Could be just a fluke...

 

I'm not a welder by any stretch of the imagination, but I can see what you're getting at. Maybe I should take closer pictures.

I thought the welds on this trailer looked great to me.

But the fact that most of the cracking begins and ends in the same weld is a huge red flag.

 

or a friday afternoon in a hurry to go start a hangover!