I have not posted in a while, but since we are in the retired portion of our semi-retired calendar, I have some time so I thought I'd share some experiences with our 2015 Cardinal 3875FB.
This one is regarding the support for the water tank. We purchased it in the Fall of 2018 and drove it south for some volunteer projects and then to our winter spot in Lake Havasu, AZ. No problems. In the spring we drove North heading to our home state of Washington. In Pendleton we stop at the Wild Horse casino and dry camp, then proceed North to boondock. I filled the water tank and noticed the front driver side corner of the tank was sagging and had pushed the belly skin down. I drained the water and used ratchet straps across the girders to hold the tank up. I then took it to a welder to fix what I assumed was a broken weld. He had me come look at it when he dropped the belly skin. The 2 free floating middle supports had bounced out of the long supports. He recommended we reposition them and keep the tank full assuming it would be good.
About 500 miles more with a few rough miles resulted in the same situation. So I decided to fix it. I pulled the belly skin down and inserted a piece of 3/4" plywood that fit tightly in the front and rear angle iron supports. FYI: The intermediate soft steel supports are flexible enough for me to bend over my knee.
About 5,000 miles later returning from our Alaskan Hwy odyssey about 30 miles outside of Whitehorse a car passed us honking and waving. We pulled over and saw we were dragging the tank down the highway by the fill hose. I cut the hose threw the tank in the pickup and proceeded down the highway.
We took it into an RV repair shop in Whitehorse and a very weary / frustrated me told the nice lady what happened and told her I did not want it to happen again. She handed the project to her Ukrainian tech. We went out for a drink... Came back in a couple of hours and he had things mostly done. He showed me that the primary weak link was the front support was light enough angle iron we could twist by us holding it at either end and twisting by hand. It might have never failed just being driven on interstates, but the design could not stand up to 400 pounds of water bouncing along on the Alaskan Hwy.
The final fix was replacing the front angle iron with a much sturdier, and deeper angle iron with holed tabs on the outside for intermediate support as well as welding holded tabs on the rear support. Replacing the intermediate
supports with longer, heavier steel supports with holes that matched up with the holed tabs then bolting them in. He additionally blocked the top and the sides with wood to keep it from moving.
His discussion with me ended with: "You can break the frame or burn it down, but the tank, he no come down!"
By the time it was all said and done, it was an $1,100 fix. If I knew then (when it first sagged) what I know now (that the front support and intermediate supports were simply too weak) I probably could have gotten it done at home for a couple hundred dollars.
I hope my story is useful. Anton
support for the Water tank
Linear Mode
