Dropped the belly

[DJNCJ]

While traveling through Wyoming this week I was surprised by an unusual noise. We were traveling through an area where it took about an hour to move from town to town and the winds were high. Thankfully the incident occurred while in one of the small towns along our route. My wife and I heard an unusual noise from the trailer while moving along at only 20 mph. We were in a slight left curve and I could see in the mirror that the plastic panels under the front portion of our rig had dropped. We pulled into a parking lot and assessed the situation. I feared we dropped a tank and would be in a serious situation. To my relief all that happened was the screws holding the panels in place either let loose or were never driven into the wooden cross members in the first place.

I checked my toolbox for screws that matched what was used initially at the factory but found the hardware I had on hand were too long and feared if used might run through the boards and into holding tanks. My wife went into the building (bar that owned the lot we ended up in) to ask if it was okay to leave our trailer while we went to a hardware store for proper materials. As luck would have it an employee coming out of the bar happened to be on her way to the nearest hardware store herself. She offered to give me a lift so we didn't have to unhook.

Long story shorter... The store was 2 blocks down the road, they had the screws and washers I needed to re-attach the panels and a half hour later we were back on the road. I needed to reposition each wooden slat used to secure the panels so I'm unsure if they were used as intended initially or not. Either way they ended up with about 3 times the number of screws that they had before. I don't wish to repeat this exercise!

I was thankful this didn't occur in the middle of nowhere and mostly that there was a woman who genuinely wanted to help us out. There are good people out there!

Reason for this post is to alert others of a potential problem that a few additional screws can avert.

[spock123]

We were on our way to Goshen last year and we weren't to far from Goshen and DW was looking in rear view mirror and said something was flapping. Pulled over and the side skirt was coming off. I jerry rigged something together to get the side skirt back on until I could get to the campground

[camp-n-nut]

My side skirt came apart on my 2015 Cedar Creek while I was traveling down the highway at 65 mph. I took it back to the factory and they replaced it and used better screws to secure it with.

[CTGREG]

Same thing happened to us going across SD in 2015. It seems that the screws had backed off while traveling, on the entrance door side of the trailer. We nursed the trailer back to a RV dealer in SD at about 15-20 mph. The skirting was rescued with more screws and the skirting was straitened out as much as possible. One of my pre trips now includes walking around with a screwdriver to ensure all of the bottom screws are tight.

[DJNCJ]

Okay, now I have another item on my to-do-list. In addition to adding more screws to the remaining plastic underbelly panels I will be increasing the number of side skirt screws. While there they will get a drop of loctite.

[Jim in Halifax]

Same with our CC29RE......I bought some stainless steel sm bolts with lock washers and nuts...Sprayed the heads with grey car paint and replaced screws where possible......Others I used a small piece of wood and screwed the screw into that to anchor the screw...two pieces of thin aluminum will not hold sheet metal screws on the road!!!! bolts will!!!!

[wmbuttion]

Side skirt needs more self tapping screws. Easily done by yourself. Better save than sorry.

[steelpony5555]

Next will be the skirt behind the tires...It is only held in by a piece of aluminum square stock. It will flap till the aluminum breaks. I built some bracing out of angle steel stock. It don't flap at all. Now I got to do the other side since it is now breaking...

[BandJCarm]

Our underbelly came out in 40 mph winds going out west last spring, but I attribute it to the dealer replacing our fresh water tank and putting in too few screws. But another guy at our rally had the same thing happen........just because of wind.

When at Amish Family Services, one of the things Orvan did was check the tanks. Sure enough the 'fix' we did at the campground for the loose FW tank underbelly (cloroplast?) was not "good" and the dealer put the tank in too low, wrong, so he fixed all that too (of course).

It's good from aesthetics to have these underbelly panels. But it makes tank access harder, and they are difficult to get back on again because wires and hoses must protrude "just so" from slots cut out in them.

[Cowracer]

Ours came apart on the maiden voyage. Pulled loose at the very front and folded down and back at about 10' from the front. Of course... dragging the underskirting down the road caused it to wind up about 9" short when I finally stopped and saw what happened (never had a clue up in the truck). I secured it with a couple ratchet straps and it held all the way to the campground, all the way home, and all the way to Goshen, where the FR techs replaced it.

Sounds like a common issue.

Tim