We had the same experience over a year ago (as we reported on this forum),
but were lucky to catch the failure at an earlier stage. Our fix was
similar to your suggestion, but we used a steel plate on the bottom of the
box beam (rather than large washers) to carry the load directly to the
vertical sides of the beam.
Dave DeFord
N135TD
----- Original Message -----
From: "david joyce" <davidjoyce@beeb.net>
Subject: Near Disaster with Europa Trailer
I have just come close to having my day entirely ruined by a design fault in
the open Europa trailer.I was for the first time trailing my newly completed
plane back from the Gloucester Strut Europa evening. Half way home I turned
off the motorway to stop to talk to my inspector (to tell him how impressed
people were with the gel coat finish). In walking past it I noticed that the
ballhitch was almost completely seperated from the main girder of the
trailer, and waiting for just one more bump before parting completely. This
version of the (company supplied) trailer has the ball hitch attachment
bolted to the top leaf only of the square section main girder.This top leaf
had started to peel upwards from the side elements of the girder and reached
about 45 degrees when I found it, with the bent bit attaching to the beam
looking very sick.
The message for those of you with open trailers is to check the
design and if it is one like mine I suggest as a minimum putting new longer
bolts right through the complete box section with some sort of spacer inside
the box section and large washers underneath. David Joyce 402
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