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Has anyone else experienced or noticed the outriggers deflecting (bending), particularly on the drivers side slide? If you read other manufacturers blogs, Jayco's for example, this is a common phenomenon. Only on Lippert chassis, don't know or want to speculate?
The floor was sloping down on the front, back and under the slide. This is a result of the outriggers deflecting down resulting in the floor drooping (& wall too no doubt). The service department at Grand Design says this is because of shock loading. No doubt because of the roads we travel on and our sojourn from western Canada to Arizona every winter (4x). Or because they were under-designed in the first place but I won't go there. Lippert sells replacement outriggers but had no instructions for replacing or repairing them. My dealer could do the work but would need to remove the slide to determine the root cause and then repair, 16 hours for r&r plus the repair.
My fix: I went to a commercial truck & trailer repair shop for their opinion and their suggestion was to use gussets (fish plates) and bolt & stitch weld them to the bent outriggers after the floor/wall was jacked up to straighten the outrigger. Much stronger. This was done to 7 (seven) outriggers on the drivers side, passenger side was ok. Shims could be added on top of the outriggers to bring the floor/wall to original level if/as required.
We have friends who make the trip to Arizona with us with a 2018 Solitude and their unit floor is drooping down as well and his outriggers are defecting to. Plus we know of another couple from Oregon who have had their 369rl back at the factory for a similar repair.
Long story short, the repair duration was ~8hours.
The floor was sloping down on the front, back and under the slide. This is a result of the outriggers deflecting down resulting in the floor drooping (& wall too no doubt). The service department at Grand Design says this is because of shock loading. No doubt because of the roads we travel on and our sojourn from western Canada to Arizona every winter (4x). Or because they were under-designed in the first place but I won't go there. Lippert sells replacement outriggers but had no instructions for replacing or repairing them. My dealer could do the work but would need to remove the slide to determine the root cause and then repair, 16 hours for r&r plus the repair.
My fix: I went to a commercial truck & trailer repair shop for their opinion and their suggestion was to use gussets (fish plates) and bolt & stitch weld them to the bent outriggers after the floor/wall was jacked up to straighten the outrigger. Much stronger. This was done to 7 (seven) outriggers on the drivers side, passenger side was ok. Shims could be added on top of the outriggers to bring the floor/wall to original level if/as required.
We have friends who make the trip to Arizona with us with a 2018 Solitude and their unit floor is drooping down as well and his outriggers are defecting to. Plus we know of another couple from Oregon who have had their 369rl back at the factory for a similar repair.
Long story short, the repair duration was ~8hours.
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