I discovered that after the last time pulling my boat, that the front crossmember was broken.It broke right in the middle. A small part of the break had rust on it so it had obviously been there for a while. When we had stopped about 25 miles from home that day, I did the normal walk around to check things out and everything appeared normal. Got home, backed in the driveway, and heard a scrape. Thought well that’s odd, but figured it was just the angle that I backed in as my driveway is uphill a little from the street. Got everything unloaded and put away, was greasing the bearings and noticed the crossmember broke straight down the middle. I don’t build rockets but I do know enough that if this had been the rear crossmember, we would have been dragging the Lund down the hiway. Not a pretty picture at all when you think about it. I had it repaired at our local welding shop for a reasonable fee. To make a long story short, the problem was probably at least partially caused by water staying inside the crossmember and not totally draining out, causing it to rust out from the inside. There is a weep hole, but it was pretty much plugged. Might be a good idea to poke a wire in them occasionally to avoid what could be a disaster.
November 14, 2011 at 6:42 pm
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