Grrr! Watch out for that violent heave/bump on US-71S

Travelling southbound on US71 between Cincy and Louisville yesterday we hit a bump/heave in the right hand lane at about 62mph. It was so violent it lifted us from out seats for a moment.
Once stopped for the night at the campground while setting the trailer up I heard my wife make that dreaded exclamation!
OH, OH! Ah XXXXX! Come here Honey!

I found her standing in the bedroom with the closet doors open and all the cloths laying on the floor.
The bump had torn free the piece of wood attached to the ceiling with 4 screws and staples that once supported the closet rod.
The worst part is the metal closet rod's sharp end's had gauged into the cabinet doors at each end of our closet as it was falling making a terrible mess of the wood work finish on the cabinet doors.

Well I guess I am making a trip or two to Lowes and re-engineering and reinforcing a new closet rod.
I hope there is no hidden damage in the front of our unit that I can see yet after such a violent impact.

Our unit's really all rolling earthquakes on the roads aren't they?

That happened to us on our first trip out.

Will - that also happened to me early on with my Savannah. Same gouge in the cabinets too.

I went to Lowes and bought a heavy wall clothes rod with 2 sets of cups that hold the rod up. Also bought a 2x4. I cut the 2x4 to fit vertically between the closet floor and the closet ceiling. Screwed it into place. Then I installed the rod in 2-sections.

I took a cabinet door into an Ace Hardware and matched the finish to a small can of Mix-Wax brand stain and bought a tiny foam brush. I touched up the gouges with the stain.

In my current Ashland, I want to push my closet rod back towards the front cap an inch. I may upgrade to a heavier wall rod.

jbeletti said:

In my current Ashland, I want to push my closet rod back towards the front cap an inch. I may upgrade to a heavier wall rod.

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In our BH, the closet rods in both halves of the closet need set back toward the front cap as well. The closet door from the off door half of the closet hits all the clothes hangers on both sides of the closet when opening and closing. I haven't done that mod (and some other mods I've considered) because we'd like to look into a different BH model later this year.


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JB, I used a pre-stained closet pole and 2 chrome cups to support the closet pole. One cup screwed to the floor and one screwed the bottom of the closet shelf. Looks alot better than a 2X4. Been there for 5 years now. BTW, the same thing happened to us. We ended up with broken studs in the ODS front wall in front of the BR slide. $5k in repairs to our insurance co.

Dreading our trip home from Florida, with the Northeast getting hammered this year with record cold and snow and reading articles about pot holes swallowing small children I'm not looking to 1 1/2 days of pot hole avoidance the further north we get. I think we are going to be taking the I-81 / I-78 route, then the I-287 through NJ/NY that route alone has had pot holes in the past that I thought the truck and trailer would fall into. Those years had mild winters compared to this one.
Never thought to check the clothes rack mounting in the last 3 years.

We haven't had a closet rod fall, but the track holding our sliding closet doors, came down. Fortunately the mirrors didn't break.

We hit a big bump in a construction zone on the north side of Colorado Springs heading south on I-25 that alerted us to the fact that our springs were shot on our trailer.

The trailer bottomed out on all four tires and gouged the tread on each of them.

Plus it did some minor damage to the bottom of the slide and the floor.

Turns out it has been doing this for awhile, but this big jolt brought it to our attention!

Taking it in next week to get an estimate on replacement springs, and might add some shocks as well!

Springs only cost about $50 each labor is the expensive part.