Catastrophic Failure of the main Body Mounts

In June of 2016 we embarked on a trip to the Great Bear Rain Forest on the B.C. central coast. The provincial highway that connects Williams Lake to Bella Coola on the coast is 450 kilometres of two lane blacktop, with a 20 kilometre section of smooth, calcium sealed gravel near the end. Not much of a challenge, even for the average compact sedan.

Semi-trailer trucks travel the road on a weekly basis, but the actual traffic load on the highway is low, probably less than a dozen vehicles per hour make the trek. Although the posted speed limit is 100kph for most of the way, few people drive that fast. The curves in the road and the breath taking scenery often have people driving at half that speed. And so it was with us.

So you might ask yourself why a new Volvo class 8 truck would find itself broken down on the side of a remote provincial highway. Well, the fact of the matter is this, the truck itself was working just fine. It was the body build that was broken… quite literally. Both main body mounts that held the camper body to the truck frame had completely sheared off, and the box was now leaning over to the driver's side and resting on the rear tires. The only thing holding the body to the frame were the front and rear pivot mounts that allow the truck frame to twist independently from the body.

Once again we informed the builder that we have a major problem. When they emailed us back a few days later, they said they'll rebuild the mounts. But like so many times before, there appeared to be little concern regarding our current situation. It was up to us to figure out a way to make the box safe so we can limp back to civilization.

The builder's offer to remake the mounts was laughable.  The same people who designed and fabricated the mounts that just catastrophically failed during light duty use would be the same ones trying to build the new mounts. If they couldn't get it right the first time, what on earth would compel us to have them try again. Think about it. It would be like a patient asking the surgeon who botched their procedure, to go back in and try to fix it. It's completely absurd. No sane person would ever do that.

Fortunately, our design and fabrication experience spans the better part of three decades. So the re-engineering, and manufacture of new mounts wasn't much of a challenge. It just took time, and of course money to buy the appropriate materials. Something the builder apparently has a hard time doing. They actually said they would have to go to Europe to try and find the right material. Funny thing... we got everything we needed from the local retail Metal Supermarket. Guess their engineer was absent from class the day they had the lesson on material sourcing.

They weren't happy about us doing the repairs ourselves, but they had no other choice than to agree with our decision. We sent them a hefty bill for our work which covered the lost time and the expense of getting the truck back to where it could be worked on, the repair itself, and then getting the truck back to where our trip left off.

Our Good Fortune

You might think this an odd thing to say, be we still can't believe our good fortune that day. You see, when the failure occurred, we were travelling along a straight section of the road, and at half the posted speed limit. It was the end of the day and we were searching for the right place to pull off and camp. So when the mounts let go, there was just a bit of a shudder, and the thump of the box hitting the tires, and then of course the squeal of the tires rubbing on the underside of the box. Because we were going slow, we easily stopped the truck without incident. But there could have been a completely different outcome. If we had been travelling at the posted speed limit of 100kph, and going around one of the many curves in the road, the sudden shift of mass when the mounts let go would have easily laid the truck over on its side. If that had happened, the resulting crash could have seen us slide off the roadway and into the river, or smash into the rock face on the other side of the road. If another car was coming at us and couldn't get out of the way, those people as well would have been badly injured or even killed. So yes, we feel we were very fortunate indeed.

Sadly, the builder didn't seem to comprehend the seriousness of this failure, and what the possible consequences could have been. Or maybe they did, and didn't acknowledge it for fear of lawsuit. After all, they did build the mounting system for use on a class 8 heavy truck, and knowing now how this company operates, it probably wasn't inspected and approved by the U.S. D.O.T. for road worthiness.

All the details are written in the photos below.