RT188 Issue I haven't seen before

[Pagregss]

I was on my way to the lake yesterday afternoon. As I'm taking the off ramp, I notice my tail light is hanging from the wires. I pull over and I find the grommet is gone and the trailer is cracked where the tail light is housed. The tail light was not broken, cracked, not a mark on it. The side marker is fine as well. I know I didn't hit anything. I notice that when I push on the step, it moves quite a bit now. It's like this tiny piece of metal was a major structural part of the step and it just cracked from stress. A buddy is going to weld it up for me quick, but it's very weird the way it just cracked like that.

Trailer crack.jpg

[csurp]

Is it possible someone hit your trailer while you were on the lake? Was the ramp crowded that day?

[tin wacker]

Pulling the trailer out of the water to fast will do it I've seen lights wires and plates come off from the water pressure.

[Pagregss]

I was on my way to the lake. I never got there. The boat has been sitting in my boat shed for the last two weeks and the light was intact when I put it in the shed.

If you take notice to how the bottom piece is hanging lower than the side, I was trying to line the pieces back up and they didn't want to slide back together. I actually have to lift up on the step to allow them to slide back the way they were. When I release pressure, the bottom piece pops back out. There's tension on that slim bottom piece of metal, like it's holding the step up. This makes me believe that it was stress from using the step that made it break. I'm not a big guy, so it's not like there was a lot of weight on the step and I wasn't doing any back flips off of it.

[TimH]

I was on my way to the lake. I never got there. The boat has been sitting in my boat shed for the last two weeks and the light was intact when I put it in the shed.

Sounds like the field mice were playing with your cutting torch.

[Bill Reynolds]

I took a pic of my trailer opening to see if there had been a design change.
There does seem to be a thicker section around the light cutout. This section is 4 inches vertical.
Your trailer is the first year of the redesign from the 2013/2014 model years while mine is a 2018 made by EZ-Loader. I wonder if there is a design change involved.

It occurs to me that the trailer tie Downs torque the section around the light but it is hard for me to believe it is great enough to cause a failure.

[Pagregss]

My buddy got the crack welded up last night. As he was welding it, he noticed that the opposite corner was cracked too. Top left corner where it meets the step. Very strange. It looks like this plate is only welded at the 4 corners. It's not welded all the way across the top. You can see the crack all the way across the top in my picture where it's not welded. It appears like it's probably a stamped plate that they buy from a 3rd party vendor as it seems to be a slightly thinner metal than the rest of the step. At any rate, all fixed up and good to go now.

[fishon396]

When I replaced my tail lights I was surprised at how they just press in there. I guess a little silicone or something could be used for a loose fit.

[Pagregss]

Bringing this back up because my trailer cracked again, right next to where we welded the first cracks. The step flexes way too much. So, this time my buddy welded in a piece of 1.5" square tube under the step from the frame to the outside edge of the step. Now it doesn't flex.

Funny related story. I was at a launch last week and met a gentleman with a 2016 RT188 and he told me he had the exact same thing happen.