Bent outrigger

[desertair27]

Hey everyone,
Can I get some opinions on what to do about a bent outrigger? Its the outrigger in front of the curbside fender well. Looks like an impact or someone tried to jack the trailer up from this point, no telling! Anyways the outrigger is bent upward a good 1/2" damaging both inner and outer fender wheels along with bending aluminum channel within the wall. Not sure if those are called ribs or what.
I've tried pulling outrigger back into place by anchoring chain to ground and chain to top of outrigger and then raising trailer with floor jack. I anticipated the outrigger to bend rather easy but boy was I wrong. I'm rethinking this whole thing. Maybe I should just cut the outrigger off and reweld it in place.
Not sure if you can see what's going from the pictures.
Let me know what you think,please!
Mike

[TomW]

Originally Posted by desertair27

... I've tried pulling outrigger back into place by anchoring chain to ground and chain to top of outrigger and then raising trailer with floor jack. I anticipated the outrigger to bend rather easy but boy was I wrong...

I think your idea should have worked if you were chained to the end of the outrigger, and was jacking up on the C-channel where the outrigger attached. Perhaps you did not jack high enough.

Cutting off & re-welding would not only be a lot of work, there's always the fire hazard to the decking.

My recommendation is that you give it another effort with a "by gum I'm going to jack it until it either squeals like a girl, breaks, or straitens out!" sentiment.

Just my opinion,
Tom

[desertair27]

Originally Posted by TomW

I think your idea should have worked if you were chained to the end of the outrigger, and was jacking up on the C-channel where the outrigger attached. Perhaps you did not jack high enough.

Cutting off & re-welding would not only be a lot of work, there's always the fire hazard to the decking.

My recommendation is that you give it another effort with a "by gum I'm going to jack it until it either squeals like a girl, breaks, or straitens out!" sentiment.

Just my opinion,
Tom

Thanks for the advice but now after really looking at it and taking some measurements and comparing the other outriggers
In the wheel well area it looks like the outrigger is welded higher than the others. There is some damage in that area so I was trying to figure out what happened. I'm thinking I'll leave the outrigger where it's at and fix everything else first and decide afterwards how to deal with it.