Al-Ko Trailer Tongue failure

On Friday, July 8, 2016 at 1:08:38 PM UTC-7, wrote:
Rather than drifting this thread on into principles of bolt engineering, instead lets focus the on the real problem. The new Al-Ko tongue design again leads to concerns of possible tongue failure. The old style Cobra round tongue also has a history of failures and also generated the same concerns. As Cobra trailer owners, we should be campaigning Spindelberger to provide better engineered tongue components. A new, well optioned, Cobra trailer can easily cost $20,000 or more. The last thing I expect to do after taking delivery of a new trailer is upgrading tongue bolts.

On Thursday, July 7, 2016 at 5:21:21 PM UTC-4, Dave Springford wrote:
On my way home from Nephi (towing my trailer with the RV) I stopped for fuel and found one of the bolts that holds the Al-Ko trailer tongue together was gone as can be seen in the picture he


No intention to get off into the weeds on bolting technology, but there's no evidence at this point indicating a bolt shear failure rather than the bolt working its way out. Dave would have likely found the remainder of the bolt shank in the square section draw bar if the bolt failed in shear. If there was nothing remaining then the probable scenario is the nut coming loose and the bolt working its way out. Dave will have to let us know what the situation really was. If the nut came loose then loctite is a better solution than nylocks and there's no need to upgrade the bolts on your new trailer.