Help, bed fell out

[akraus]

A couple of days ago we were camping at Long Beach on the west coast of Vancouver Island. At 5 am we heard a crunching sound and then the bed on one side slipped out and there was about an 8 inch gap at the corner. Luckily the bed was still held in on the other side. It turned out that the 2 screws which held a plate in which kept the bed from sliding out were sheered off. Does anyone have a better method for preventing the bed from sliding out? We are planning on putting the plate back on and adding a few extra plates since right now there is only one on each side. We are also thinking of drilling a hole through the bed rail and the slide that it goes into and adding a pin for extra safety. Any reason not to do this or does anyone have a better suggestion?
 
 Thanks for the help.

[wavery]

That's a new one :eyecrazy:

My suggestion would be not to over-react. Situations like this a fairly rare, I would think. I've never seen it reported on this forum before (not that it never has). That tells me that the manufacturers slide-stop must be pretty effective.

If it were me, I would simply put the factory stop back in and use larger screws for that added measure of safety and comfort.

The bigger issue may be......why did it happen in the first place :confused: . Were there kids jumping up & down in the bunk end? Was there too much of a load placed at the end of the bunk end? Is the PU always carefully leveled? Is the bunk level, when the trailer is level? It could be that your support rods are too short. That would put outward pressure on the stops. All I'm saying is, there may be a contributing factor to the failure that must be addressed. Putting in additional stops may just aggrivate something else that could be wrong and cause something else to break.

[akraus]

Thanks for your help.
 
 No, the kids were not jumping on the bed.  I hope the load on the bed isn't too much since it is just my husband and myself that are on the bed.  We don't have any bags or anything else on the beds with us.  How much weight should a queen size bed support?  We are both tall but we are not large (Our combined weight is under 350lbs).
 
 The screws that were used to keep the stops in were pretty short so we are going to use longer ones.  I have also noticed that the 2 stops at the other end (the end that didn't fall out) are getting loose so we are going to fix those up as well.
 
 It is possible that the pop up was not perfectly levelled.  Next time I have it open I am going to double check that when the pop up is level that the bed is level as well.  The pop up is at least 20 years old (we bought it used) and has been used quite a bit so I think the supports are not too short.
 
 Thanks again for your suggestions.

[tlhdoc]

My guess is that the screws have loosened over time.  Put longer ones in and try not to worry.

[AustinBoston]

My guess is that the screws have loosened over time.  Put longer ones in and try not to worry.

And...if you can find a way to add more screws, do so.

This is a new one on me, and I've been around here for a long time.

Austin

[akraus]

Due to the width and depth of the board that the plate goes into we can not add longer or more screws so instead we are going to use bigger screws to increase the surface area.  Also, we are doubling the number of plates so if one gives out on a side there is a back up.

Hopefully we will not have this problem again!