Penthouse hanger bracket cracks

[bistromath]

Hi! I've got a penthouse roof on my Sprinter build and this past summer on a Moab trip I discovered that the front bracket on the driver's side holding the penthouse roof onto the van had cracked all the way through. It looks to me like the crack started on the sheet metal brake, and flexing fatigued it until it sheared. I fixed it with hardware store sheet metal brackets and it's fine, if ugly. The other side was fine for the rest of that summer trip, but I discovered yesterday that it too has cracked about 2/3 across. I drilled out the crack but don't have a lot of faith that that will help more than temporarily.

I only have about 35k miles on this roof, and while yeah I do some offroading I'm not hucking it off of cliffs. Anyone else seen this sort of cracking before? I think SMB just hit it a little hard on the sheet metal brake.

[doublevan2]

Don't they still offer "36 - 36" warranties ?

[boywonder]

Wow...I'll have to check mine......maybe it's specific to Sprinters, but those channels mount the same way as Ford, etc.

[BrianW]

Wow, that's interesting! Good thing to check on, for sure. One note from your photos: it looks like the wiring is underneath the bracket and if so could get pinched or crushed. Or it that just the angle of the photo?