At the Redwood National Rally earlier this year, we held a "Show & Tell" for people's hacks, brainstorms and other creative solutions to issues we all have. One such idea was a travel trailer tongue jack welded to some square tubing which was inserted into the rear receiver of a leveled fifth wheel. Since the auto level jacks are just behind the wheels, the rear of the trailer can be pretty springy. This guy's device slipped into the receiver and he cranked a little lift onto the hitch, effectively taking the spring out of the unit. Has anyone seen this and might be able to aim me towards plans, drawings or even a photo so I could steal the idea and make one for myself?Thanx,Jim

You just described it....So get some 2" square tubing, a tongue jack and make oneInsert tubing into receiver and mark for drilling hole so you can pin it in placeThen bolt the tongue jack to the tubing

Why not just add a couple stabilizers to the rear corners? Last trailer I replaced them...got them on sale for like $40.They aren't hard to install....why to something rube-goldbergish.

All good possible solutions but not what I'm looking for. The original stabilizer was stored in the bay and inserted into the receiver after leveling up. No pin was required since friction kept it from falling out and all the work was done without bending, stooping or crawling around on the ground. I'll probably have to fab this up from memory but was hoping to find someone who'd done it to keep me from having to work through the bugs of a first time build.Thanx,Jim

5th Wheel Receiver Stabilizer? | Good Sam Community

valhalla360
Navigator
Oct 06, 2018
fj12ryder wrote:
valhalla360 wrote:
quasi wrote:
All good possible solutions but not what I'm looking for. The original stabilizer was stored in the bay and inserted into the receiver after leveling up. No pin was required since friction kept it from falling out and all the work was done without bending, stooping or crawling around on the ground. I'll probably have to fab this up from memory but was hoping to find someone who'd done it to keep me from having to work through the bugs of a first time build.
Thanx,
Jim

Slightly more expensive but they have rear stabilizers with electric motors so you don't have to bend over.
You may not need to bend over, much, but you have to be really patient. Those things are glacially slow.

We have the manual ones and use a drill to deploy but I've played with the electric ones at the dealer and they took about the same amount of time...under 5 seconds.
Dave_H_M
Explorer II
Oct 07, 2018
You may not need to bend over, much, but you have to be really patient. Those things are glacially slow.

learned a new term "glacially slow" that describes mine to a T. i cannot stay bent over that long, but manage. :R
quasi
Explorer
Oct 07, 2018
With my TT, I had rear "scissor jack" stabilizers. I used a battery drill to deploy them and it went pretty quickly. What I want to do now is build a stabilizer out of square tubing and a trailer nose jack. I've found a cheapo deluxo jack that has a pivoting mount that will allow the stabilizer to stay in place during travel. I'll get some tubing and fab up something.

Jim

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