Extending front landing gear technique

I first lower the inner leg to be at least 3" off the ground. Then push the button to lower the legs electronically. More or less depending on how un-level the campsite is.

Learned me lesson doing this.

I've been electrically extending the legs within about 3-4 inches of maximum down before unhitching (marked the max up and 3 inches before down on the legs with a marker pen).
Then I set blocks and and drop the feet.
Main reason is for the stability.

Also been pushing the trailer hard against chocks placed to the rear of the tires.
Set brakes then place chocks in the front of the tires then release forward prior to setting up front landing legs.

philtrains wrote:
During the past year with my new fifth wheel when unhooking I always pulled the pin and dropped the front feet and then raised the trailer with the extend button. A couple of times I had difficulty manually lifting one of the feet up to store after hooked up. Thank goodness I ran into the right mechanic. He told me when unhooking to always electrically extend the feet 3" first AND THEN pull the pin to drop the feet. Since following this procedure I have never had the problem again. Has anyone heard this before. Hope this makes sense and will help someone out.

Not sure I understand the issue. As long as the weight is off the leg, it shouldn't be an issue to telescope the inner leg, regardless of where the outer leg is positioned. However, you do need to make sure you give yourself enough gear travel to both setup level, AND hitch up when leaving. I've screwed up a couple of times when sites were badly out of level, but you get used to estimating how much leg travel you will need. But this has nothing to do with ease of telescoping the legs.

I always extend the outer leg 3" to 4" before dropping then inner legs to pads. This is with the rig level side to side, Once inner legs dropped I shim so they are both the same distance to the top of the pad, then extend to take the load. This gives the adjustment to level front to rear.

rhagfo wrote:
I always extend the outer leg 3" to 4" before dropping then inner legs to pads. This is with the rig level side to side, Once inner legs dropped I shim so they are both the same distance to the top of the pad, then extend to take the load. This gives the adjustment to level front to rear.

I also do the shim routine.After dropping the legs and not shimming
I found that the trailer would sometimes end up off level side to side.(After I had leveled using lego blocks)
Now after checking an shimming if needed,no more side to side
level problems

WHAT IS MEANT by 'marked the max up and 3 inches down on the legs with a marker pen'??

Thanks!

Marking the legs: I've never marked the full extension point, but the upper point: good idea. Twice I've run the legs up too far and have broken off a bolt. I've gotten a bit careless about watching the legs go upward, and most recently I let my wife run the legs up. Yep, went too far and broke the bolt, and just this morning I had to bum a bolt from my camping neighbor. Otherwise, I was going to have to use a nail or something just to make sure the leg didn't vibrate it's way down and contact the pavement, or something.

For OP: there are two bolts that act as safety shear pins if the legs are run up too far. There is a square tube that runs across the storage area at the front, which rotates as the gear drive operates. A bolt is at both ends. The shaft's purpose is to keep the legs extending at the same rate throughout the travel. Not too hard to fix, but I don't know where to get the factory shear bolts, and I'm concerned that the next incident may shear teeth off the gear drive, or something like it.

Try Tractor supply or other farm store for soft shear bolts ,they are common in drive shafts for farm implements.

Don & Carolyn wrote:
What is meant by "marked the max up and 3 inches down on the legs with a marker pen?"

I marked the front jack legs maximum up because if the stops were encountered the in-line fuse would blow.

The reason I marked the legs 3 inches before the mechanical maximum extension was because:
That's about the best place to stop the legs before un-pinning to let the feet drop onto my 4x6 blocks.

I found that when the jacks are electrically extended further than usual with the drop feet as short as possible the trailer rocks and rolls a tiny bit less.

I normally try to park in spots that are level as possible front to rear.
Doesn't always happen however.
Every trip is an adventure in leveling.

another reason to extend the legs a few inches first is
that the trailer can settle and depending on how soft
the ground is you might not be able to raise the rv high
enough to re hitch. which kind of sounds like what you
were experiencing.