Extending front landing gear technique

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.

I leave my landing gear extended about 12-14" when traveling (plenty of clearance). When I get to my spot, I'll run them out at least another 6-8", then pull the pins and drop the extensions. Extend with the motor until the pins snap into place (I'll bump the motor while doing this), then lift until most weight it taken off the pin. I've got a site that I like to camp at and it's fairly high in front. I'll run the legs out at about another 10-12", before I drop the extensions as I know that I've got about 16-18" to retract to get level.

Lyle