Jacking to change a tire or service brakes or bearings?
I know this has been beaten to death, but my situation is a little different than most of the threads I see here. I have towed a lot of different trailers a lot of miles, and have changed tires in gas station parking lots, on lonely gravel roads, in muddy fields and a bunch of other inconvenient and dirty places.
Every single time I’ve jacked up a trailer, I’ve put the jack under the plate on the end of the axle where it mounts to the spring or to the frame of the trailer. As an engineer I can tell you, in spite of what manufacturers may tell you, this is the best place to lift one for a tire change. I carry a hydraulic jack in my truck with plywood pads and never have a problem.
But my 5th wheel is different. I thought I had a workable method, but I’m glad I learned it wasn’t practical at home. The biggest difficulty is the fact that there is no plate under the axle, just the U-bolt.
Link to a photo share from my Amazon account
If I try to lift by the frame, besides the fundamentally bad idea of applying a load at an unstabilized point on an I-beam with a very narrow flange, I have to lift the trailer forever to get the tire off the ground. The jack will need a lot of blocking just to reach the frame, and I’ll end up with a jack sticking way up and the trailer leaning over to compensate for spring movement. Not ideal for frame integrity or stable jacking.
I’ve tried driving it onto a block, but the distance between the axles makes this impractical. I’d need to carry half a lumber yard to get high enough to lift the other wheel.
There has to be a better way.
Every single time I’ve jacked up a trailer, I’ve put the jack under the plate on the end of the axle where it mounts to the spring or to the frame of the trailer. As an engineer I can tell you, in spite of what manufacturers may tell you, this is the best place to lift one for a tire change. I carry a hydraulic jack in my truck with plywood pads and never have a problem.
But my 5th wheel is different. I thought I had a workable method, but I’m glad I learned it wasn’t practical at home. The biggest difficulty is the fact that there is no plate under the axle, just the U-bolt.
Link to a photo share from my Amazon account
If I try to lift by the frame, besides the fundamentally bad idea of applying a load at an unstabilized point on an I-beam with a very narrow flange, I have to lift the trailer forever to get the tire off the ground. The jack will need a lot of blocking just to reach the frame, and I’ll end up with a jack sticking way up and the trailer leaning over to compensate for spring movement. Not ideal for frame integrity or stable jacking.
I’ve tried driving it onto a block, but the distance between the axles makes this impractical. I’d need to carry half a lumber yard to get high enough to lift the other wheel.
There has to be a better way.
