Forum Discussion

dpgllg's avatar
dpgllg
Explorer
Aug 24, 2015

Modifying 5th Wheel landing legs

I am looking for a way to make the process of raising and lowering my landing legs easier on me. I am disabled and have extreme difficulty bending or getting down on the ground to deal with the landing legs. I have the pull pins to drop them but you always seem to need to raise them a bit to get them to lock into the hole. When raising I need to get down and lift them up until they lock.

I know expensive rigs have fully automatic systems but I don't have that kind of money available.

All suggestions to assist are greatly appreciated

Thanks !

Dave
  • I replaced the bolt holding the foot on the square tube with an eye bolt. Much easier to lift the bottom section.
  • What about something like this? This is from burgie on the Open Range forum.

    You could use a pic handle on it to pull it up then no bending



    Chris
  • How much travel do you have on the electric lift? Can you leave your inner section set at a mid range setting. The just use your electric lift to raise for road clearance.
    If you don't have enough travel on your lift can you make that up with a block?
  • dpgllg wrote:
    I am looking for a way to make the process of raising and lowering my landing legs easier on me. I am disabled and have extreme difficulty bending or getting down on the ground to deal with the landing legs. I have the pull pins to drop them but you always seem to need to raise them a bit to get them to lock into the hole. When raising I need to get down and lift them up until they lock.

    I know expensive rigs have fully automatic systems but I don't have that kind of money available.

    All suggestions to assist are greatly appreciated

    Thanks !

    Dave


    Dave, don't worry about raising a leg extension. You're looking at a MAX difference of about 1.5", or the center-to-center hole spacing, between them. Unless there's something =seriously= wrong, this won't flex the frame enough to make a hill of beans difference. Just pull the pin with something (a manual awning handle would work), let the extension fall and extend the legs until the pins snap into place. Now, picking them back up can present an issue. You could replace the entire foot with one that has a ring on it to hook with the aforementioned awning hook, but you'd still need 2 hooks, one to pull the pin and one to lift the pad.

    After thinking on this a bit, you =could= replace the landing legs completely, with hydraulic legs with a single "master" control to move them togeter, and =separate= controls for each leg (or maybe just for one) for fine-tuning. Ignore the extensions completely and just use the hydros alone. Just a thought...

    Lyle
  • Maybe a small chain hooked to the actual foot so you don't have to reach all the way to the foot just the chain. Then secure the chain for travel so out of the way but still connected for use when raising and lowering the legs. Just a thought.
  • If there was a way to make that process easier than having to get my face right in there, I would be all for it. But I can't think of any other way to do it. I will put one of my leveling boards down on certain surfaces to make it a bit easier on my one knee though.
  • I think your creating work for yourself. Lower the legs a bit. A bit depends on terrain and whether your going to need to raise or drop the nose. Pull the snaps pins. Continue lowering the legs. Eventually the pins will snap into the next available hole. From there continue lowering the legs until you get enough strain to release the hitch. Release and pull out. Once clear raise or lower the legs to make the trailer level.