Here in the RV park the guy next to us has a fairly new Open Range 5th wheel. Nice fella. He was telling me that on most trailers if you have problems with the front stabilizer motor you can hand-crank the stabilizers up. (that's the way mine is) On his, you can't. On a recent trip his batteries went dead so he had to basically "jump" them to get his stabilizers up. There is no way to physically crank them up. I told him I would post that issue on RVNent. He said his manual did not address this.

While it is certainly possible, I lean towards the idea that he simply didn't know how. On some hydraulic stabilizers, you basically spin the hydraulic pump motor to raise the jacks. There's no direct manual jack as such. I does depend on how what kind of jacks he has.

While he may surely be correct for his unit, on my OR the manual crank point is in the battery compartment,on the back wall just to the left of the red circuit breaker.Try it sometime though; jumping the battery may be a lot easier and faster.

Thanks guys, that'll give him a couple of places to start looking.

Nope, they're electric, not hydraulic. He has a battery on each side of the front storage compartment. Doesn't see any kind of cranking access hole. Strange.

My Open Range came with a tool to do this. It looks like a large speed wrench. The end of the wrench looks like a socket with a notch cut out on the end. Open the door for the propane, and you will see an extended small rod with a shear pin look to it. The socket fits over this and you crank the handle, or spin the tool to raise or lower the landing gear.

Open Range Stabilizers | Good Sam Community

13 Replies

laknox
Nomad
Mar 19, 2019
salem wrote:
Wonder if that would also work for the slide crank also?

It wouldn't have on my old Komfort as there wasn't room. Had just about enough room to get a ratchet and socket on the shaft, and that was it. I'm thinking of seeing if I can find one of those "ratchet" combo wrenches for my rear electric leveling jacks since they're so close to the floor that I'm not sure I could get a socket and ratchet on top to manually move them. Down side to having auto-level is that you've got to move each front jack separately, a little at a time, if something happens.

Lyle
salem
Explorer
Mar 19, 2019
Wonder if that would also work for the slide crank also?
laknox
Nomad
Mar 19, 2019
salem wrote:
BobSue: He checked. Nothing there.:) I'm beginning to think someone at the factory forgot to install something.

Like the hole to expose the manual crank fitting... :( FWIW, I know several people who bought an extra crank handle, chopped the handle off and simply chuck the remainder up in their cordless drill. :B

Lyle
salem
Explorer
Mar 18, 2019
Neighbor left this morning before I got a chance to impress him with my knowledge. Thanks to everyone for trying. He had looked everywhere he could think of for access.
Campinghoss
Explorer II
Mar 18, 2019
Nope, he is just not finding the right spot. I have access points on all six levelers.
Sandia_Man
Explorer II
Mar 18, 2019
Simple solution is for them to call Open Range directly although it is really Highland Ridge RVs that they will be speaking with. Of much greater concern is why they have dead batteries to begin with, in either event these are easily remedied issues with proper diagnosis. I am a fan of some of the rigs produced by Highland Ridge, they are currently on our short list of RV manufacturers we are considering for our next RV purchase.
salem
Explorer
Mar 17, 2019
BobSue: He checked. Nothing there.:) I'm beginning to think someone at the factory forgot to install something.
Old-Biscuit
Explorer III
Mar 17, 2019
Have him check the ends of his landing gear drives......should be a place on mtor end/gear box where the notched wrench connects to hand crank
Bob_Sue
Explorer II
Mar 17, 2019
My Open Range came with a tool to do this. It looks like a large speed wrench. The end of the wrench looks like a socket with a notch cut out on the end. Open the door for the propane, and you will see an extended small rod with a shear pin look to it. The socket fits over this and you crank the handle, or spin the tool to raise or lower the landing gear.
salem
Explorer
Mar 17, 2019
Nope, they're electric, not hydraulic. He has a battery on each side of the front storage compartment. Doesn't see any kind of cranking access hole. Strange.

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Open Range Stabilizers

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