Service, landing gear down, or while still hooked to truck?

I never leave the truck hooked to the trailer while I'm working on it.

While doing brake work or just changing a flat while my rv trailer....bumper pull trailers....stock trailers....GN equipment trailers....cargo trailers sits on the concrete pad in front of my garage I use a hyd floor jack under the axle tube next to the U bolt on a std leaf suspension and lift just enough to remove the wheel. Nothing gets stressed...bent...crushed....twisted by doing so.

Out on the road or sitting in a campsite I use my trusty old 12T shorty hyd jack 1978 Trucker Special with a 10" X 10" base in place of the floor jack doing the same.

This is a rather sensitive topic. It seems to be doing everything right, but the jack once bent the chassis to me. It was very disappointing

I'm with Old-biscuits thought. I changed axles with the landing gear and jacks with jack stand supporting the weight. Very stable and I had mine up several days.

When I work on my trailer, when needed, I put all 6 jacks down to raise the tires off the ground. Did that today as I'm changing the suspension from Equa-Flex to E-Z Flex. I still use jack stands under the axles to be safe.

Landing gear is fully capable of holding the front of trailer w/o straining

Repair shops work on 5vrs while sitting on landing gear all the time

Jacking up a wheel enough to remove tire is only compressing the suspension and does not twsit the frame

Tying up the use of ones truck is NOT necessary.


Use of jack stands is great for working ON landing gear.

Thanks for the replies! I plan to rebuild my wheel wells to make them more water proof. I try to avoid towing in the rain, as the nylon Darco covering has a few holes, with fiber insulation above, and then floor above that. I plan to use 2" extruded closed cell foam insulation, a layer of foil faced bubble water proof insulation, and cover all with 4mm coroplast.

This project will take a while, as I have other daily obligations that take me off the job. It would be nice to not tie up the truck, being connected for 3-5 days, but seems others feel like me...best to leave connected, landing gear up.

Any other thoughts/replies appreciated,

Jerry

I feel better with the RV connected to the TV while servicing the suspension. While not likely there is always the possibility of the landing gear failing, no chance of the TV failing.

Why not play it safe and get some jack stands to support the 5er. Use the on-board jacks to raise it, then lower on jack stands. Then you can leave the 5er on the stands as long as you want, AND have the truck free. FYI, this was one of the better investments I've made recently.... Harbor Freight ...

I always do that job with the truck hooked up and the legs raised off of the ground. I believe that eliminates side stress on the legs and doesn't stress the truck or hitch.