Leveling Jacks Do's and Don'ts

FIRE UP wrote:
...Leveling a coach, almost no matter what size/length/slides/no slides etc. sometimes, requires thought. And, sometimes, it's no brainer. I have always advocated to level your coach, using the tires and wheels, by driving up on, whatever type of lumber you carry. That could be home made ramps, blocks, stacks of plywood etc. If you do it that way, then you're not stressing various parts of the coach, by trying to make the jacks over work themselves and, possibly torqueing the frame/body etc.

Once you're "somewhat" level with your drive-on setup, then, I use the jacks to "fine tune" the leveling. And, if I've driven up on some blocks/ramps to help primary leveling operations, then I break out the blocks for the jacks. That way, they don't have to travel so far to help with the leveling and, stabilization. The farther they travel out, the more lateral movement they will have tendency to display.

And, by utilizing lumber and driving up on it, you get the stability of 6 tires on the ground and, also all four jacks too. This is just my thoughts on how it's done. Many will differ. No biggie.
Scott

What Scott said here. This is exactly right. If you don't remember any other advice given here on leveling jacks, remember what Scott said here. Don't be afraid (or too lazy) to use blocks of some kind to do your leveling. The less your jacks have to extend to level, the more stable and solid the MH will be.

Like Scott, I use some wood blocks I made to do most leveling. Jacks are only used to fine-tune it, and usually use blocks under the levelers to minimize how far they have to extend. Only time I won't use blocks at all is when we're on a concrete or paved site that is just about level as it is (not very often).

One thing to remember about using blocks: If you drive the MH up onto blocks, need to make sure you position blocks so that entire tread of the tire is on the block. Having part of the tire tread hanging off the side of a block, is NOT good for the tires at all.

I know some just like to use the auto leveling, and just push one button and forget about it. Not me. I don't like or trust the way it levels when you use auto leveling, so I NEVER use it. It will go through a zillion iterations of raising and lowering various jacks, and more often than not ends up lifting one end of the MH completely off the ground when its completely not necessary. I can level it by using the manual option, much quicker and easier.