Here is something I just did this weekend...
I use my RV to go camping (boon docking) in the desert most of the time, so more often than not, I'm either driving down a dirt road, or going over uneven terrain on the way to camp. And while I've not encountered any major problems with how low the front hydro jacks are mounted, they definitely drag in the dirt occasionally. The final straw was a few months back, when I got home from a desert trip and I went to dump the grey/black tanks at the local rest area. There was a relatively low speed bump going into the dump area and as I slowly rolled over it, the front jack pads dragged over the top -- this was on a PAVED road at a major tourist spot here in San Diego. Not good. Plus, I was getting sick of random people approaching me at gas stations to let me know "my jacks were still down!".
So today, after spending some time under the coach, taking some measurements and setting aside a few hours. I decided to remove, modify and remount my front hydro jacks in the higher mounting position. In short, you can move them up two full settings on the mounting bracket, which is exactly 2" higher than how they are delivered from Thor. Frankly, Thor should have done this because they are LOW from the factory. But hey, too late now!
It was pretty straight forward. Aside from being heavy and not having any assistance, I didn't run into any major show-stoppers.
The passenger side was the easiest. I removed the nuts that secure the jack and hydraulic assembly and removed them from the RV. I used a portable grinding wheel to cut the top two sections of holes off the jack mounting bracket (as you can see before and after in the first two pics below). Once these are removed, the top of the jack cylinder will be allowed to sit higher and inside a recessed section of the cab floor. I hit the newly cut sections with a little shot of Rustoleum as to not allow them to rust and reinstalled them.
Here it is reinstalled in the new mounting position. As you can see, the top sit up in the recessed section of the cab floor.
The driver side was a bit trickier. The mounting bracket that the jack attaches to in the frame is offset more than the passanger side bracket. This is to allow the e-brake cable to have clearance down the frame rail. As a result, after trimming the two upper sections of the jack (same as I did on the pass. side) the top of the jack cylinder made contact with the outer, rounded section of sheetmetal on the underside of the cab. To be clear, it only has the clearance issue when trying to put the jack cylinder back on. Once on, it clears the recessed underside of the cab, just as it did on the passenger side.
You can see the scuffed section where I realized the top of the jack cylinder was hitting the underside of the cab.
Since I didn't have my dremel with me, I opted to just use a 1" metal holesaw and cut out three holes in the sheet metal where the jack cylinder made contact when attempting to reinstall it. Once the material is removed, the jack cylinder fit right back on and 2" higher than it came from Thor.
Here is after I cut the three holes:
After after the reinstallation:
So anyone that has either had clearance issues with the front jacks, or anticipates having issues, I would suggest this fairly straight forward mod.
