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Wishbone51's avatar
Wishbone51
Explorer
Jun 06, 2013

Introduction, plus a levelling jack question

Hello! New guy here.. (and first post)

I'm relatively new to RVing in general, but started off with a bang.. After researching for several months, I purchased an older Komfort travel trailer and hit the road. For my second trip, my family and I took the trailer from our home, near Portland OR, all the way to NYC, hitting everything in between.. Surprisingly the only real issues I had was a broken leaf spring, and refrigerator went out, both covered by the warranty I purchased the day before the trip! Met a lot of helpful people along the way and learned a lot of tricks.

My question is regarding the standard scissor-type levelling jacks and the handles used to jack them up. I had no issues for most of the trip, and after that, the handle would break.. The screw that connects the socket to the handle would snap, requiring replacement. This happened several times. After some frustration, I just got out my cordless impact driver, connected to a socket and made a lot of noise, but it did the trick.

Obviously, I'm using too much force, but sometimes the trailer won't level without that force. What's the trick? Levelling blocks? How do you get the blocks under the tires? Do you set them how you think it will be then drive on them, check for level, move, add blocks and drive on them again?

Thanks for the help that this forum provided while I was in my research phase of my journey.

  • downtheroad wrote:
    Welcome to the Forum..
    The reason why you are having problems is that you are using the jacks for the wrong purpose..
    They are for STABILIZING your trailer, NOT for leveling it. If you try to lift your trailer with them they will break and or you will tweak the frame of your trailer...

    Use block under the wheels of the low side to level side to side and your tongue jack fro front to back leveling.


    X2

    Either buy some of the plastic leveling blocks or bring a about 3 2"x8"x24" boards. Put as many as you need under the tires on the low side to get you level side to side. Crank the jack for front to back level.
    THEN, you crank the stabilizer jacks to snug+ 1/2 turn which prevents most of the shaking movement from someone walking around in the trailer.

    Your trying to lift a multiple thousand lb. trailer with something designed to handle much less than that. I'm going to bet that you damaged at least the jacks if you busted the handles off due to difficultly to turn. hopefully you didn't bend the frame badly.
  • Welcome to the Forum..
    The reason why you are having problems is that you are using the jacks for the wrong purpose..
    They are for STABILIZING your trailer, NOT for leveling it. If you try to lift your trailer with them they will break and or you will tweak the frame of your trailer...

    Use block under the wheels of the low side to level side to side and your tongue jack fro front to back leveling.