How to grease landing leg worm gears?
This post (link) about a failed landing leg worm gear got me to thinking about the maintenance needed by fifth wheel landing legs. Mine are made by Atwood, and the maintenance in the Atwood manual is...
Forum Discussion
If you have the legs that have a separate motor for each leg, and separate controls, then it wouldn't be too bad.
You could raise the trailer as far as necessary, then support one side while you run that leg back in. Then drop the inner leg and remove it. With the outer leg all the way up the majority of the screw is now exposed inside the leg. One member suggests putting some grease on an angle iron and reaching up with that to grease the screw. That would work very well.
If you have one motor for both legs it becomes a bit more, okay a lot more, of a hassle, in that you'd have to do both legs at the same time.
An alternative is to have a hole in the outer leg, and a hole in the inner leg that will align when the inner leg is most/all the way at the top. Then you could use a spray grease to lube the screw. I would think you'd want to use grease rather than a relatively light oil. Maybe even two different holes so you could also get some lube on the thrust bearing too.
You could raise the trailer as far as necessary, then support one side while you run that leg back in. Then drop the inner leg and remove it. With the outer leg all the way up the majority of the screw is now exposed inside the leg. One member suggests putting some grease on an angle iron and reaching up with that to grease the screw. That would work very well.
If you have one motor for both legs it becomes a bit more, okay a lot more, of a hassle, in that you'd have to do both legs at the same time.
An alternative is to have a hole in the outer leg, and a hole in the inner leg that will align when the inner leg is most/all the way at the top. Then you could use a spray grease to lube the screw. I would think you'd want to use grease rather than a relatively light oil. Maybe even two different holes so you could also get some lube on the thrust bearing too.
