Forum Discussion

plasticmaster's avatar
Oct 23, 2017

Bal lock arm stabilizer bars?

My camper has the Lippert electric stabilizer jacks where both rear jacks lower with the press of a single button. Pressure is not applied to the trailer until both rear jacks have made contact with the ground. The front jacks opperate the same way. Has anyone used the Bal lock arm stabilizer bars with these jacks. How well did it help to stabilize the camper?
  • Huntindog wrote:
    tll wrote:
    Huntindog wrote:
    tll wrote:
    I put the BAL stabilizers on my TT with the same electric Lippert system you have. They didn't work at all (or very little). They worked great on my old TT with manual scissor jacks.The problem is the carriage underneath the trailer slides to do the self adjusting part. The BAL arms don't do anything to stop this, and this is what is causing the trailer to move.
    I am very disappointed in the Lippert self leveling electric system. It does it job in supporting the corners of the trailer, but does little to stop the side to side movement when you are walking around. The only way to solve this problem is to get the electric jack system that has a motor for each jack at each corner of the trailer.
    Here is a video of the carriage sliding, it moves whether the BAL arms are used or not.
    Lippert self leveling problem

    That video is a joke. The inside channel is rattling around loose inside the outer channel.
    The jacks are obviously not even close to being as tight as they should be.

    It was staged that way on purpose for some reason.
    Probably by the following video, which is of the Ultra Fab jacks... IOW, they have an agenda, which is selling their jacks. Pretty sad.

    But having owned an Ultra Fab TJ for about 20 minutes before it broke,,, I can understand why they stoop to underhanded fake tactics to sell their junk


    I took that video myself, I can assure you that the jacks were sufficiently loaded. They were the rear jacks.This is the whole problem with the Lippert system. When one side of the trailer is loaded, like you walk to that side, that side sinks down, raising the other side and causing the loose channel. This happens no matter how tight the jacks are set. The whole problem is that channel must slide from side to side to do the self leveling thing. When you walk in the trailer the trailer slides on the channel.
    I have owned this system since 2009. I am calling B.S. In the video you can not only see the channel moving up and down, but you can here it rattling as well. That is impossible it the jacks are tight.
    I have never heard mine making that racket.
    And your side to side movement is severe. Once again a sign that the jacks are not tight enough.

    Even with tight jacks, there will be some movement. It has to do with a compromise that must be made to get the self leveling. IMO, that is a worthwhile compromise.

    But once again, that video is NOT what will happen when the jacks are as tight as they should be. It was staged, pure and simple


    I'm getting the exact same results as tll and what he shows in the video. I loaded the jacks until they were extremely tight. I had my son, who is only 12 years old, push on the camper while I watched the channel move. It looked just like the video. Now I understand why the camper rocks and shakes so much with the slightest movement such as my kids rolling over in bed at night. I'll be installing manual scissor jacks like what was on my old camper. They performed much better. Hopefully that will help. If I'm still not satisfied, I'll also instal the Bal lock arms.
  • tll wrote:
    Huntindog wrote:
    tll wrote:
    I put the BAL stabilizers on my TT with the same electric Lippert system you have. They didn't work at all (or very little). They worked great on my old TT with manual scissor jacks.The problem is the carriage underneath the trailer slides to do the self adjusting part. The BAL arms don't do anything to stop this, and this is what is causing the trailer to move.
    I am very disappointed in the Lippert self leveling electric system. It does it job in supporting the corners of the trailer, but does little to stop the side to side movement when you are walking around. The only way to solve this problem is to get the electric jack system that has a motor for each jack at each corner of the trailer.
    Here is a video of the carriage sliding, it moves whether the BAL arms are used or not.
    Lippert self leveling problem

    That video is a joke. The inside channel is rattling around loose inside the outer channel.
    The jacks are obviously not even close to being as tight as they should be.

    It was staged that way on purpose for some reason.
    Probably by the following video, which is of the Ultra Fab jacks... IOW, they have an agenda, which is selling their jacks. Pretty sad.

    But having owned an Ultra Fab TJ for about 20 minutes before it broke,,, I can understand why they stoop to underhanded fake tactics to sell their junk


    I took that video myself, I can assure you that the jacks were sufficiently loaded. They were the rear jacks.This is the whole problem with the Lippert system. When one side of the trailer is loaded, like you walk to that side, that side sinks down, raising the other side and causing the loose channel. This happens no matter how tight the jacks are set. The whole problem is that channel must slide from side to side to do the self leveling thing. When you walk in the trailer the trailer slides on the channel.
    I have owned this system since 2009. I am calling B.S. In the video you can not only see the channel moving up and down, but you can here it rattling as well. That is impossible it the jacks are tight.
    I have never heard mine making that racket.
    And your side to side movement is severe. Once again a sign that the jacks are not tight enough.

    Even with tight jacks, there will be some movement. It has to do with a compromise that must be made to get the self leveling. IMO, that is a worthwhile compromise.

    But once again, that video is NOT what will happen when the jacks are as tight as they should be. It was staged, pure and simple
  • Huntindog wrote:
    tll wrote:
    I put the BAL stabilizers on my TT with the same electric Lippert system you have. They didn't work at all (or very little). They worked great on my old TT with manual scissor jacks.The problem is the carriage underneath the trailer slides to do the self adjusting part. The BAL arms don't do anything to stop this, and this is what is causing the trailer to move.
    I am very disappointed in the Lippert self leveling electric system. It does it job in supporting the corners of the trailer, but does little to stop the side to side movement when you are walking around. The only way to solve this problem is to get the electric jack system that has a motor for each jack at each corner of the trailer.
    Here is a video of the carriage sliding, it moves whether the BAL arms are used or not.
    Lippert self leveling problem

    That video is a joke. The inside channel is rattling around loose inside the outer channel.
    The jacks are obviously not even close to being as tight as they should be.

    It was staged that way on purpose for some reason.
    Probably by the following video, which is of the Ultra Fab jacks... IOW, they have an agenda, which is selling their jacks. Pretty sad.

    But having owned an Ultra Fab TJ for about 20 minutes before it broke,,, I can understand why they stoop to underhanded fake tactics to sell their junk


    I took that video myself, I can assure you that the jacks were sufficiently loaded. They were the rear jacks.This is the whole problem with the Lippert system. When one side of the trailer is loaded, like you walk to that side, that side sinks down, raising the other side and causing the loose channel. This happens no matter how tight the jacks are set. The whole problem is that channel must slide from side to side to do the self leveling thing. When you walk in the trailer the trailer slides on the channel.
  • Earlier today, I lowered my electric jacks to the point that the motor was doing some serious groaning. I had them putting lots of pressure on the camper frame. I then had my son push the side of the camper. When he did, the camper rocked and the channel in the jack slid back and forth just like in the video. Very poor design.
  • tll wrote:
    I put the BAL stabilizers on my TT with the same electric Lippert system you have. They didn't work at all (or very little). They worked great on my old TT with manual scissor jacks.The problem is the carriage underneath the trailer slides to do the self adjusting part. The BAL arms don't do anything to stop this, and this is what is causing the trailer to move.
    I am very disappointed in the Lippert self leveling electric system. It does it job in supporting the corners of the trailer, but does little to stop the side to side movement when you are walking around. The only way to solve this problem is to get the electric jack system that has a motor for each jack at each corner of the trailer.
    Here is a video of the carriage sliding, it moves whether the BAL arms are used or not.
    Lippert self leveling problem

    That video is a joke. The inside channel is rattling around loose inside the outer channel.
    The jacks are obviously not even close to being as tight as they should be.

    It was staged that way on purpose for some reason.
    Probably by the following video, which is of the Ultra Fab jacks... IOW, they have an agenda, which is selling their jacks. Pretty sad.

    But having owned an Ultra Fab TJ for about 20 minutes before it broke,,, I can understand why they stoop to underhanded fake tactics to sell their junk
  • I put the BAL stabilizers on my TT with the same electric Lippert system you have. They didn't work at all (or very little). They worked great on my old TT with manual scissor jacks.The problem is the carriage underneath the trailer slides to do the self adjusting part. The BAL arms don't do anything to stop this, and this is what is causing the trailer to move.
    I am very disappointed in the Lippert self leveling electric system. It does it job in supporting the corners of the trailer, but does little to stop the side to side movement when you are walking around. The only way to solve this problem is to get the electric jack system that has a motor for each jack at each corner of the trailer.
    Here is a video of the carriage sliding, it moves whether the BAL arms are used or not.
    Lippert self leveling problem
  • Would these Bal lock arm bars work better with my existing Lippert electric jacks or would they work better with manual scissor jacks? I ask this because I'm considering installing manual scissor jacks as well.
  • plasticmaster wrote:
    My camper has the Lippert electric stabilizer jacks where both rear jacks lower with the press of a single button. Pressure is not applied to the trailer until both rear jacks have made contact with the ground. The front jacks opperate the same way. Has anyone used the Bal lock arm stabilizer bars with these jacks. How well did it help to stabilize the camper?
    I have the Lippert jacks. The BAL Lock system will work with them as will the JTs.

    I will not use them on my TT though.
    The Lippert jacks with their equal pressure design makes it impossible to rack the frame.

    Installing a lock arm system would eliminate the Lipperts equal pressure system.
    Since I always boondock and my jack legs often are sitting on different soil densities, that Lippert feature appeals to me a great deal.

    If I camped in campgrounds with hard surface pads, I could see the advantage of the lock arm systems.
  • Same idea as the JT Strongarms I have on mine. Best mod I ever did. They eliminated just about all the movement in my tt, even with the kids running around. The JTs look a little beefier though.