cribbing for under TC jacks

accidental double post.

OK... disregard

d3500ram wrote:
Yes. Heavy, stable and not very portable. But OP asked about storing TC in a shed so I am assuming his inquiry was about taking weight off TC at home.

I do not take the cribbing with me on camping trips as I never take it off the truck when out & about. This set-up for me is only used at my house.

Actually if you read his first post the OP is talking about leaving the camper on his truck while both are stored in the shed. During which he wants to use the camper's jacks to unload the truck's suspension and he just wanted advice on something to put under his jacks to avoid having to run then all the way down.

It would be nice if that crib was on wheels. You could drop down the jacks, roll the crib out of the way and back the truck under. :)

deleted.

That base cribbing looks very stable, but that's alot of heavy wood to move around every time you load/unload the camper!

deleted

dave17352 wrote:
Okay after thinking about the last couple of posts I have come up with this.

1. I agree the hitch is not built to be stressed in the direction I am stressing it by leaving it on a floor jack. I will still lift it there briefly to slide in my stable load quick connects, of course when doing this the truck bed is empty so not to much weight in the first place. But I will not leave it sitting on a floor jack.

2. Seeing as we seldom use any jacks at all while on the road as it is pretty darn firm with the jacks up, I will probably still use four chunks of 6x6 on end to take some load off. Just avoiding lowering the jacks much. These I will just keep in the shop.

3. Now I won't lift it all if I can find conclusive evidence that leaving a heavy load on the springs basically causes no early loss of strength. But it still seems to me if you would take your average spring and stretch it a good amount and leave it in that position it is going to lose its strength over time. Now is there a engineer on here that can explain the dynamics of leaf springs.

But thanks for the advice and as you can see you have certainly changed this guys mind on the hitch being a good place to support the weight.

Not to belabor the point but if you hardly ever use the jacks when camping then running them pretty much fully up/down during your storage process is a GOOD thing to do to make sure the lube stays distributed along the screw shafts.

The spring thing has been pretty much beat to death over on gun forums by actual mechanical engineers. As long as the spring is properly designed for the load and isn't hyper-extended by a load (the overloading I previously mentioned) it will do no harm to leave it loaded.

That being said, while it doesn't do anything for your springs, the jacking up does make sense to take the load off your TIRES and you will see a benefit from that. The normal tires on pickup trucks are not designed to have their max load constantly on them. Hence why tires for things such as Class C's (that are always near their GVW) have all steel tires (steel belts AND sidewalls) instead of the poly sidewalls of pretty much all non-commercial pickup tires.

The 19.5" wheel/tire combos people running heavy campers switch to are a beneficial upgrade since the tires (while still poly sidewalls) are designed for commercial use to carry the weight constantly.

Steve_in_29 wrote:

dave17352 wrote:

Steve_in_29 wrote:

dave17352 wrote:
I like to lift the weight off the truck when my TC and truck are in the shed. I also don't like extending the jacks all the way down (close to 3 feet). I was wondering what kind of blocking you all use that do the same without having to lower all the way to the ground. I don't move the truck so I just have to lower it back down to go.

Thanks
Dave

My question is why?

The truck's suspension isn't going to be hurt from the weight and if you simply want to take the load off the tires then using the camper's jacks works just fine. It's not like you are supporting the camper 3 feet in the air on just it's jacks, as the truck's bed will keep it stable and if a jack fails it isn't going to fall over.

Use the jacks, it's what they are made for.

I don't know what brand jacks you have but for my Happi-Jacs they make a 6" extension that bolts to the foot which could also be easily modified to a longer length if so desired.

Good question.

I guess in my opinion the extra 3k weight sitting on the leaf springs does wear out the suspension. We have all seen trucks with worn out leaf springs. At least I have. Also in my setting it is just easier with my new found friend (my floor jack) to raise it off the suspension in a heartbeat. Lowering the jacks to the floor in the shop takes quite a bit of time and wears down the battery. Also when I do that I have to take off my tie downs. Which is very easy with torklift fast guns and tie downs but still not nearly as easy as putting my floor jack under the hitch and lifting the rear end. A little less wear and tear on the jacks is another advantage I see. Now I know many don't bother with it and don't worry about it and more power to them. But you asked and that is why.

Absent some gross overloading, it is not the static weight sitting on the springs that wears them out. Springs don't care if they are stored compressed or uncompressed as it is the cycling between those two states which is what wears out a spring.

If you are simply using the jacks to take the load off the truck's suspension there is no need to undo the tie-downs at all. Simply raise the jacks until the rear suspension has unloaded to your satisfaction but not enough to actually lift the camper from contact with the truck's bed.

If you are worried about the time and/or battery usage to lower the jacks, flip the release lever to drop the legs almost to the ground and then reengage it to actually do the actual 6 or so inches of lifting required to unload the suspension. The jacks don't pull all that many amps though when they are simply being run up/down without a load on them. The previously mentioned jack leg extensions also reduce the amount of movement required as well. But in reality we are talking what...5 mins? to raise/lower the jacks as the camper is not actually being removed/reinstalled on the truck.


By the way, I too was going to take issue with using the hitch as a support point but my previous reply was made via my phone and I didn't feel like typing that much on the tiny keypad.

Okay after thinking about the last couple of posts I have come up with this.

1. I agree the hitch is not built to be stressed in the direction I am stressing it by leaving it on a floor jack. I will still lift it there briefly to slide in my stable load quick connects, of course when doing this the truck bed is empty so not to much weight in the first place. But I will not leave it sitting on a floor jack.

2. Seeing as we seldom use any jacks at all while on the road as it is pretty darn firm with the jacks up, I will probably still use four chunks of 6x6 on end to take some load off. Just avoiding lowering the jacks much. These I will just keep in the shop.

3. Now I won't lift it all if I can find conclusive evidence that leaving a heavy load on the springs basically causes no early loss of strength. But it still seems to me if you would take your average spring and stretch it a good amount and leave it in that position it is going to lose its strength over time. Now is there a engineer on here that can explain the dynamics of leaf springs.

But thanks for the advice and as you can see you have certainly changed this guys mind on the hitch being a good place to support the weight.

I sold a house few years back, and the seller had been a bricklayer. He left a huge pile of scaffolding bases, which are just 12" X 12" squares of plywood glued together. So I just stack them up under all 4 jacks, and only have to lower each leg a few inches, to relieve the weight on the truck. Nice thing is my wheels just clear the front ones when driving out of the garage. Concrete floor. I figure if they supported scaffolding, bricks, and workers, they will support my camper.