Jack Failure Disaster
I had a terrible experience yesterday when I tried to unload my camper which resulted in my camper falling over on its side in my front yard. It happened so fast I'm not exactly sure where it went wro...
Forum Discussion
sorry to hear about your disaster! sounds like a combination of problems. I'm glad you spotted it and got yourself out of the way so it didn't land on you!
if you're moving the legs manually with a drill, 2" at a time with one leg seems like too much of a lift to me. I have 4 corner electric jacks with a remote. When I'm going down, one of my back legs lowers faster than the other 3. As soon as that leg barely lifts off the ground, you can hear the other 3 motors straining more, and the whole thing feels much less stable. I stop right away then, and raise or lower one leg at a time to get the camper back in balance and supporting the load right before continuing down further.
Were you rough guessing the amount of drop on each leg, or measuring it? Maybe it would be better to go slower and count each revolution? like Like lower each jack 5 revolutions, then 5 revolutions on the next jack? always lower back legs then front legs so the back is lower than the front.
I wonder if you ended up with one of the legs a lot higher than you thought the other 3 were, so the whole camper started pivoting around that high point?
I had a similarish- thing happen recently as well. I was down in Florida, and I tried to take the camper off the truck for a few days in a county park. The ground was hard packed dirt/sand. It felt solid enough to me, and I added some wooden blocks to spread out the load on the feet as well.
The camper lifted just fine. While I was lowering the camper, the jack legs kept binding about half way down. I lifted and lowered the camper several times, changed the angle, put it back on the truck and tried again, but kept getting bound up about half way down.
I ended up putting the camper back on the truck, and left it on the truck for the rest of the trip instead.
I think that the ground was soft enough that the camper was settling into the ground a bit at different rates while I was trying to lower it, which got the legs bound up. After reading your story, I'm glad I bailed, and didn't try to force getting the camper off the truck on that trip.
if you're moving the legs manually with a drill, 2" at a time with one leg seems like too much of a lift to me. I have 4 corner electric jacks with a remote. When I'm going down, one of my back legs lowers faster than the other 3. As soon as that leg barely lifts off the ground, you can hear the other 3 motors straining more, and the whole thing feels much less stable. I stop right away then, and raise or lower one leg at a time to get the camper back in balance and supporting the load right before continuing down further.
Were you rough guessing the amount of drop on each leg, or measuring it? Maybe it would be better to go slower and count each revolution? like Like lower each jack 5 revolutions, then 5 revolutions on the next jack? always lower back legs then front legs so the back is lower than the front.
I wonder if you ended up with one of the legs a lot higher than you thought the other 3 were, so the whole camper started pivoting around that high point?
I had a similarish- thing happen recently as well. I was down in Florida, and I tried to take the camper off the truck for a few days in a county park. The ground was hard packed dirt/sand. It felt solid enough to me, and I added some wooden blocks to spread out the load on the feet as well.
The camper lifted just fine. While I was lowering the camper, the jack legs kept binding about half way down. I lifted and lowered the camper several times, changed the angle, put it back on the truck and tried again, but kept getting bound up about half way down.
I ended up putting the camper back on the truck, and left it on the truck for the rest of the trip instead.
I think that the ground was soft enough that the camper was settling into the ground a bit at different rates while I was trying to lower it, which got the legs bound up. After reading your story, I'm glad I bailed, and didn't try to force getting the camper off the truck on that trip.
