Preferred portable jack for Travel Queen ?
Hi there, just brought my first truck camper home and need to get it off of the truck it came in on. The camper is a 1966 Travel Queen (10ft Model 110) and did not come with the complete OEM jack s...
Forum Discussion
Hi Littlest Birds. I'm the guy doing the TQ build.
The jack you pictured should work good; one on each corner.
Under the wings you'll find a steel grid system. In the metal facing you as you look at it, you'll see three holes on each side. The farthest forward and rearward are mounting holes for the original jacks (the center is for a hand crank).
I think you'll find the original holes regions are good center of gravity locations for your camper, so one jack under each.
I use a portable (removable) jack system, one per side that has an angle iron to rest into the wing edge. It's tippy, but my camper is smaller. With your larger camper I'd use minimum three jacks.
Your jack pictured is - I believe - an Alaska Camper style and should work great!
One option - depending on you wing condition, I'd build it up with a patch and mount the jack to each area, lifting on the camper sidewall (strongest point of the wing), or if the wings are good condition and ready to go, make a permanent mount to connect the jack as opposed to temporary just to get it off the truck.
And you are on the right path with the type jack you are showing. You definitely don't want to install any corner jacks (1x2 framing) and yours looks like it never had corner jacks installed which is waaaay awesome.
But if you decide you must do corner jacks, keep in mind the front and back walls are 5/8" plywood covered with an interior 1/8" wood paneling. I still highly advise against that method for Travel Queens (or really almost any stick build camper).
Also, I wouldn't use them to tie down due to leverage wrongly placed, but put a piece of pipe (correct diameter) into each of the four corner holes described earlier and extend them out past the camper sides. Then lift those pipes with whatever lifting mechanism you have handy. Perhaps you could fabricate a plate and pipe to attach to the Alaska Camper style jacks. Whatever, put a bolt into the pipe's set screw hole from below so the pipe doesn't shift.
The big PLUS for you is the existing clean corner. Stresses and damage to the corners will lead to many other structural problems. And you have a real nice specimen.
Nice find!
The jack you pictured should work good; one on each corner.
Under the wings you'll find a steel grid system. In the metal facing you as you look at it, you'll see three holes on each side. The farthest forward and rearward are mounting holes for the original jacks (the center is for a hand crank).
I think you'll find the original holes regions are good center of gravity locations for your camper, so one jack under each.
I use a portable (removable) jack system, one per side that has an angle iron to rest into the wing edge. It's tippy, but my camper is smaller. With your larger camper I'd use minimum three jacks.
Your jack pictured is - I believe - an Alaska Camper style and should work great!
One option - depending on you wing condition, I'd build it up with a patch and mount the jack to each area, lifting on the camper sidewall (strongest point of the wing), or if the wings are good condition and ready to go, make a permanent mount to connect the jack as opposed to temporary just to get it off the truck.
And you are on the right path with the type jack you are showing. You definitely don't want to install any corner jacks (1x2 framing) and yours looks like it never had corner jacks installed which is waaaay awesome.
But if you decide you must do corner jacks, keep in mind the front and back walls are 5/8" plywood covered with an interior 1/8" wood paneling. I still highly advise against that method for Travel Queens (or really almost any stick build camper).
Also, I wouldn't use them to tie down due to leverage wrongly placed, but put a piece of pipe (correct diameter) into each of the four corner holes described earlier and extend them out past the camper sides. Then lift those pipes with whatever lifting mechanism you have handy. Perhaps you could fabricate a plate and pipe to attach to the Alaska Camper style jacks. Whatever, put a bolt into the pipe's set screw hole from below so the pipe doesn't shift.
The big PLUS for you is the existing clean corner. Stresses and damage to the corners will lead to many other structural problems. And you have a real nice specimen.
Nice find!
