Wireless impact driver for manual stabilizer jacks

I used my cordless drill once or twice, but I found that I had a better "feel" for how much to lower the stabilizers if I did it by hand.

A cheap drill will work but you want the 2 speed style. The cheap one speed drills don't have enough torque.

I bought the Ryobi 18v drill with a soft case. It came with a flashlight that uses the same batteries which gets more use than anything else. I also have the cordless calk gun that uses the same batteries. I bought several of the 3/4 RV socket drivers from Amazon figuring I'd lose one eventually.

I put the hand crank end into my cordless Craftsman drill and away I go.

beemerphile1 wrote:

westend wrote:
...I went with 18V Lithium Ridgid (bought at Home Depot). Ridgid warranties everything for life, the tools, the batteries, and the charger. They are also a pleasure to use and I use them daily. I bought the set last year, around Christmas for $189, IIRC.

FWIW The new Ridgid is not the old Ridgid. Home Depot bought the name and now Ridgid is exclusive to Home Depot just like Ryobi.

Dunno, I know HD is full of them. They are sold through other outlets and seems like Ridgid is owned by Emerson Inc.. I know when I registered the tools, batteries, and charger, each piece has a serial number and I did it through the Ridgid website.

I've had Makita cordless tools and used them for decades. In all, they're reliable. I use them for construction work so they need to do the job every day. Unfortunately, they've priced themselves out of my reach. I'm not going to fork over $300 for a cordless tool when right next to them are offerings by Bosch, Dewalt, Ridgid, Ryobi, etc. that are considerably cheaper.

Germaine to the discussion: Any cordless rotary tool is going to work on stabilizer jacks. If you run it full on to the full extension of the jack, you might get a twisted wrist, a broken jack, or any other calamity. I can use the small impact tool to set screws in plastic boxes, remove lug nuts, and everything in-between. A man has to know his trigger finger.:B

poppin_fresh wrote:
I have a wife to deploy the stabilizers, but she cost a LOT more than $299.00. :)

My wife pushes all my buttons. ;)

Funny enough, since we got this trailer with buttons for everything, she is not averse to deploying stabiizers, awning, slides, etc. and who am I to spoil her fun.

Whatever you buy, make sure it has a lithium ion battery. There is still some very cheap junk out there with Nicad batteries which will be dead every time you take it out to use it, and the batteries will die quickly under load. Any 18 volt driver/drill with lithium ion battery will work fine for you. I used a Hitachi 18v drill for years for this purpose and it worked fine. I have power stabs now so don't use the drill any more. Any of the expensive brands, plus Craftsman, Porter Cable, Ryobi, etc, will work fine for this task. No need for an impact driver at all.

The last 3 winters I used an 18V Makita drill. I only took 1 battery along and charged it about every 4-6 weeks. Last winter we were in 50 campsites so we set up often.

I have the drill set to ratchet so there is no chance of my wife or I twisting our wrists. Sometime later I'll hand snug the stabilizers with the crank.

This works well for us.

rbpru wrote:
Like some of the others, I just use my cordless drill. I picked up the shaft and 3/4" socket at camping world.

What is this shaft called at camping world? I've been looking for this but haven't found it yet? :@

I use a 18 volt DeWalt inpact. I have used it for 5 years and don't have any problems. I keep the screw clean and when the jack gets to the ground I stop it. Then if I have to fine tune the stabilizers I get out either the hand crank or a breaker bar with a 3/4 inch socket and fine tune it.