Question before the storm

On our fifth wheel we had a hand crank for each of the front jacks and the slides were hydraulic and had a hex fitting on the end of the pump with a valve you could change the position of to either open or close the slides, you could run the hydraulic pump with a cordless drill to get the slides in or out, our current truck camper jacks can be moved with a 3/8 inch ratchet or 3/8 extension

My landing gear motor recently went out and I used the hand crank. Granted I cranked for a while but I didnt think it was hard to crank at all. Maybe others have had a broken gear or something which made it harder for them to do.

Trixie47 wrote:
Since the landing gear is electric what would you do if the motor went out. Suppose you are at a campsite...how to raise it to get it back on the truck, or better yet....what to do so you can take it off the truck...Trying to get a jump on something that hopefully may never happen...

As said the hand crank is an option, have used it to see how it goes, not easy, but doable.

What I wasn't prepared for is when the curb side bolt came out of the drive line, and only the drive side landing gear was moving, the problem is I have an onboard generator , so now no way to get to that bolt. Sitting in an RV park, and no way to raise the fifth wheel, had to go buy a sawsall , and cut a hole in the propane compartment to access the driveline, and replace the bolt, but I did have a replacement bolt, and now a spare sawsall :)

BB_TX wrote:

Roger10378 wrote:
There should be a crank and a place to insert it so that you can manually raise or lower the landing gear. Mine is in the propane compartment on the drivers side.

Same on mine.

same here

Lippert Level up comes with a flexable drive to operate the pump with a drill. On our older Cardinal the slide pump could be run with a drill and hex drive. However you had to jumper the control solenoids with a 9V battery, so you need 4-6 hands.

I tried to do the manual cranking thing when our gear casing broke and would no longer engage the jack leg post so as to hold it in place. It just flopped around in the propane cabinet. What a giant POC those things are and they price them like they are titanium. ANYWAY, I grunted on that crank until I thought I was going to blow a heart valve and realized that I had raised the RV a mere 1/4" or so. I gave up on that idea and just used my 20T and 12T bottle jacks to lift the RV off of the truck and get it level.


Cheers!

Mike

I carry 2 bottle jacks. That manual cranking of the landing gear, I have done it twice 1st and last.

I would suggest you try it once...eat your Wheaties 1st

Not completely understanding the question! Do mean a power failure....as in no 120 volts to the campground, or your 12 volt camper system failed?
“If” you mean, campground power, no problem! The jacks work off of the 12 volt system. Unless....you’ve depleted your RV batteries after the campground failure. Then .... you go to the suggestions by others!

This, is one of those situations where a generator ( even if only 1000 watt) could make things.....less “unpleasant”!

X-4 on the crank. Have used it on more than one occasion when the batteries were dead and I didn't have time to recharge them.

I seem to remember one time when the landing gear clutch broke and the crank would not work. I used a floor jack on the frame to raise the 5th wheel to hitch it up. The dealer replaced the landing gear (under warranty).

Roger10378 wrote:
There should be a crank and a place to insert it so that you can manually raise or lower the landing gear. Mine is in the propane compartment on the drivers side.

Same on mine.