I was all set to buy a kingpin tripod, as the dear wife was not happy with the movement of our fifth wheel when parked. It is a 36' Open Road 360RKDS5, around 12K pounds empty.
Movement of the trailer when folks walk around inside has never bothered me, it seems from reading the various posts that our dear wives are (collectively) the group most sensitive to this.
Research on this forum and others led me to the JT StrongArm Stabilizers and similar solutions.
When you look at what a kingpin tripod does, it really can only put upward pressure / vertical support on the kingpin. It cant stop the side to side and front to back sway of the trailer that you get from people moving around inside.
I have a welding/metal fabrication background and a fully equipped shop, so was thinking to order up material make up my own versions of the JTs.
However my present job leaves me with precious little free time, and we have a trip coming up, so I ordered the JT setup from Tweety's and installed them yesterday. (Kit provides support for the front landing gear and for the two rear scissor jacks)
First off, I am in no way affiliated with JT. I am also sure that one could likely achieve a similar end result with other products on the market.
I can tell you that the quality of the components in the JT kit, and notably the machined clevis pivot points which are welded into the tube ends and all of the associated hardware, are top notch stuff. I would be very hard pressed to replicate a similar setup to this level of finished quality in my own shop, at a lower total cost than what the JT kit sells for. (Heck, just having powder coating of the parts done at my local powder coating shop, would eat up 60% of what the JT kit sells for).
Installation took me about 3.5 hours, mostly because I had a slightly bent landing leg that I had to address first (leg sticking in the tube/hard to get in/out).
Once the JT's were installed, all I can say is, wow!
The trailer feels almost like it is blocked up solid from the chassis to the ground.
Dear wife surveyed the end result, and was extremely impressed.
That right there makes it a worthwhile effort.
