Crooked Atwood Jacks, repair/replace ?

[thejustin]

Ok, I bought this 2008 Host Everest about 2 weeks ago. One of the things I noticed was the front jacks are slightly off angle and a few of the bolts were loose. I finally got around to taking it to the RV shops for an estimate and was astounded by the different answers. The first shop initially estimated about an hour of labor on each front jack for repair to straighten, so approximately 280 bucks at ~ 140 an hour. He then looked inside the camper and the passenger side jack apparently is underneath the shower tub in the bathroom. He then told me he would need to completely lift out the shower tub and surround to work on that particular area and similarly remove the panel by the cabover and fridge area to get to the driver side jack area. In any event, he said after all was said and done it would be approximately 1800-2000 for repair. That's more than a set of 4 brand new replacement jacks! I mean, hell, I would just as much prefer to buy a brand new set of Reico Titan jacks and have them put on there.

Took it over to another RV shop and he told me drilling new mounting holes to try and straighten the jacks is going to cause more trouble than good. He suggested I go through each bolt, removing one at a time, dip in silicone sealer and re-tighten and said they were fine. (this is actually a more reputable dealer than the first one so I trust his opinion more) I was in the process of doing that today and every bolt with the exception of one tightened down very good. This very top bolt on the passenger side jack has an enlarged hole and the bolt won't tighten. My friend recommended perhaps using a bolt one size larger and then using some kind of sealant like "liquid nails" to make it water tight.

I took some pictures but its kind of hard to emphasize the problem in a still photograph. Add to that the camper is not sitting level on my truck in the driveway at the moment and it makes it even harder to photograph but I tried to take some to get some opinions. If you look at the driver side mount itself you can see it was put on there cockeyed from the factory.

I'm getting airbags installed next week and need to take the camper off the truck, don't want the damn thing toppling over on me lol. I have had it loaded and unloaded about 4 times in the past 2 weeks and it seemed fine (this was before I noticed the loose bolt), however, after now knowing about that loose bolt and the one shop wanting 2 grand to fix I am afraid to take it off my truck.

Any way, any opinions out there guys???

Here is the problem bolt, you can see the enlarged hole behind.



Passenger front jack



Driver front jack





Here is a picture of how I store it. 4 burro brand saw horses rated at 1500 lbs. each gives 6000 lbs. of support. Took this picture a few days ago. I normally lower the camper until maybe 60-70% of the camper is on the horses and the jacks are still touching the ground.

[Gary3]

I second the sawhorse's get some 4ft 2x8's so they touch the outside wall of the basement.

[NRALIFR]

The brackets that attach directly to the camper don't really look like they've moved to me, judging by the way the caulk looks around the edges. The one bolt you refer to with the enlarged hole behind it looks to me like the first bolt they used snapped off, leaving part of it in the camper. They might have run a second one in next to it, resulting in the head being slightly offset from where the first one was. Or, maybe they ran this bolt in at an angle first, then backed it out and ran it in straight, stripping the hole out in the process. Do the brackets appear to move to you?

I don't understand the suggestion of putting silicone in the bolt holes. Silicone isn't going to improve the grip at all. If any of the holes are stripped out so that the bolt can't be tightened, they should be fixed but not with silicone. Is this a wood or aluminum frame camper? A stripped out hole in wood is pretty easy to fix, really. Drill the stripped hole out to the size of a hardwood dowel, fill the hole with glue, pound your dowel into the hole until it bottoms, cut it off flush, let it dry and then drill a new hole for the bolt.

Two of those bolt heads look like carriage bolts, and are probably through-bolted with a nut and lock-washer. They may not need to come out if they're tight and it's just the lag bolts that are loose.

There's enough play in the bolt holes of the swing-out brackets that could account for the jacks not looking straight. Have you tried loosening them, moving the jack, then re-tightening them?

:):)

[Joe417]

This has nothing to do with your jack.

I'm not an expert on TCs but just finished rebuilding all the support frames underneath my tanks on an Arctic Fox. My TC needs to support all the weight on the vertical walls of the basement tub. The support frame are 3/4 aluminum trusses for the tanks and something to fasten the bottom 1/8 plywood on.

Check your Host to verify the sawhorses can support it without being under the vertical basement walls.

If using them on my TC I would add a top 4x4 to the sawhorses that would extend out an inch or 2 on each side to catch the basement wall.

AF recommends one at each end and the middle. Made a lot of sense after seeing how it's put together.

[jmcgsd]

They will sometimes be a bit bent depending on the stresses. I've had two Lances with the Atwoods and from what I can see yours look fine. Get those bolts tightened and you should be good to go.