Hitch jack fully extended: Should I be nervous?

My answer was to nail a 2x6 piece on either side of a 6x6.
and lower my jack onto it. Worked great.
A 9" lift helps. I've never liked jacks or stabilizers near full extension.

My driveway had such a slope that buy the time I add all the board under the jack, it just does not look stable even with the wheel chocks.

So I jack it level and put concrete blocks and wooden spacers about a foot back under the frame on both sides.

This require less cribbing height, gives me two points of suspension and takes the strain off the tongue jack.

Yes it is a real pain to do but it works well when I need ground clearance check the under side.

Fortunately or normal loading and unloading I can pull it near the back door. k

myredracer wrote:

Ralph Cramden wrote:


eh :B

"eh" is so passe in Canada and dates back to the days of Bob & Doug McKenzie 40 years ago. I think it still lingers a bit in the east, but use it in the west and you'll sound like a total idiot. Don't be a zib and bump gums (had to get my old dictionary of American slang for a few good outdated words). :W

La coo coo coo coo coo ca coo,,, or something like that. I remember Bob and Doug. They had a Christmas song that was like the 12 days of Christmas but, the last line was "and a beer" .

I think your exaggerating the 40 years ago part though.

Grit dog wrote:
eh!

You said "eh"?! What hoser!! :p

I think there's a little too much cabin fever going around lately. Weather's looking up. Gotta be about time to grab a two four and head out on a camping trip. :)

If we'd like, we could get into a discussion of if these trailers on sloped driveways have torsion axles and how SEVERELY overloaded one axle is, leveled up on a slope! LOL

"Fact is, securely chocking and leveling any trailer go hand in hand. "
Yes, but with that much time invested in precisely and very completely chocking and blocking just a couple times, I could rip out my driveway and re-level it!
Lets see them pics of the crates of color coded and milled to the 1/32" graduated thickness blocks you got. The OP could use some suggestions.
His method is sooooo plebeian, eh!

Ralph Cramden wrote:


eh :B

"eh" is so passe in Canada and dates back to the days of Bob & Doug McKenzie 40 years ago. I think it still lingers a bit in the east, but use it in the west and you'll sound like a total idiot. Don't be a zib and bump gums (had to get my old dictionary of American slang for a few good outdated words). :W

davehultin wrote:

SoundGuy wrote:
A little difficult to tell from your pic but is the trailer even chocked? :E

Yes, it's chocked (and well-hidden in my pictures). I have one chock behind each of the rear wheels.

myredracer wrote:
FWIW, with a TT that nice looking, I would get a nice electric jack (ball screw type)...

Yeah, that wish list is getting longer...! :-)

You did mean to add that you had one chock in front of each of the wheels also, right?

WRT the power tongue jack, that's something that would go to the top of the "wish list", and come off straight away because I would have purchased one, and in your case one with a 24" tube and as heavy duty as possible. Some power tongue jacks come with 18" extension tubes.

We shouldn't have to worry about near-blizzards in mid-April, but that's exactly what's been going on this last week here in North Dakota. This spring, camper prep means brushing snow off the roof. :-(



Anyways, I can finally get back to this thread. There's lots of wisdom from all of you, thanks!!!

SoundGuy wrote:
A little difficult to tell from your pic but is the trailer even chocked? :E

Yes, it's chocked (and well-hidden in my pictures). I have one chock behind each of the rear wheels.

opnspaces wrote:
By your level it looks pretty good to me. Is it just a personal preference to get it perfectly level?

No, the reason I want to get it level (or close to level) is to be able to open the slide, when needed. We don't open it often, but it will get opened when we're ready to load for a trip.

I guess that's the bigger issue, there's more risk extending the slide when the trailer is not level than there is fully extending the hitch jack to get it level.

Ralph Cramden wrote:
The rating of the jack is its maximum rating when fully extended. I don't see what the worry is unless you installed a jack that is rated way below the tongue weight, your loading a couple cubes on bricks in the trailer towards the front, or you just like to worry about things.

On a previous trailer we were in a campground and I was cranking on the jack, and all of a sudden it just gave way. I had no way of knowing, but I always wondered if all the cranking to full extension took too much of a toll on the jack.

myredracer wrote:
How stable is the trailer left/right at the jack?

Very stable, no worries there.

myredracer wrote:
With the jack extended that high, I'd want the wheels really well chocked (not with the X-chock type). With that piece of 4x4 (or 6x6?) you have running in a fore/aft direction, I'd turn it 90 degrees so it points left/right so that way if the trailer moves laterally (left or right) for any reason, the jack won't potentially roll off the 4x4 piece. If there is some wiggle in the jack at that height, it is possible to add a plate to the underside of the A-frame with a hole in it to better stabilize the jack.

Good tip. (And it's 4x4s on the outside pieces.)

myredracer wrote:
FWIW, with a TT that nice looking, I would get a nice electric jack (ball screw type)...

Yeah, that wish list is getting longer...! :-)

I suppose the bottom line is I just need to drop the stabalizers when I'm up in the air that much. As I mentioned earlier in this post, the side-to-side stablization really isn't a huge issue. Yes, it's wobbly without the stabalizers down, but not abnormally so. When we knew this last storm was coming, I dropped the hitch so the front end dipped down (to help get the melting snow off the roof) and dropped the stablizers too because the wind was supposed to pick up. (It never did. Phew!)

Truth it, the camper isn't in our driveway that often, we typically keep it in storage nearby and just bring it home and in the driveway to get it loaded up. So really, again, the bigger question behind the question is this: How level does the camper need to be to extend the slide? I've always thought the correct measurement is "pretty darn level" and to get to "pretty darn level" requires a fully extended jack in our driveway.

Personally, if I had 4 wheels chocked, x-chocks tightened, stabilizers down, and more blocks under the jack, I wouldn’t be nervous at all.