Using a drill to lift your popup

[SoCalRailFan]

So recently I bought one of those special sockets to adapt to a 3/8" drill extension for lifting my popup, because I'm getting lazy. After lifting the popup 2 times my drill burned out. I'm stumped. I used a Craftsman 6 amp big ass drill. It lifted the trailer fine, but when I went to lower it it was dead as can be.

What are some of you using to lift your popups?

[SoCalRailFan]

Funny my 20V impact wouldn't work but the 20V Porter Cable drill does work fine. Just need to make sure not to over heat it.

[frankwp]

I used an 18V Dewalt for years, on the low gear, and it worked great.

Another reason to not use an impact driver is that they are very noise & won't win you any friends in the campground.

[tooldad1041]

I used to have the slide in truck bed camper. It came with a drill adapter. My advice, use a drill on low setting only. I used the impact first few times and sheared a pin inside the lifting jack.

My 18v dewalt, more on the pro end, did the job.

[SoCalRailFan]

Funny, just had to deal with this yesterday. My I tried my DeWalt 20V impact drill, no go. So then I just tried the 20V drill, that was the key, worked like a charm!

[jmcgsd]

When I had my Coleman Americana I raised and lowered it with an 18v DeWalt. Never had an issue. I use the same drill today on my TT stabilizers.

[cythraul]

I don't use a drill. I use child-labour.

My kids loves handling the stabilizers. They still fatigue half-way cranking the top up tho. 😉

[bondebond]

By the way, do NOT use the impact driver setting when raising the roof or deploying the stabilizer jacks. Others have relayed lift system issues attributed to the pounding of the gear mechanisms from impact drivers. It may be completely an urban myth but I'm not going to find out personally.

I have a 19.2v Craftsman hammer drill (set to "drill" mode only) on the low speed setting and it powers through anything I've thrown at it.

Not only does it raise the roof which requires a fair amount of power, it raises the BAL light trailer leveler which requires a good bit more power than raising the roof. I also use it to deploy the stabilizers and raise/lower the modified tongue jack. It does this two to three full trips before the LiIon battery needing recharging. I carry a second battery, of course, but have never had to use it.

Keep everything well lubed and you should get years of service from a quality drill in this situation.

[eHoefler]

Are you lifting your trailer with the stabilizing jacks?? If so, you are binding the jacks as they are not intended to lift it off the suspension or ground!! You should only run them down to "STABILIZE" with just enough pressure to steady the trailer, not to take any weight of any kind. If in deed you are lifting the trailer with them, you are definitely asking for a disaster. If you get too much weight on the jacks, it will be difficult if not impossible for your drill to get the screw turning once loaded.

[Terryallan]

When we had our pup. Viking required a 24 Volt DeWalt drill to raise the roof. It has 450 Inch pounds of torque. It would raise the roof, and drop the stabs twice on one charge.
I bought it 13 years ago. It is now on it's third battery, and will IF I let it. Raise the TT off the ground.

So just to remind. A cheap drill ain't gonna do it. You need at least a 18 volt high torque drill. More power the better.

[rwbradley]

SoCalRailFan wrote:
Dewalt shows that as having a 1/4" connector too, how do you use that?

rwbradley wrote:
Get a Cordless Impact driver. It looks just like a cordless drill but it has way more torque. I got a Dewalt DCF885B for a little over $100. It is really small so it is easy to stow but has serious power compared to a drill.

Check out the DW254IR. You can buy it separate or in many bit sets. I believe I already had it in my Milwaukee bit set.

[SoCalRailFan]

Dewalt shows that as having a 1/4" connector too, how do you use that?

rwbradley wrote:
Get a Cordless Impact driver. It looks just like a cordless drill but it has way more torque. I got a Dewalt DCF885B for a little over $100. It is really small so it is easy to stow but has serious power compared to a drill.

[SoCalRailFan]

I have a Porter Cable pcc641, but I'm having a hard time finding it's specs, weird. Then the just is only like a 1/4 thing.

[SoCalRailFan]

Let me check, I just bought a cordless drill and it came with a impact driver. Let me find it and reply with what it is to see if it's good enough or not.

[rwbradley]

Get a Cordless Impact driver. It looks just like a cordless drill but it has way more torque. I got a Dewalt DCF885B for a little over $100. It is really small so it is easy to stow but has serious power compared to a drill.