X-chock vs. Jack Stabilizers

Bob Landry wrote:
First, I'm going to to challenge someone to explain how X-chocks which do nothing more than allowing lateral movement of the wheels, do anything more than the plastic wheel chocks since the problem is essentially up and down force being applied to the suspension and the trailer frame.

My observations.

With normal chocks at the ground level - the TT would rock forward and backward a tiny bit when my wife would walk around inside the TT. The tires actually rotate a very small amount. This was with plastic wheel chocks and the step-on chocks mentioned earlier in this thread.

As I learned when I worked around airplanes in the Navy - chocks always allow some wheel movement. The only way to totally stop wheel movement is to lock the wheel in place. You can do that with front and back chocks snugged up tight against an airplane tire. Then add several thousand pounds of fuel so the tire 'swells'. Of course, then the problem becomes trying to remove the chocks when the plane needs to move.

With X-Chocks - that movement is totally stopped.

As mentioned above - trailer shake is three dimensional movement. Up and down, side to side and forward to backward.

X-Chocks do the best job of eliminating the forward to backward movement in my experience.

Also someone mentioned the step - this is a side to side rotational force on the trailer - twisting the step side of the trailer down on the suspension and raising the non-step side up on the suspension. (Okay, maybe you aren't as fat as I am).

I also use solid under the step stabilizers to eliminate that movement.

I have/had front and rear electric stabilizers on my previous and current TT. Raising the pad point with blocks of wood does help.

I also use the one inch down, two inches up leveling - which helps reduce the shaking significantly by taking some of the weight off the springs and putting it on the stabilizers. This is necessary because the stabilizers can handle the weight - but the motors and jack screws cannot actually raise the TT that much.

My final preventative is a pair of unattached scissor jacks which I place under the frame on the 'downhill' side right in front and right behind the axles. Allows me to get that final bit of leveling.

My old TT has the rear stabilizers about 3 feet behind the rear tires. That was actually more stable than the current TT with the stabilizers on the rear corners.

The up and down movement in the rear isn't because the stabilizers aren't doing their job, but because weight transfer (movement) forward of the axles allows the suspension to flex more. The movement is actually side to side, not up and down.

Since the new TT has three slides - I'm still working on getting the leveling before extending the slides right.