Is there a stability difference between having your front landing gear fully retracted and pulling the pins to drop feet? Or is is better to extend the landing gear down a bit before pulling pins and dropping feet?
Is there a difference or just a preference?

 

Historically the manufacturer's recommendation has been to split the difference, but I am not sure it really makes much difference.

Running down a bit give you more wiggle room for adjusting, in the event you have to drop the front below the off-load height. Sometimes just pulling the pin and then lifting off the truck leaves you too high after you come down off your truck, if I am following what you are doing.

Steve

 

After all the problems that I have read on RV forums about landing gear ..... the less you use them the better. When I pull into a campground or the house I ALWAYS manually drop the gear down on a couple of 12" x 12" 2 x12's on each side to take up some room and insert the pins. Then I use the elec. motor to raise the 5th wheel just enough to unhitch.

As you know this is a "screw jack" mechanism and the worst thing you can do is extend the gear all the way out until it can't go any further or crank the gear back up where it binds. Doing this can break it, strip the screw gear or just plain get it stuck.

 

..........sorry forgot to mention the "JT Strong Arm" stabilizer system with the big "elephant feet" here's a pic of our rig with them. They really work good and they only cost about $200 if you install them yourself.

 

You know this landing gear problem is something I used to see almost weekly and now seldom see it. Seemed like there was a time when I was rebuilding legs constantly.

I run ours down a few inches using the motor. Pull the pin and drop the legs onto a 6x4 on each side. Set the pin, run it up off the truck and then run it down. Been doing it that way for over a decade.

I don't think there is a right or wrong way here, but landing gear problems are not common place in my world.

What I have seen tear up landing gear is folks trying to use it to level side-to-side. Worked on one where the owner parked on such a side-to-side slant, it was amazing he would even try to use the landing gear, but there he went. Dropped the low side leg and tried to bring the whole fiver up level. I had to use bottle jacks to get it back on the truck. Needless to say the leg took a dump.

Steve

 

Speaking of those strong arms, the other thing I have seen are bent legs from folks dragging them or hitching like they are trying to back through the fiver!

Steve

 

People checking to see that the hitch is locked without wheel chocks.

 

Probably. Even though chocked, I still use my brake controller manually to make sure nothing can move.

Steve

 

I have pulled the break-away to test the hitch hook up.... but don't have to do that anymore with the Anderson.

 

Here is something I forgot to say about landing gear. Some of you are old like me and remember when the gear boxes were metal rather than plastic. Those never tore up. Now they are plastic and sometimes the locator nubs break off and the gear box spins around. In a pinch, you can use a stainless steel band and clamp it to the leg. If you can't find one large enough, just use two 3" ones and fasten them together. Works surprisingly well.

I have very little trouble with the worm (spiral) and very seldom have to replace those. I do carry one set of bevel gears on my service truck.

 

Speaking as someone who has moved other peoples' campers, please wind the jacks down a couple inches before pulling the pins. If the truck that dropped your camper isn't the truck that is going to pick it up next, and you never know when that might happen, you could be setting yourself up for problems. Also if you find you need to lower your nose a bit to get level you could run out of travel before the bubble is center.

 

It takes a bit of experience to figure how much to extend when you are nose high off level. It's very frustrating to have to hook up and adjust the legs so you can lower the nose once you have disconnected. I started judging it seriously after the second time!

 

You should try scrounging for something to back over so your hitch can get high enough to grab the pin while the nearby river is rising 2 feet an hour...

 

Do you have them on both front landing gears and rear stabilizers, or just the front? How would you compare them to the Kingpin Tripod/Bipod setup? I have been looking for something to take some of the shake out. (I currently have the Kingpin Bipod stabilizer, but can be sometimes a pain to setup.

Thanks

 

rdlouks, just have them on the front and that seems to work very well with the big truck type rubber wheel chocks. We've been in some pretty good wind and the rig doesn't move at all.

Also from the other comments on here about bending legs and such, of course the owner has to be responsible enough to remember that you have to loosen the T bolts and raise the legs once you're hooked to the truck. I would recommend these to anyone that has a 5th wheel, look on ebay for the best price.