Upgrade manual crank jacks to electric?

[PancakeBill]

I have 4 of the crank handle jacks, Seems to me when I had a TC before with this style there was an electric head you could upgrade to? Am I correct?

 

[CharlesinGA]

Depends on the brand. Atwood was acquired by Dometic and the Atwood jacks have gone away, they have a few parts left. Rieco-Titan is making conversion kits for them, HappiJac makes several different models. It all hinges on what brand you have now.

Charles

 

[PancakeBill]

They look like the Atwoods. but I looked at the cost of the conversion heads and the cost of a new set of electric jacks, I believe I can do just fine with my drill and crank attachment.

I'll watch for take off set.

 

[TonyL]

I think BAL make a kit, that's what we have on our fifth wheel in the UK on the rear steadys. A 12 volt motor and gearbox slides on to the hexagonal winder head and the gearbox is attached to the steady pivot shaft with two plates. The attached picture is of the motor.

 

[RVfixer]

I agree that my battery drill motor works just fine with a stabilizer jack socket adapter. Some other tips: If you stack up some boards for feet, like shown in an above post, the trailer will be more stable. The further you crank down your stabilizer jacks that less stable your trailer will be. Also, these jacks should be snubbed only and not used for leveling the trailer. First off they are not suppose to be strong enough for leveling and you can bend your frame putting that much pressure that far out on the corners of the frame...although I do at times do a minor extra crank or so to improve leveling on one side.

That reminds me of a story: I was dumping my tanks with plans to return to my campsite when a guy asked me how to put water into his new TT. I showed him and told him my campsite number in case he had more questions. Later he called me to look at his generator problem. It was an overload trip and no power was being produced by the running generator and it would not reset. I told him he had to shut the generator down the generator to reset the overload breaker and told him about power management. They had the AC running, were perking coffee and turned on the microwave all on a 2000 watt generator.

This campsite was way off level side to side and I looked to see what he had under that side tires. To my surprise there was nothing under the tires and they were 6 inches plus up in the air on the stab jacks. I've not seen that before and was surprised that he had used an impact wrench to get the wheels off the ground and the trailer level...WOW! This was a very long TT. I told him he could bend the frame and put axles/tires out of line leveling with the stab jacks and the jacks could collapse, I said that he should use boards or the like under the tires to level. He didn't take that advice. Good luck!

 

[CharlesinGA]

I think BAL make a kit, that's what we have on our fifth wheel in the UK on the rear steadys. A 12 volt motor and gearbox slides on to the hexagonal winder head and the gearbox is attached to the steady pivot shaft with two plates. The attached picture is of the motor.

I agree that my battery drill motor works just fine with a stabilizer jack socket adapter. Some other tips: If you stack up some boards for feet, like shown in an above post, the trailer will be more stable. The further you crank down your stabilizer jacks that less stable your trailer will be. Also, these jacks should be snubbed only and not used for leveling the trailer. First off they are not suppose to be strong enough for leveling and you can bend your frame putting that much pressure that far out on the corners of the frame...although I do at times do a minor extra crank or so to improve leveling on one side.

That reminds me of a story: I was dumping my tanks with plans to return to my campsite when a guy asked me how to put water into his new TT. I showed him and told him my campsite number in case he had more questions. Later he called me to look at his generator problem. It was an overload trip and no power was being produced by the running generator and it would not reset. I told him he had to shut the generator down the generator to reset the overload breaker and told him about power management. They had the AC running, were perking coffee and turned on the microwave all on a 2000 watt generator.

This campsite was way off level side to side and I looked to see what he had under that side tires. To my surprise there was nothing under the tires and they were 6 inches plus up in the air on the stab jacks. I've not seen that before and was surprised that he had used an impact wrench to get the wheels off the ground and the trailer level...WOW! This was a very long TT. I told him he could bend the frame and put axles/tires out of line leveling with the stab jacks and the jacks could collapse, I said that he should use boards or the like under the tires to level. He didn't take that advice. Good luck!

I think Bill is referring to a slide in truck camper he may have, or has, found.

Its quite a shock to see $3K to $4K for a set of jacks for a truck camper.

Charles

 

[RVfixer]

Oh yeah, I see that TC reference now, I feel for the photo of the trailer...Oh well..........................