Landing gear stripped

[Albert]

This was sent to me from a friend who is camping at salmon harbor on the Oregon coast. Anyone have any suggestion on how to help. My friend is very handy.

"John, you might find this interesting. The guy next to us has a triple axle 5th wheel. He is having problems with his landing gear. They under sized the gearbox and motor so it keeps stripping out. He had a new gearbox installed before he left Las Vegas and just had another put in, which immediately broke. He is supposed to move into our site on Saturday when we move out however at this point he is stuck. I told him I would help him tomorrow to see if we could figure it out since the RV repair guy was no help. When he gets it home he is going to replace the gear with a two motor system. It is a 38' Raptor"

[chartrand]

Most landing gear is not designed to level the trailer, just to go to the ground and help it to not rock as you move around inside. It sounds to me like your friend is trying to use them in a way they were not designed to work.

Pat


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[MarkS]

You can use a couple of bottle jacks and timbers to jack up the frame so he can hitch the truck. Put the trailer on timbers only while hitching. The jacks are too unstable to take the hitching bump.

Ditto for un-hitching. But, I would take it to a dealer, once he is hitched to repair the landing gear.

You don't want to use the stabilizer jacks to level, you have to use the landing gear to level a 5er.

[Festus2]

Chartrand -
While the primary purpose of a 5th wheel landing gear is to raise or lower the 5th wheel while hitching or unhitching, it is quite capable of leveling the RV. If one side is lower or higher than the other, use can use your landing gear in addition to putting boards under the wheels to level it.

Same with back to front leveling. You pretty much have to use the landing gear to either raise or lower the 5th wheel to level it from front to back.

The stripping of the gears in the landing jacks is probably not due to trying to use the jacks for leveling. The gears could be stripped from a bent landing gear, lack of grease, gears out of alignment, or other causes.

[maxx1963]

Sounds like the thrust bearings are froze up, same thing happened to me. A guy sells them on eBay for venture landing gear. That's the only place I have found them.

[diugo]

Originally Posted by Festus2

The gears could be stripped from a bent landing gear, lack of grease, gears out of alignment, or other causes.

Or, they could just be Lippert landing gear. Had one leg strip while raising my tiny trailer, less than a year after purchase. Fortunately the other leg held, or I might have been killed. Frame got some good torque, though. Amazing what Keystone does to save a buck.

Immediately replaced both legs myself with Atwoods and have had no problems since.