Skid Wheels on Travel Trailer

[cpt_majestic]

Hi Everyone:
New here and my first post. I'm in a situation where my storage place is a pretty steep driveway and I have to remove my rear jacks in order to place it in the driveway and it barley makes it without scrapping and was wondering if skid wheels would be the way to go.

I have a new 2012 26rl and some people have mentioned TT aren't really meant to have skid wheels placed on them and\or the frame isn't meant for the load. I was basically going to have some bracketts made where the rear jacks go and just reinstall the jack when camping.


Any thoughts or suggestions???

[Goat815]

I think your on the right track, my only thought would be if you have your skid wheels to low and as you went up the hill and lifted your tires off the ground it could tweak the frame of your trailer. Just a thought. Another option would be to lift the TT, corse more expensive. Good luck.

[chuck&gail]

Could you resculpture driveway? That is what we did, but our driveway is dirt/gravel.

[Loui]

I had to put a set of skid wheels on our last TT it was 30 ft with about 8 ft behind the wheels and the trailer was built low to the ground.
To get in our driveway the skid bars would touch just enough to dig in the driveway. I replaced the skid bars with a set of 4" wheels.
I was surprised how often they would hit the ground leaving parking lots etc. you just need to be aware and take it slow.

I once witnessed a TT leaving a freshly paved McDonalds parking lot only to have those angled skid bars dig into the pavement....poor guy couldn't go forward or backward with the TV blocking 2 lanes of traffic...the guy even tried taking the equalizer bars off to get unstuck, ended up with a tow truck pulling them onto the street.

[JRTJH]

Our HR was a 34CBFK. It was actually 35'11". As I remember, there was almost a 10-12' overhang behind the rear tire. The trailer sat about 15" off the ground, so we got "hung" on almost every rise in the road. Almost all parking lots, crowns on most roads, etc. Holiday Rambler had seen fit to weld two angle brackets under the rear bumper to act as skid plates. They were OK (barely) and over the first year or so, they wore down to paper thin because of the excessive scraping as we travelled. When I realized how worn they were, I had another set of skid plates with "skid wheels" welded in place. Total cost back then was about $50. Now, the materials alone are $151 at Tweety's RV. You might find them cheaper somewhere else, or possibly find someone to make them for less. Anyway, when we replaced the original skid plates with rollers, no more scraping, no more digging in when backing (on hard surfaces) and much easier to get across intersections without the rear of the trailer "dragging along behind us."

Here's a picture of what we used to solve our problem.

[cpt_majestic]

Thanks everyone:
Yeah my biggest concern was tweaking the frame if it may lift a tire off the ground. My current solution is placing a 2X6 under the tires just when it's about to scrape and that should lift it up just enough to get it up there.

My long term solution is to find another storage facility thats nice and flat, but it's hard to beat the current price I'm paying (free).

[hankaye]

Howdy All;

Have you considered 'flipping your axles ????

http://www.rv-boondocking-the-good-l...ngrvaxles.html

alot of the folks out here in the mountians do so for the extra clearance
when they go boondockin' in the Rockies...

only a suggestion.

hankaye

[CincyGus]

Two solutions I know of. One you are cuurently using about carrying a couple boards to place in front of the tires to drive up on and raise the trailers height.

The second is to take a second hitch ball and mount that is a bigger drop and stop and unhitch and switch ball mounts, making the trailer nose down more, prior to parking it. I had a friend who went though this on the street in front of his house every trip for a while until he traded his TT in for something with hgher ground clearance. A lot of extra work but a reasonable cheap solution if it's only a couple of inches you need.

I would avoid using skid wheels all together as I just don't believe most TT frames are strong enough to support the weight that would be on them and would eventually bend the frame.

Finding a better place to park, flipping the axles are the two best but more expensive solutions.