5th Wheel Leveling, front/rear

[NV.Dan]

So I'm finding out that leveling a 5th Wheel front/rear is totally different that a bumper pull. I am not finding very many videos on tips regarding this. Most of them are leveling on flat or nearly flat surfaces which doesn't help and only showing side to side leveling tips. When the nose is pointed up hill and it needs to drop to level the trailer, what is the suggested manual drop of the front jacks to allow the hydraulics to engage enough to come down and then retract to drop the nose to level? How far do the hydraulics extend down not to over exceed them? Thank you

[chuckster57]

I have learned over the years to judge how much outer leg to extend before I extend the inner legs. If you’ll need to drop the nose extend the outer legs a lot before extending the inner legs. If the nose needs to go up then it’s just the opposite.

If you have auto level, it’s about the same process for the landing gear.

[Essvar]

The majority of my trips are boondocking for moto events and most spots are wonky at best . In addition to the previous suggestions I’ve learned to “eyeball” where level will be and place blocks under the appropriate jacks/landing gear so I don’t use more than 1/2 of the available stroke.

[bobbecky]

Originally Posted by NV.Dan

So I'm finding out that leveling a 5th Wheel front/rear is totally different that a bumper pull. I am not finding very many videos on tips regarding this. Most of them are leveling on flat or nearly flat surfaces which doesn't help and only showing side to side leveling tips. When the nose is pointed up hill and it needs to drop to level the trailer, what is the suggested manual drop of the front jacks to allow the hydraulics to engage enough to come down and then retract to drop the nose to level? How far do the hydraulics extend down not to over exceed them? Thank you

If you are on a site that has that much slope front to rear, you probably should put the system into manual mode, drop the front down as far as you can go, then raise the rear until the rig is level. I would not fully retract the front jacks until you are level side to side as those jacks need to be able to float without running out of travel. You might also consider blocking under the four rear jacks to shorten up how much ram is extended. We have regularly been in spots that are the opposite, so use tall blocks under the front jacks to reduce the amount of exposed rams.

[sourdough]

Are you trying to level or "auto level"? Different methods for me.

[NV.Dan]

We have a auto leveling system. We have not yet had the chance to take the unit out, but finding scenarios in my brain that make me think. I’ve only been able to do test runs to different parking lots to test these theory's out.

[Essvar]

Originally Posted by NV.Dan

We have a auto leveling system. We have not yet had the chance to take the unit out, but finding scenarios in my brain that make me think. I’ve only been able to do test runs to different parking lots to test these theory's out.

Don’t worry, after 50x you’ll have the process down solid. My DW loved to count how many times I went in and out of the trailer with my 6ft level to verify…fyi don’t do that it will drive you crazy

[GHen]

I have a couple of stick-on bubble levels. They have little tick marks showing how much it’s out of level. For me, each tick mark represents 3”. So if it’s off 3, I know I need to put out 9” so it can level back up.
Then I unhitch, lower to just below level and then push auto level.

[NV.Dan]

Thanks, that's some good advice. I just ordered some bubbles thinking along these same lines. Get it manually close as you can then hit the auto level to complete.

[Essvar]

Originally Posted by NV.Dan

Thanks, that's some good advice. I just order some bubbles thinking along these same lines. Get it manually close as you can then hit the auto level to complete.

With Auto-Level after I have the zero point set exactly right, I eyeball where I think level will be, place blocks accordingly. Press the button and watch the magic happen No real need to get it close manually, if anything you risk hurting the jacks by putting too much pressure fore/aft while trying to get it close.

[bobbecky]

No need for bubble levels. When you are in Manual mode, as you are raising or lowering front to rear or side to side, the display will give you the degrees out of level, so when you get to zero degrees, you are level in that direction.

[Skillet173]

Originally Posted by Essvar

The majority of my trips are boondocking for moto events and most spots are wonky at best . In addition to the previous suggestions I’ve learned to “eyeball” where level will be and place blocks under the appropriate jacks/landing gear so I don’t use more than 1/2 of the available stroke.

By “moto” I’m assuming you mean MX? I agree, some pit areas at local venues can be trying at best! Early bird gets the “level” ones.
My son and I had picking, backing, leveling, opening, unloading, and set up of our pit pretty much down with TT with 10-15 events a year and all manual set up. With new trailer (x2 size) there will be a learning curve to say the least.
Question.
Do you level side to side with wheels(block/etc.) first?

[dutchmensport]

My Montana is 41 feet long, so even a gentle incline, front to back - or - back to front can cause a drastic difference from the bottom of the trailer to the ground height.

It takes some time and making mistakes several times before one gets the "eye" for what will work and what will not work.

One thing I did, when we first got our fifth wheel, was to raise the front jacks as high as they would go and actually measured the angle before the rear touched the ground. I then did the same thing by lowering the front all the way down till it would not go any lower and captured the angle again of the bottom of the trailer and the ground again.

This gave me a base-line of what my "extremes" on either end will be in order to get the trailer level. Unfortunately, I have only about 5 inches of clearance between the bottom of the front jacks and the ground (on level ground), so I am really limited if the slope is back to front and the front has to go lower than the jacks will let me to be level.

But knowing where this point is, is critical when setting up camp. The alternative is to block the tires up higher, so you get more ground clearance (on either end of trailer, if the angle is greater than your base-line. It is amazing how much more distance you can gain by adding 1 and 1/2 inches of lumber under the tires, when that distance is multiplied by 20 feet either direction.

Sometimes the slope has been pretty steep for us. When that happens I'll block the tires even higher. I always carry enough lumber to raise all four tires off the ground about 4 and 1/2 inches.

I think a picture will explain what I'm trying to say, whereas a thousand words are still confusing:

[Essvar]

Originally Posted by Skillet173

By “moto” I’m assuming you mean MX? I agree, some pit areas at local venues can be trying at best! Early bird gets the “level” ones.
My son and I had picking, backing, leveling, opening, unloading, and set up of our pit pretty much down with TT with 10-15 events a year and all manual set up. With new trailer (x2 size) there will be a learning curve to say the least.
Question.
Do you level side to side with wheels(block/etc.) first?

I do both Moto... MX and RoadRace. Obviously the road racing events are in the asphalt jungle so the slope is rarely more than 2% in any direction. No need to do anything there just unhitch and hit the magic button.



OffRoad events as you know can be variable at best. I will try to find the any spot that will fit my rig, then if there's more than one I'll get a bit more picky looking for something mostly level. With the 6pt leveling system you don't need to back the wheels up onto anything as they become negated as soon as the jacks engage. If the spot is obviously very uneven side to side I'll put a couple blocks under all the jacks on one side (even the landing gear) to "even it out" I've only had to do this one time. "most" of the time the port/starboard leveling is within my tolerance of the jacks stroke. I have auto-leveled and felt the jacks on one side were too far extended so I retracted them and put blocks on one side then hit auto-level again.