Quote:
Originally Posted by Cougar Campers
Storage facility requests pads under fifth wheel landing gear. Picking up a new Cougar this Saturday, and want to cut wood for this ahead of time, if possible. Can anyone advise size of cut wood? Thanks so much...total newbies as you can tell, but eager to learn! This forum gives wonderful info!
|
You are going to need this stuff for a lot more than protecting the storage facilities pavement. Many campsites are not particularly level. Some of them will have very soft ground where you park the trailer. So you'll need some flexibility to help set up your camp.
First, you'll need something to drive the trailer up on to level it side-to-side. Some folks use the plastic leveling blocks. Others prefer 2x8 or 2x10 stock. I use 2x8's cut to about a foot in length for under the tires.
Second, I've never been a fan of extending the scissors jack style stabilizers more than about 50%. I think they become wobbly after that. So I use 4x4 lumber cut to a foot in length to build up under the jacks. It also spreads the load out if the ground is soft.
Third, landing gear or nose jack, doesn't matter as you'll definitely want to put something under them from time to time for various reasons.
Fourth, I also carry a few pieces of 1x4 cut to about a foot in length. They're half the thickness of the 2x stock so you can fine tune leveling if needed.
Some folks camp on sand or very sandy soil from time to time. It's very desirable to place large pads under the tires and all supports when doing this to spread out the load and prevent anything from sinking. If you put the stabilizers down with out sand pads, you're guaranteed that they'll sink in and be totally ineffective. Same goes for the landing gear or nose jack. I like to use several wide boards under each tire for the same reason.
The real way to look at all this is that you primarily need the boards or blocks for camping set up. Keeping the storage guy happy is just an added benefit.