audio1der
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jul 30, 2012
- Posts
- 5,300
- Reaction score
- 1,103
- Location
- Airdrie, Alberta
- Ram Year
- 2012
- Engine
- Hemi 5.7
I KNOW you guys like fabbing parts and messing around with your trucks- here is a mod I did to our trailer I thought some of you may find useful.
Our 32 footer nearly made us sea sick when the kids ran from one end to the other. Despite chocking the wheels and corner jacks as tight as can be, it had noticeable deflection of the corner stabilizers no matter how far they were extended. I should note they are the factory VERY cheaply made scissor jacks. The metal seems like "pot metal" and they do not seem to be well made.
I saw a thread somewhere on the interweb about using cargo spreader bars as jack stabilizers, and a light went on in my head. Princess Auto (think Harbour Freight in the US) has them for $15/ea. A couple feet of flat iron for the jack foot pivot brackets and a couple of feet of c-channel steel (I couldn't source c-channel steel locally so I bought square tube and ground off one side) for the frame pivot mounts. Some 5/16" hard ware, and the pics should do the rest. I'm quite proud of the bracket design. I spray painted all the brackets then baked them in the oven to toughen it.
I used two bars F-R and one at the back going side-side. I wanted a fourth lateral bar under the front, but have nothing underneath to secure it to. As you can see, I replaced the bolts in the scissor jack feet and used those as the starting point/base.
Tested the system this past weekend. Put each foot down so it just touched the Lynx leveller, ratcheted them tight, then finished screwing down the corner jack to put tension on the bars. The rear jacks were fully extended even with some Lynx blocks underneath, and the trailer was STEADY. A good test for sure. Very pleased.
Our 32 footer nearly made us sea sick when the kids ran from one end to the other. Despite chocking the wheels and corner jacks as tight as can be, it had noticeable deflection of the corner stabilizers no matter how far they were extended. I should note they are the factory VERY cheaply made scissor jacks. The metal seems like "pot metal" and they do not seem to be well made.
I saw a thread somewhere on the interweb about using cargo spreader bars as jack stabilizers, and a light went on in my head. Princess Auto (think Harbour Freight in the US) has them for $15/ea. A couple feet of flat iron for the jack foot pivot brackets and a couple of feet of c-channel steel (I couldn't source c-channel steel locally so I bought square tube and ground off one side) for the frame pivot mounts. Some 5/16" hard ware, and the pics should do the rest. I'm quite proud of the bracket design. I spray painted all the brackets then baked them in the oven to toughen it.
I used two bars F-R and one at the back going side-side. I wanted a fourth lateral bar under the front, but have nothing underneath to secure it to. As you can see, I replaced the bolts in the scissor jack feet and used those as the starting point/base.
Tested the system this past weekend. Put each foot down so it just touched the Lynx leveller, ratcheted them tight, then finished screwing down the corner jack to put tension on the bars. The rear jacks were fully extended even with some Lynx blocks underneath, and the trailer was STEADY. A good test for sure. Very pleased.
