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Topic: Do Some Travel Trailers Have Levelling Jacks?
Posted By: DallasSteve on 09/24/22 09:07pm

I read an article explaining the difference between stabilizer jacks and leveling jacks. I owned a motor home in the past and it had automatic leveling jacks. I understand from the article that stabilizer jacks are not designed to lift a travel trailer, just to stop them from moving side to side. Some of the more expensive travel trailers that I see advertised for sale say they have leveling jacks. Are those actually leveling jacks designed to raise and level the trailer? Are they operated from controls inside the trailer or outside?

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Posted By: Bobmontana on 09/25/22 09:48am

I've only ever seen stabilzer jacks on trailers. I've often questioned a why motorhome jacks are used to lift the vehicle off the ground for leveling. Still, built in jacks for leveling that are capable of lifting would be handy for flat tires but I doubt that occurs often enough to be a real advantage .

Posted By: afidel on 09/25/22 10:26am

Yes, Lippert makes two different leveling systems for travel trailers. The first one looks like stabilizer jacks on steroids. https://store.lci1.com/rv-leveling-systems
The second is for heavier trailers and is an adaptation of their 4 point electric system for lighter fifth wheels (I can't find it on their site but I've seen YouTube videos of partners/influencers who had it installed on their trailer as part of the partnership program)

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Posted By: DallasSteve on 09/25/22 10:41am

I just did a Google search about this and I found this good article listing 7 trailers with auto leveling. These are bumper pull trailers, which is what I want. It appears that auto leveling is a more common feature in 5th wheel trailers.

Trailers With Auto Leveling

Posted By: Gdetrailer on 09/25/22 10:44am

How hard is it to toss a board under the trailer wheels and pull onto the board?

Answer, pretty easy.

How hard to toss boards under two or more wheels of a motor home?

Answer, not as easy as a trailer.

Not saying there isn't any TTs made with built in "levelers", there most likely is some but in reality it would be a very expensive item which has a tendency to fail or break down at the worst possible moment when you need it to work.

They do make levels with markings in 1 inch increments that takes most of the guess work out of leveling a trailer.

[image]

When you get to your site, check the side to side level before unhitching, place your wood or plastic leveling blocks in front or behind the trailer wheels then pull on to the blocks. Now you have side to side done.

Place your wheel chocks then unhitch.

With trailer unhitched lift or lower tongue until you achieve front to back level.

Now run stabilizers down.

Done.

Motor homes leveling can get pretty complex and built in levelers make the job of leveling a lot easier.

Travel trailers, not as difficult to level since you are dealing with wheels in same close space making it a much simpler task without automation.

Posted By: LMHS on 09/25/22 11:10am

I was always given to understand that one really shouldn't lift any camper/motorhome off the ground and not have the tires supported. I know that it caused problems with the suspension on an Eagle bus to have it's tires unsupported.

Posted By: DallasSteve on 09/25/22 11:10am

Gdetrailer

Thanks for those tips. Maybe that's the better solution. Are the stabilizers/tongue lift usually manual? Can I use something like an electric screwdriver?

Posted By: DallasSteve on 09/25/22 11:12am

LMHS wrote:

I was always given to understand that one really shouldn't lift any camper/motorhome off the ground and not have the tires supported. I know that it caused problems with the suspension on an Eagle bus to have it's tires unsupported.

I never tried to lift the tires of my motorhome off the ground, for that reason, but most of the time I was able to get a good leveling with the wheels on the ground. When I couldn't get fully level we were able to tolerate it for a day or two in that park.

Posted By: spoon059 on 09/25/22 11:57am

Yes, I've got friends with a newer trailer and leveling jacks. Pretty cool, seems much more stable than just leveling jacks.

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Posted By: Pbutler97 on 09/25/22 02:58pm

If you know what you're looking at, and crawl under most travel trailers that were built in the last 10 years or so and are on a Lippert frame, you might have second thoughts before you jack it up to change a tire let alone jacking the entire thing up off the ground to level it.

Posted By: Gdetrailer on 09/25/22 03:42pm

DallasSteve wrote:

Gdetrailer

Thanks for those tips. Maybe that's the better solution. Are the stabilizers/tongue lift usually manual? Can I use something like an electric screwdriver?


You can buy aftermarket electric tongue jacks and replace the manual tongue jack if the trailer was not equipped with an electric jack.

For bolted/welded on stabilizers you can often adapt a battery powered drill to run them up and down to speed up setup and tear down.

Posted By: JRscooby on 09/25/22 05:51pm

Gdetrailer wrote:

How hard is it to toss a board under the trailer wheels and pull onto the board?

Answer, pretty easy.

How hard to toss boards under two or more wheels of a motor home?

Answer, not as easy as a trailer.


MH, you need to check 2 levels. 1 side to, the other front/rear. Then add what need to lift for the lowest corner. Then place the stacks so 3 wheels top at same time.



Quote:

They do make levels with markings in 1 inch increments that takes most of the guess work out of leveling a trailer.


I use plastic blocks, and have my bubbles marked so each mark is another layer in the stack

Quote:

When you get to your site, check the side to side level before unhitching, place your wood or plastic leveling blocks in front or behind the trailer wheels then pull on to the blocks. Now you have side to side done.



This is where many people have problems. Put board in front of left tire, when the right drops in a hole as you pull forward, too much board. Best idea is stack your boards centered on axle, move the trailer until can slide stack in line with wheel, put trailer back where it was, just higher.

Posted By: I-Can-Am-Can-You on 09/25/22 07:05pm

Quadra makes systems for leveling just about anything.

Posted By: Jack_Diane_Freedom on 09/25/22 08:10pm

I have a friend with a large TT with an auto levelling system and it works quite well. No problems after 3 years of use.

Posted By: MitchF150 on 09/25/22 08:51pm

I think those self leveling jacks are placed a lot closer to the axles than at the very ends of the rig like the stabilizer jacks are placed..

I got the "strong arm" stabilizer jack extensions and those made a huge difference in the bounce/wobble of the rig once leveled..

I'll use boards under the tires to bring the rig close if it's off more than a full bubble of level just sitting there. More if necessary.. But, I crank them enough to get some weight on them to 'stabilize' the rig, then crank on the strong arm bars and it's pretty much rock solid at that point.

I know that's not your question, but I also jack up my trailer with a bottle jack to check the brakes and pack the bearings and I put jack stands on either side of the frame as close to the axles as I can and it's actually very solid!

I'd do that in the camp ground, but too much trouble and effort when my strong arms do a good enough job for "camping".. [emoticon]
[image]

Mitch

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Posted By: penguin149 on 09/25/22 09:01pm

Pbutler97 wrote:

If you know what you're looking at, and crawl under most travel trailers that were built in the last 10 years or so and are on a Lippert frame, you might have second thoughts before you jack it up to change a tire let alone jacking the entire thing up off the ground to level it.


My thoughts as well! TT frames seem to be the thinnest possible to reduce weight and allow for more vehicles to be used as TV's. Leveling jacks would test frame strength and probably not turn out well! Same reason adding a lot of weight to the rear bumper scares me.

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Posted By: APT on 09/26/22 08:52am

There are systems available on some TT brands from the factory. I personally would not use that feature as a filter for which TT I buy. Every TT comes with a tongue jack (manual crank or electric power) which covers front to back leveling. Side to side as mentioned already is done with something under the low side tires (boards, plastic lego blocks, etc.). For me, I think the time savings of having a fully automatic system is about 5 minutes per arrival/departure. Cost for an electric jack is ~150 and another $50 for lego blocks.

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Posted By: ralph day on 09/26/22 09:10am

I have the little stick on levels on my 19' coach. Just be sure you're looking at the correct one when levelling. We just got back from a trip, had the Anderson levelers under the tires in the usual driveway spot, but couldn't get the bubble in the middle! We were looking at the end to end level (on the trailer side) instead of the one on the trailer front for side to side level. Tired maybe?

Posted By: Grit dog on 09/26/22 09:10am

Steve, go look at some travel trailers. That will answer most of your questions with visual cues.

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Posted By: p38fln on 10/07/22 10:42am

We have a friend with a 1984 Coachmen 32 foot travel trailer. It's virtually identical to our 1991 Citation 32 foot travel trailer. The Coachmen was obviously a higher class unit when new, his has leveling jacks at all 4 corners along with a built in analog clock and water tank sensors, while the Citation...has absolutely nothing. I level the Citation by putting jack stands under the frame between the rear axle and last crossmember before the bumper, lowering the nose jack, raising the jack stands, then raise the nose jack back up. I'm not trying to get the wheels off the ground just make the bathtub drain properly and keep the thing from bouncing everywhere when someone walks through the bedroom.

We had a 1991 Starcraft Starburst popup trailer before the Citation and its built in stabilizers could only be used to 'level' the trailer by messing with the nose jack as well. In that Starburst's case, if you didn't put some tension on the stabilizer jacks the door wouldn't stay shut and the single axle trailer would get extremely bouncy if someone got in one of the bunks without getting the jacks SOLIDLY on the ground.

FYI - He said only one leveling jack still works and he uses a bottle jack and a bunch of wood to level it.

Posted By: Reisender on 10/07/22 11:35am

Levelling jacks systems for trailers but it’s rare to see them. For us it’s just an extra minute or two to level with those Lego block thingies. We only have an 18 foot single axle trailer though.

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