Grit dog
Black Diamond, WA
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What’s the cradle for and what does it have to do with the jacks? ![[emoticon]](http://www.coastresorts.com/sharedcontent/cfb/images/scratchead.gif "scratchead")
2016 Ram 2500, MotorOps.ca EFIlive tuned, 5” turbo back, 6" lift on 37s
2017 Heartland Torque T29 - Sold.
Couple of Arctic Fox TCs - Sold
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adamis
Northern California
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Grit dog wrote:What’s the cradle for and what does it have to do with the jacks?
The cradle serves two functions. First, it raises the camper 3" so the camper will clear the roof of the truck. Second, it prevents it from sliding side to side in the bed of the truck. Previously I used a combination of Foam sandwiched between plywood coupled with rubber mats. This all worked well enough but since the weight of the camper is along the perimeter of the camper, the foam on the outside edge of the platform was starting to get more compressed than the inside. This also was leading to some additional movement in the camper on rough roads because of the compressive nature of the foam. The platform addresses both of these issues.
As far as removing the jacks, the camper stays on the truck full time. The only need for the jacks was to either realign if the camper moved around in the bed or to stabilize in windy conditions. With the cradle in place, the camper has very little room to move in the bed of the truck so that eliminates that issue. As far as the stability is concerned, I've put the jacks down maybe twice in 5 years and while nice, I can partially get the same stability by inflating the airbags on the truck to provide some rigidity to the springs.
I want to remove the jacks for two reasons. The first is to service them as they are very tired and barely lift the camper as it is. The second, is to reduce weight since they just aren't needed at this time. My plan is to remove for a couple of local trips to figure out first if I'm happy and don't notice any issues I didn't foresee. If no problems are encountered, I will keep them off and start my winter project of rebuilding them.
1999 F350 Dually with 7.3 Diesel
2000 Bigfoot 10.6 Camper
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Grit dog
Black Diamond, WA
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Awesome! My bad. I didn’t know you had the camper padded up that high in the bed. Perfect solution.
And operation saggy tanks looks solid too! Nice work.
I think it’s almost a long term maintenance item on TCs. Our old one was great and then a little saggy when full tanks off the truck and then one day. Pop. Lost a tanks strap. Similar deal. Braced them all up.
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mike/kellie
northern calif.
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With the likelihood of being jackless, make sure you carry a bottle jack rated to lift more than the OEM in the event of a rear tire change.
2015 Host Mammoth triple slide w/ TorkLift Fastguns
2015 Ram 5500 SLT cab & chassis with Douglass 9' utility body
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StirCrazy
Kamloops, BC, Canada
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mike/kellie wrote:With the likelihood of being jackless, make sure you carry a bottle jack rated to lift more than the OEM in the event of a rear tire change.
OEM, at least my ford, is rated to jack up a rear tire with the truck loaded to its full capacity. I tested that last summer and it worked great, although a nice hydraulic bottle jack would probably be faster....
2014 F350 6.7 Platinum
2016 Cougar 330RBK
1991 Slumberqueen WS100
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stevenal
Newport, OR, USA
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My local Ford dealership service bays cannot accommodate my truck with the camper on board. I'd hate to get stuck on the road somewhere with a similar situation and no jacks.
'18 Bigfoot 1500
Torklifts and Fastguns
'17 F350 Powerstroke Supercab SRW LB 4X4
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adamis
Northern California
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stevenal wrote:My local Ford dealership service bays cannot accommodate my truck with the camper on board. I'd hate to get stuck on the road somewhere with a similar situation and no jacks.
Valid concern but my truck being older than 20 years won't be visiting any Ford dealerships for service anytime soon. The times that I have needed work done, it's been a small independent shop and they just wrenched on it outside. Not ideal but got the job done.
I'm still debating removing the jacks entirely. I do need to remove them to service them. Whether they go back on or not will just depend on how comfortable I am after a few short trips without.
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StirCrazy
Kamloops, BC, Canada
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stevenal wrote:My local Ford dealership service bays cannot accommodate my truck with the camper on board. I'd hate to get stuck on the road somewhere with a similar situation and no jacks.
I think that it is more of a matter of them not wanting the liability. I have been to ford dealerships, lube change places and such and none had a problem with my camper being on the truck
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Grit dog
Black Diamond, WA
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Yeah, removing the jacks off a TC is like hooking up a trailer and locking the hitch on and throwing away the key.
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stevenal
Newport, OR, USA
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StirCrazy wrote:
I think that it is more of a matter of them not wanting the liability. I have been to ford dealerships, lube change places and such and none had a problem with my camper being on the truck
I can assure you the bays are not tall enough. Even if it was simply a liability issue, that would be reason enough to keep jacks on.
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