Monday, June 25, 2012

Jack Points

My friend Carlton, a welder came over and looked at my camper today.  I have three issues of concern with the four jack point.

First, with my dually Silverado, while it can carry the camper well without modification, the camper is not set up for a dually.  I purchased spacers, but the jack are tripod jacks and the only way I can used these jacks is to chain the tripod together making into a pole.

Second, my pickup bed is really high and the jacks are not long enough, so I have had to use lumber spacers to get the height I need--a cheesy operation.

Third, the aft port side jack is rotten out.  I think it will be easy enough to repair that corner.  It does make me think the jack points are inadequate.




Modern electric jacks don't have tripod bases for stability.  Instead the brackets are more vertical.  So my plan is to repair the jack points back to the original configuration, and then add an adapter plate made out of aluminum that would be secured to the frame of the camper higher up.  I also want to use modern swing out dually brackets.  So I suppose the next step is to buy some swing out brackets and then test fit them and figure out how to tie it all together. Then I can figure out how to reinforce the corner higher up.

There are U-channel aluminum extrusions facing each other which would make it difficult to insert one piece of wood.  My options would most likely be to cut a slot in the C-channel farther up and slide the reinforcing down.  Or I could laminate several smaller pieces in.  All Carlton needs is a sketch of what I want and he can build it for me.

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