Jack Points Part III

In this damaged jack point, you can see the area is surrounded bu C-Channel.  Getting a piece of oak or wood in here is going to be difficult. They probably assembled the framing around the wood.  My idea is to use two or three layers of fiberglass panels, glued together.  Separately, they can be slipped into place. The top panel would be relieved for the nuts used to secure the jack mount and the bottom two would provide the strength.  I am tempted to make my replacement larger than the original piece of wood, simply because I feel this area was not strong enough.

I am also tempted to make new jack mounts that are larger and expand the jack mount to secure to the side of the camper.

First, is for added strength.  If I added more backing in the side of the camper above the jack point I could bolt a bigger jack mount on there also.  I suppose that would tend to create a spot that would leak. So perhaps that is not such a good idea.

The second reason is I'm thinking about buying electric jacks and these mount to a more vertical mounting system.  The swing away dually mounts also might be nice to have. The costs for all that stuff is a lot of money.

If I stick with manual jacks and upgrade the one weak jack I have, I would save a lot of money.  I am not planning on taking the camper on and off frequently.  I plan to use this camper mostly while Boondocking.  I expect my trips to be one to four weeks, and I do not plan to remove the camper after it is mounted until I return home. I may want to leave it on most of the time. If I use a campground for hookups, it will be for short periods, and I will use my bike to get around. So the convenience of electric jacks are not that important to me.

My main concern is safety.  The three good jacks I have are a bit bent and might not work in the long run. My friend Sven says that after 45 years it might be wise to purchase new jacks.  While that makes sense, spending close to $2000 on electric jacks seems crazy to me. 

Perhaps the compromise is to fix or slightly improve the existing reinforcing, wire the camper for electric jacks--just in case, and to try out the old jacks and see how well they work.

Given the height of my truck bed, none of these jacks are tall enough for my truck.  I will need to modify these to make them longer and the two front ones cannot have tripods, just vertical tubes with pad on the bottom if I want to clear my dually wheels.  All that seems like a lot of work but should not cost too much if I ultimately decide to chuck the old jacks.

I've seen a number of old camper with these old Atwood jacks.  Removing one bolt and loosening another allows you to swing the jacks up towards each other and they can be hung outside the camper.  This is convenient to stow, they are out of the way, the amount of time needed to loosen and tighten eight bolts is minimal.