Rockin' and shakin' - RV-Dreams Community Forum

The Crumps · RV-Dreams Family Member

Rockin' and shakin'

flyone · RV-Dreams Family Member

Sounds like you need to look into a couple of things--a bigger pad below the jack plate may help a little, it may keep the plate from sinking in, or it may be as simple as getting a few screw jacks and placing them in stragic points under the RV. Also there is a product call JT's Strong Arm which criss-crosses between the hyd jacks, they seem to work well for most, however they are pretty expensive. There are knock off's around that are cheaper. If you go with the jacks make sure you get some kind of screw jack that can be adjusted to any height, not a ratch jack that jumps by 1/2" every time.

Flyone

Oop's sorry--looks like once again I opened my mouth and removed all doubt.

-- Edited by flyone on Thursday 19th of May 2011 11:14:12 AM

Bill Adams · RV-Dreams Family Member

I believe that Flyone is referring to accessories you can add to a 5th wheel and I don't believe that they are appropriate to a Class A motorhome.
Generally, a Class A coach on jacks should be pretty rock solid. It sounds like the jacks are not being set properly. Are this an automatic system or are you doing the adjustments manually? Does your coach have air bag suspension? If so, are you dumping the air prior to leveling the coach (see owners manual to find it this is a required procedure)? Are all 4 jacks firmly on the ground (required)? Is this a new problem or are you just new to using the levelers?
Let us know a bit more and I will see if I can think of anything else?

The Crumps · RV-Dreams Family Member

We do have the air suspension and we level manually with the controls by the driver's seat. We've searched through our manuals for any information about the air suspension and can't find any reference to it. Would the air bags deflate themselves after a period of time - say a couple of hours? Maybe we should wait to level for a little bit to see if that helps?

The Crumps · RV-Dreams Family Member

I re-read your response and didn't answer all your questions. We're fairly new to full-timing but it has been a problem since we started about 6 months ago. All four jacks are firmly on the ground.

Bill Adams · RV-Dreams Family Member

I suspect that you should be using some option to dump the air from the air bags first and then doing the leveling. I cannot specifically recommend this as different chassis have different requirements but I suspect that this will turn out to be the missing key. With the jacks in place you should not be experiencing any movement to speak of.

NorCal Dan · RV-Dreams Family Member

It sounds like your not getting enough weight on the jacks. My leveling system is auto, I just push a button. I also dump air before leveling, to the safe point. We have a big dog and I always safe the air system to ensure that if the dog steps on the parking brake handle the system is safe and will not release the brakes. There is less than 20 lbs of air in the system when I get done dumping. When I level, the jacks always come down and take a lot of weight off the tires before it actually begins leveling the coach. I'm sure it does that to make the unit stable. I do not raise the wheels off the ground, ever. If a site I am in is that far off level I will either find a different spot or a different rv park. I don't believe in putting blocks under the tires to "pre-level" the coach. I do put pads under the jacks to keep them from sinking into the ground or through asphalt.

The Crumps · RV-Dreams Family Member

NorCal Dan: how do you let the air out? We can't find any information in our manuals about releasing the air. Do we need to call Winnebago? We'd rather find out from you folks before doing that.

We do have the jacks all the way down to the point where our front right tire is off the ground. We're going to correct that today. Our leveling system is a handle that we push/pull left or right, front or back depending on where we need to level the RV. It has a light that tells us when it thinks it's level but we find we have to fine tune it.

If you can give us more info about letting the air out we'd appreciate it. Thank you!

The Crumps · RV-Dreams Family Member

We decided to call Winnebago and it turns out that we don't have air suspension to speak of, but our tag axle has an air ride suspension. It isn't something we can let the air out of, but it also wouldn't affect our rocking issue. What they said could be the problem is a slow leak in one of our hydraulic jacks. They suggested checking to see if one of our jacks is letting go after a few hours. This may be our problem. We're going to check it out and see if this is something we can correct.

Terry and Jo · RV-Dreams Family Member

Another possibility could be that your jacks are being fully extended, thus becoming a little less stable. Our fifth wheel also has hydraulic jacks for leveling and I always look to see that the cylinders are not fully extended. If part of the cylinder "rod" is somewhat inside the outer part of the cylinder, it would be more stable because the outer part of the cylinder helps support the cylinder rod..

If it looks like a cylinder is going to be extended further than I like, I just put wooden blocks under the jack pads to help with shortening the extension of the cylinder rod.

Terry

The Crumps · RV-Dreams Family Member

We did as you said. We moved to a new campground with level sites. We didn't extend the jacks all the way and the rocking was greatly decreased. We also bought platforms for under the jacks. Next time we move we'll put those under the jacks and see if that helps.

Thank you so much for your help!