Be aware: Fifth Wheel Landing Gear Maintenance

[TxLoser]

Great write up. Thank you.

I watched that video posted above too. I may try that at some point. Or I’ll just spray some lube up there.

[AKRUEBBE]

Originally Posted by Thomson

Yeah, and I know why you traded your 315RLTS

Not for the reason you think.............we went fulltime and needed a bigger rig.

[klassic]

Sorry about the sentence that makes no sense in my last post. Lol.
iPhone added the wrong words.

TxLoser...it’s not that hard to remove the leg from the trailer.
Hook it up to your truck, take the adjustable leg out, take the motor off, unbolt the clamps and spread them, and lift out the leg.
The hard part is, most likely, the factory guy put the bolts in backwards on the passenger side clamps, and you’ll have to cut them off and put in new ones.

Just make sure when you put the leg back in that you hook the expanded notches back on the clamps properly.
Poke your head behind the leg and look how they are positioned on the welded clamps, you’ll see what I mean.

Once the leg is off you can take it apart and try and get grease back on the rod.

[TxLoser]

I’m glad you posted this. I’ll use this for some unrelated maintenance. I noticed today that an incident I had two weeks back moved each leg up about 1 inch nd the other 1.25 inches in the brackets. Now I need to undo the the clamps and put the legs back where they go or at the very least make sure the clamps are tight enough for normal ops. Without a tape measure the legs still look even. Any idea what the torque value is on those bolts. Also, to spread the clamps, what’s a good tool?

[klassic]

I don’t know how the jacks could move..the expanded notches on the jack body are wedged against the mount that the clamp is welded to.
They can’t move up or down with out jumping over the mount.
The clamp is there just to hold the leg solid, it doesn’t “squeeze” the leg from moving up or down. That’s what I thought the first time I looked at them.
There’s really no spec for the bolts tightness, tight until it feels tight.
It was bit of a pain to spread open the clamps a little bit. They are a fairly thick guage steel.

[TxLoser]

I got them to move some. They’re within a quarter inch of each other now. A mallet, a piece of wood, and rock got the clamps split. I’m thinking I’ve my install was wrong. The notch is on the top side of clamp. Seems it should be under the clamp. Of it were under the clamp, my legs would be pretty low. So, either clamp in the wrong spot or wrong legs. No evidence to suggest the notch was ever touching anything.

[TxLoser]

I think I’ll try and move both up to where the back bottom notch hits the clamp.

[klassic]

Ya. As long as one of them is on the bottom side.
My clamp mounts are welded so the top notch is against the bottom of the top clamp and the bottom one is on top of the bottom clamp.
They are welded perfectly.. the leg notches sit right between the two mounts.

[TxLoser]

Looking at things close now, mine is welded such that I can have either the top notch against the top side of the top clamp or bottom notch against the bottom side of the bottom clamp. The bottom side notch on one side is crushed a little so it end up inside the clamp. I’ll keep working with it. Thanks for your help.

[klassic]

My top clamp is welded way higher.
I wonder if they messed up on yours. If you can’t get your desired results, maybe you should contact Jayco and send them your picture of yours slipping, and this picture of mine

[TxLoser]

I agree. Seems it should be such that the leg can’t move up or down with each notch against a clamp. It’s as if my clamps are too close together.

[Genr8rs]

I have a 2015 Eagle HT 5er. I was curious about my first round of mtc as a get to know the trailer and checked for zerks on the landing gear and found mine also on the front of the legs tight to the front of the wall so I could not get at them or even with enough leverage to attach a 90 degree gun fitting. Took a while to remove and found they were the 8M hard to find size.
The paint on the head not been disturbed and the ball inside the zerk was stuck closed. Probably never been greased in 5-6 yrs. Honestly... just another example I have found of poor design and workmanship at the manufacturer of the leg or installing at the factory.
Im getting tired of finding these little things. Dont anyone take pride on the job they do or is this to be expected and accepted because of factory work?

[TxLoser]

Just found the grease that’s supposed to be on the jacks screw.

[TxLoser]

For those worried about grease who have a relatively new unit....My unit is a year and half old. Lots of blue grease on the screw. I ordered a replacement jack which I installed today and that too had lots of grease on the screw. I don’t know that it’s quite the bad design we think. I did have globs of grease in the inner leg, but still the screw looked slick and shiny.

[klassic]

Here’s the blue grease ball. Look how clean the threads are...they are polished.
That jack was 2.5 years old, and I don’t use the trailer very often. Plus I am in a winter zone.
The rod is hardened, the threads in the block aren’t. Once the grease is off it’s just a matter of time.

[TxLoser]

Maybe mine were too new still to be at that point. Maybe what I’m seeing here is a grease ball on the opposite end. I really appreciate this thread since it described the process of swapping the jacks out. Pretty easy task. Just a pain in a&$ working in the small space next to my battery box. Today I did that and fixed a latch on a drawer. A couple hours sure beats a month at a dealer. And I have a spare motor now.

[klassic]

That looks like grease on the nut that’s welded to the bottom of the rod. It’s not really a “nut”, more like a ball. It’s s there to stop the rod from completely unthreading.

I have two spare motors now... lol

[TxLoser]

I wrote previously that I replaced a leg. It worked great on the first trip after replacement. Today I had a weird issue with it. Two really. I don’t get how they’re linked.

First off, was about to depart on our weekend trip and had an error on that leg. Had to retract all to correct. Second, I couldn’t get the pin pulled to raise the inner leg. I had to beat the ever loving @&&@ out of it, and finally got the pin free. I sprayed a lot of grey can wd40 on there after and it seems mostly ok. Sprayed the inner leg as well as it didn’t want to move too freely even with the pin pulled. All good since we got to our site and level went fine. Had the blue grease allover the inner leg from manufacture. Did that somehow gum up the pin? No idea how this and the error could be related but odd they happened at the same time.

[Genr8rs]

I tried 2 different units from 2 different vendors, but the same and all I got was grease all over. Didn't seat correctly even on a zerk I could get at. Changed them out. They are metric though.

[Texasnick]

Thank you for this invaluable information. Everyone please pay attention to this as it will save you a lot of inconvenience and money.