clear crest of hill, prevent scrape

[Parksy]

Just bought a caravan at the weekend, however when i reversed it into my drive way (which is on a very slight decline from the pavement) the front left of the van scraped the crest of the slope, basically where my driveway meets the pavement. (drawing attached)
I reckon I only need to clear about 1cm (if that) for it not scrape. I’m now slightly nervous as to what’s going to happen when I drive it out of my drive, will it happen again etc.
So if I was to slowly drive it up the hill, with my partner checking for clearance, or the point where its about to scrape, then my intention would be that I could stop the car, lower the jockey wheel and wind it up raising the back end of the car ever so slightly, just enough to prevent the van from scraping. Then jumping back in the car (still with jockey wheel down) and driving and theoretically clearing the crest.?
Anyone see any issues with this?

 

[mucky pup]

There is no way i would use the jocky wheel as you describe, what about making a couple of run up, run down ramps to place under the caravan wheels to lift the van at the critical point. Going out would be ok but you may have a problem reversing back in.
The best solution would be to have a caravan mover fitted which will get over the problem but will cost about £6-700.

 

[Cruzer]

A definite no-no, you'll knacker the jockey wheel in no time. I'd agree with mucky pup, make some ramps to lift the van at the critical point. I had a similar, but opposite, problem in that the tail of my van scraped as my driveway rises. I did go down the mover route, but not just for this reason, and have no problems now as I can drop the nose down almost to the ground.

 

[Parksy]

When I kept our caravan on the drive I had a similar problem with varying ground levels.
With our drive I put my Levelling Ramps under the back wheels of the towing vehicle to clear the ridge when reversing back and again when reversing onto the hitch so that nothing fouled the ridge between the pavement and the drive.

 

[Stephen1956]

Looking at your diagram hitching the caravan onto the top of the ball would help

 

[gdallas]

Parks, i have those same ramps. but not all together following your method. Could you please elaborate?

 

[Parksy]

I reversed the caravan almost as far as possible up the driveway first of all before anything got caught.
Just before my retracted jockey wheel made contact with the sloping ground I stopped the car and put my ramps one under each of the towcars rear wheels directly adjacent to the rear of the tyres so that when I engaged reverse once again (I have an auto gearbox so I'm not sure how you would fare with a clutch) the back end of my towcar lifted which in turn raised the hitch (and the front end of the caravan).
When I'd gone back far enough and the towcar wheels couldn't travel any further back without coming off the ramps I stopped, engaged the towcar and caravan handbrake, lowered the jockey wheel to ground level and unhitched.
I found it best to disengage the Alko stabiliser before I reversed up the ramps.
I used the same method to hitch up again so that my towball was at the right height for me to hitch the caravan. To be honest this all proved a bit too much of a faff in the end which is one of the reasons why I now store my caravan but it still works if for any reason I bring the caravan home.

 

[philspot1]

You may find it cheaper and easier to use a couple of (6 foot) lengths of scaffold board. Just before the unit reaches the point shown in your drawing, lay the boards just behind the caravan wheels (or the car rear wheels - experiment to find which works better). As you then reverse further, the extra 2" lift should mean that the caravan won't touch as before. The advantage to this method over using ramps is that you can keep on reversing until the wheels come off the ends of the boards without a problem. Once you've made it work, mark the best position for the boards so you can put them in the right place, first time,every time.

 

[gdallas]

think i'll try your suggestion philspot1. thanks

 

[ProfJohnL]

I was about to make exactly the same suggestion as Phils', you may not even need the whole 6th length, so it could be even cheaper! longer term you might want ot cast the sucssesful solution in concrete or slabs (on your ground only of course).