Corner steadies and jacking a caravan

[JohnandNic]

Hi all

A quick stupid question from a newbie so go easy on me.

When jacking a van up the advice, I beleive, is to lower the corner steadies. Does this not put strain onto the chassis? I have read a number of threads suggesting it is easy to strain the chassis by over tightening the steadies so does jacking up one side not have the same effect on the other side?

Many thanks in advance for your advice

John

 

[DerekBrad]

Hi John, You may have read about lowering the steadies when jacking the van; this means that you only lower the legs as a safety precaution, and NOT to raise the van. When jacking the van, always hitch up to the car, handbrake on and in gear.Personally I do not use the legs at all when jacking as I am confident that when following the above procedure, the van cannot go anywhere, given that you have a good base from which to jack. It was certainly not a stupid question:,but a very wise check.Good luck.

Derek

 

[SBS]

The advice is to jack one side of the 'van then lower the corner steadies before you work on the wheel. This is as a safety precaution only - just in case. The 'van should also still be attached to the towing vehicle.

Hope this helps,

Mike

 

[SBS]

Derek - you type much faster than me. Mike

 

[cava55]

I take it you would be jacking the van up to change a wheel ? I always leave the van attached to the tow car and put the hand brake on and chock the wheels on the caravan, i never use the corner steadies as modern vans are not built like old vans.

 

[DerekBrad]

Derek - you type much faster than me. Mike

Hi SBS, I did a word processing course when I retired!!

Derek

 

[WatsonJohnG]

When I jack up the van at home I don't attach it to the car but I leave the legs down and chock the wheel not being raised

The side of the van being jacked is not raised a lot and the extra pressure on the legs is not great but it give stability

OK that is probably a load of rubbish but in practice its never distorted/damaged the chassis or legs in 30 years of jackings

If it did I would have no basis to claim under warranty of course!!

 

[readcaravans]

unfortunately in the 17yrs i have been in the trade i have seen hundreds of broken or twisted corner steadies after been used to jack the caravan or even level a caravan instead of using chocks.

i have seen a few twisted chassis members and a few broken floors!

always use a jack either on the axle or the axle plate, then once in the air use axle stands, and then the steadies to do just that, steady the caravan.

 

[WatsonJohnG]

I should have made it clear that I was not advocating jacking with the van legs but intended to say that the pressure on the legs on the opposite side to the jack had not caused any problems for me so far !

I too have seen legs that have gone through the floor on a Lunar when used to jack

I wouldn't try that approach as for one thing its hard work

My friend has had 2 vans from Reads and speaks very highly of the compamy as iam sure they do of him

Don't want to cause "alarm" by naming names but his knee is improving!!