Dixon Bate Leveller

[david_5074577]

I am looking to buy a dixon bate caravan leveller

Two questions, are they any good and what price should I be paying as I know I can only probably buy privately as DB no longer produce

 

[JTQ]

Dont! If you realy must I have one that I dare no longer use.

Seriously I would not wish anybody to use it and sense that its lack of safety is why its no longer available.

The problem is that on all but solid and longitudinal level ground its not stable. The soft ground issue can be addressed by using a board but that needs to be thick for adequate strength, so why not carry a ramp rather than a board?

If the ground is not level longitudinaly it aggavates its tendency to slip. I have had the whole van slip violently off the wreched thing twice and 10 years ago or more threw it to the back of the garage. That was with my nice and light Castleton, dred to think how it would be with the Hymer 545.

Also it twists the tyre as it jacks up as a wedge across the tyre. I would not be happy to leave a tyre distorted like this for even 24 hours and then tow using it.

IMHO a seriously flawed design and one of my poor purchases.

John T

 

[david_5074577]

Dont! If you realy must I have one that I dare no longer use.

Seriously I would not wish anybody to use it and sense that its lack of safety is why its no longer available.

The problem is that on all but solid and longitudinal level ground its not stable. The soft ground issue can be addressed by using a board but that needs to be thick for adequate strength, so why not carry a ramp rather than a board?

If the ground is not level longitudinaly it aggavates its tendency to slip. I have had the whole van slip violently off the wreched thing twice and 10 years ago or more threw it to the back of the garage. That was with my nice and light Castleton, dred to think how it would be with the Hymer 545.

Also it twists the tyre as it jacks up as a wedge across the tyre. I would not be happy to leave a tyre distorted like this for even 24 hours and then tow using it.

IMHO a seriously flawed design and one of my poor purchases.

John T

Are we talking about the same thing. I cant understand some of your comments., particularly about the tyre distortion

 

[Dave_5040181]

I had one many years ago and gave it away. It weighs a fair bit, since then I have started taking a wheel clamp as well as an hitch lock ( insurance requirement), so had I still been carting it around I would have more scrap metal than Steptoe !I stopped using it because although it worked OK the threads wore making it hard to wind up and I decided not to bother having it rethreaded.( I think thats the correct technical term)I have contemplated buying those yellow plastic ramps but as yet I haven't as I am suspicious as to their value. When I bought my first ever van 20 years ago I also bought two levelling ramps with the added advantage that you could fill them with either water or sand via a plug at the end. You can imagine what happened when I tried them out,I had mug written all over me and water all over the ground in front of the flattened ramp!!!

 

[Gary_5039903]

As Design Manager for a company that specialises in bolted fittings etc, the design of those levelling ramps scares me to death. If its the one I'm thinking of, there is no other mechanism to provide a mechanical advantage to the lifting, ie. one thread is responsible for lifting the entire caravan (think about how a scissor jack works, the jack design reduces the stress on the threads). I imagine the threads wear very quickly and I wouldn't like to think of the consequences if someones fingers were in the way when it went, the mechanism would act like a guillotine.......

 

[JTQ]

Are we talking about the same thing. I cant understand some of your comments., particularly about the tyre distortion

Hopefully we are talking about the same thing. Mine is a folded angle iron unit with a smaller rectangle frame within the outside frame. A heavy duty screw lifts the outside edge of the inner frame whilst this is pivoted along the opposite edge. Hence you have not achieved a parallel lift but one where the lifting plate is progressively tipping up. A minor amount for a small lift but a large angle when lifting a large amount. As it tips up it lifts the wheel but at the same time the tread is tilted higher on its outer edge than its inner edge.

This can distort the tyre significantly deflecting the outer wall of the tyre relative to the inner wall.

My comments about it being unstable were made generally in the context of its use on grass CL type sites. Its foot print is not wide enough and the area in contact with the grass is too small in that appication. Hope this helps John T

 

[Tony A.]

I copied this design but instead of a screw jack I made allowance for a bottle jack to do the lifting,(between two metal plates) when at the correct height I use two variable wooden chocks to hold it up and remove the jack, I havent had any prtoblems so far in two years. but I do agree you have to be careful if it ever came down it would act as a guillotine.

Tony A.