Buckled stabilizer

[LarryDial]

on the door side both the front and rear stabilizers have buckled on my 2015Wilderness 2775. what I am unsure about is if I have done something wrong in the use of them. usually I put 4 plastic spacers under the foot and lower the stabilizer until it refuses to go further.

 

[danemayer]

Hi LarryDial,

The obvious question is whether there was excess weight on the stabilizers. Stabilizers are not intended to support much weight; just enough to stabilize the trailer. Was the ground soft?

 

[JohnDar]

My question would be how many times have you used them and do you only snug them. If you try to level the trailer with them, you can easily overload and damage them. Different scissor stabilizers have different weight ratings, too. If nothing else, I would look at them and compare them to the ones on the other side to be sure they are the same size and part number (if you can see one).

 

[JohnD]

It doesn't take much to make them buckle.

You don't want to use the stabilizers to level the trailer . . . you've got to level the trailer first, then put them down and then snug them up, but not too much.

When we still had our bumper pull trailer I had removed the front two scissor jacks and rarely used the back two and I still used my old screw-up jacks instead:





I still use the screw up jacks on our Prowler 5th-wheeler to supplement the rear scissor jacks.

 

[LarryDial]

the trailer is on a concrete pad and is level, it is possible that I overloaded the stabilizer. Both of the door side stabilizers have buckled but not the opposite side.

 

[LarryDial]

I guess that is the current plan. I am just going to abandon the electric stabilizers and go to screw up jacks. I suppose that the next step will be to remove the stabilizers completely and lighten the load.