They are impossible to use with wheel locks (such as Alko) which require the wheel to be in a precise position in order to be attached. With lock and level you can do the levelling after attaching the lock.
I have just bought what is called a Lock n Level, which an inflatable gadget for levelling caravans side to side. Too my mind, it is massively over-engineered for the pressure, but I would be interested in othe opinions, before I try to lighten it - it's quite heavy at
4.5kg....The are constructed from what appears to be heavy duty portable pump discharge pipes. Deflated it is 330 x 740mm long, with a schrader inflation valve fixed near the side.
You drive the wheel of the caravan on, the one which is on the low side, then pump it up so than pressure in the device raises that wheel and the caravan up to level.
It weighs in at an hefty 4.5Kg and most of the weight is due to the steel used to clamp and seal the two ends of the pipe. Two strips of steel are used and 7x 6mm bolts spaced at 50mm, at each end.
The upper steels are 2 x 45mm drilled for the 7x bolts. The 7x bolts, bolt through the pipe material and into taped holes in the lower steel strips which is 8 x 23mm.
I have not explored further, whether there might be any sealant, or whether it just relies on the clamping force to seal the ends.
Maximum allowed pressure in the device is 30psi.
I have a mind to try to lighten it a bit, by replacing the heavy steel with something(?) lighter.
Why? Its weight hardly matters surely.
Chris Green brought next idea :
Of course it matters, I have a limited payload, so try to limit it where possible.
Isn't it designed to take a weight of several tonnes? I'm not sure skimping on that is a good idea.
Theo
Theo brought next idea :
No, not that much, but the weight is imaterial, what matters is that it will have 30psi pressure on it.
What's wrong with the old curved plastic ramps that you simply reverse onto?
Looks like a solution looking for a problem. Back in my caravanning days we levelled from end to end using the jacks and tried to pitch on ground that didn’t slope from side to side. If we had to pitch with a side tilt we just used a plastic ramp.
Tim
I think, were I a caravanner, that I would prefer to rely upon a solid ramp than upon something that needed to maintain pressure for an extended period pressure.
I’ve just Googled it, the things that look blue ( heavy duty) bin bags?
From the photos, I can’t see much you could sacrifice.
While I appreciate your weight concerns ( being a motorhomer I understand payload issues), if one weighs 4.5kg, so two 9kg, how much do you reasonably expect to shave off without compromising the design? 1kg, maybe
2 kg. Do you monitor you payload that closely?I invested in one of those drive over weighing devices - you place it under on the road by each wheel and drive very slowly over it. It tells you the weight at each wheel.
A couple of kg would be lost in the measurement accuracy. Even on a weigh-bridge.
To level the motorhome, which naturally sits front down ( they nearly all do, more so if, like ours, they’ve had air assist suspension added at the back), most people use ramps.
I’ve never seen anyone using the system you have on a caravan. People use ramps, if they use anything under the wheels, and the corner steadies- usually adjusted via a drill.
Out of interest, what is the max lift and load?
I can see them being usefully on grass pitches. We try to always get hardstanding ones - the motorhome is 3.85T - but in Europe we sometimes end up on grass.
For my money they create more problems than they solve.
Far simpler to use a ramp, which has no risk of deflation, and a lock like this:
Chris
It sounds like the sort of thing lorry trailers and some cars use for suspension.
I appreciate it's heavy to carry around but it's unlikely to have been over engineered to any great extent because that bites into the manufacturer's profits. In addition if you change it and the caravan rolls off it or it collapses you may find it difficult to recover costs for any damage - or injuries if anybody is hurt. In the current climate if anything goes wrong it has to be somebody's fault :-(
Hmm, the suspension ones tend to be cylinder like.
I recently had them fitted to our MH and ours have two metal plates, about
125 mm in dia, between them there is a rubber bellows which looks like two doughnuts, giving the cylinder shape.The assembly typically replaces the ‘bump stop’ between the leaf spring / axle and chassis.
You inflate it to, typically, 3 bar- although you can inflate some to 10 bar.
Some systems have a compressor onboard and a control panel. Others just a couple of valves and perhaps a gauge.
Brian explained on 14/06/2022 :
I cannot see anywhere where it states that, only a 30psi limit on pressure.
Brian has brought this to us :
I think I could reduce the weight by half.
Problem is that for my drains to work properly, it needs to be reasonably precisely levelled. I use a mover to drive up a conventional ramp, when it's wet it slips on the ramp and it is not very precise anyway. I saw these and thought, no slipping and easy precision by simply adjusting the pressure.
One only needed for a single axle, double axles use a doubled up version. You only need to lift one side.
I only have a total payload margin of 176Kg. Even empty, that is eaten into by the mover 50kg, gas bottle 13kg, spare wheel and carrier ??. Leaving around 100kg for absolutely everything else. Even 4.5Kg takes up a lot of this payload.
I could get it replated for a fee, the chassis is rated for an extra
60kg more than the current plated weight, but I am reluctant to do that.
Wouldn't it be easier to find a corner of the towcar to stuff it in?
Chris
Well the motor mover looks like an easy way to shed 50kg… ;-)
I’m sure they’re very nice but we did a lot of caravanning before they were invented and managed. Probably easier to move a van up a wet ramp using the car too.
Tim
Nearly every caravan seems to have a mover these days, even the smaller ones.
Probably because it makes it easier for those who either can't be bothered to learn how to reverse a trailer OR they have a very tight access to where they store it at home which precludes use of a tow car to reverse it into place.
I've no sympathy for the first lot but having seen some storage locations I can understand the second.
Tim+ explained :
You have obviously never tried manually pushing a caravan up a slope. The turn into my drive, makes towing it up the 1:7 impossible. I used to hand winch it up, but even then, it caused delays to traffic. The mover gets me out the way in seconds.
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