Removing electric jacks for off road?

[kodiak-black]

AHHHHHhHHH I see. Thanks guys.

 

[Mundo4x4Casa]

jefe here.
Real off-road truck campers leave the jacks at home. My electric jacks weigh a total of just under 200 pounds, attached up there, and are just heavy outriggers waiting to snag on some rock.
I leave the camper on my F-350 full time now.
My jacks will be forever new as I keep them in the garage. They only see the light of day if I need to remove the TC for maintenance.
This goes for my former Lance with manual jacks: out of there.
There is a reason they call me the King of Jacks-Off.
Alex (C.Traveler2) is correct that you have a narrower profile.
Here's a pic of my new Ford/Warn 12K pound "Hidden Winch" It is one sturdy assembly. So many funny shaped brackets.

 

[kodiak-black]

jefe here.
Real off-road truck campers leave the jacks at home. My electric jacks weigh a total of just under 200 pounds, attached up there, and are just heavy outriggers waiting to snag on some rock.
I leave the camper on my F-350 full time now.
My jacks will be forever new as I keep them in the garage. They only see the light of day if I need to remove the TC for maintenance.
This goes for my former Lance with manual jacks: out of there.
There is a reason they call me the King of Jacks-Off.
Alex (C.Traveler2) is correct that you have a narrower profile.
Here's a pic of my new Ford/Warn 12K pound "Hidden Winch" It is one sturdy assembly. So many funny shaped brackets.View attachment 699084

Ya I took those pesky jacks off my camper. They were not light weight. I ended up taking the plunge and went with the Warn 16.5. I added the weight I lost from the jacks right back on with the bumper and winch, lol.

 

[montypower]

We converted the camper basement into storage and carry our jacks with us. It's great being able to drop the camper while on a trip. Plus, no issues off road. We remove the camper while at our home base so the jacks get a fair amount of use. Love being able to fairly easily load/unload the camper anywhere.

 

[Nick_Stein]

Thank you all for giving me the confidence to roam freely without the heavy jacks. I've done a few road trips without them but have always been reluctant to venture too far. I'm always afraid I may need to remove the camper on the road for whatever reason. Seeing these setups out in the real world without jacks makes me feel a little better.

 

[NOPEC]

Thank you all for giving me the confidence to roam freely without the heavy jacks. I've done a few road trips without them but have always been reluctant to venture too far. I'm always afraid I may need to remove the camper on the road for whatever reason. Seeing these setups out in the real world without jacks makes me feel a little better.

I hadn't seen your Kodiak here before, It looks great, Nick. I have found the back jacks especially, can be a real liability when backing up in tight spots, such as 3 (or 6) pointing on logging roads or forestry landings, especially in bad light, when you are tired. I met and chatted with a guy a few years ago coming down the Dempster who had a 1500 (9'6") series Bigfoot and he had backed into something at the driver's rear and had pretzelled his electric jack as well as really damaging both the fiberglass and the mounting brackets. What was left of the jack was taped to his ladder, not a pretty sight. These things are the perfect lever, pressure at the bottom is going show up as force where they are mounted at the top. Plus, as others have mentioned, nice to save the 150 or so pounds. I guess if you were really stuck, you could try to rent jacks at an RV shop but you may have to create some sort of adapter to interface with the bolt patterns of newer jack styles. It would be interesting to see if old is compatible with new.

 

[Nick_Stein]

I hadn't seen your Kodiak here before, It looks great, Nick. I have found the back jacks especially, can be a real liability when backing up in tight spots, such as 3 (or 6) pointing on logging roads or forestry landings, especially in bad light, when you are tired. I met and chatted with a guy a few years ago coming down the Dempster who had a 1500 (9'6") series Bigfoot and he had backed into something at the driver's rear and had pretzelled his electric jack as well as really damaging both the fiberglass and the mounting brackets. What was left of the jack was taped to his ladder, not a pretty sight. These things are the perfect lever, pressure at the bottom is going show up as force where they are mounted at the top. Plus, as others have mentioned, nice to save the 150 or so pounds. I guess if you were really stuck, you could try to rent jacks at an RV shop but you may have to create some sort of adapter to interface with the bolt patterns of newer jack styles. It would be interesting to see if old is compatible with new.

Thanks so much for the kind words! We bought the camper a few years ago and have been slowly fixing it up. It's far from perfect but it's a pretty stout for something from the early 90s.

I appreciate the real world insight from your experiences with your setup and what you've seen happen to others. Sometimes I wish the camper was a little more "slender" in certain areas but my wife absolutely loves everything about it and I suppose that's what really matters. It's a breeze to drive and I prefer this setup over a conventional travel trailer for many reasons.

If it's ok, I might hit you up with a few questions about your epic setup as the previous owner of mine didn't know much about Kodiak campers and the information online is very very scarce. There are a couple of little things about my camper that I'd like to fix/upgrade but I'm fearful that I may uncover a whole host of new issues. I guess that's the nature of this hobby

 

[NOPEC]

Thanks so much for the kind words! We bought the camper a few years ago and have been slowly fixing it up. It's far from perfect but it's a pretty stout for something from the early 90s.

I appreciate the real world insight from your experiences with your setup and what you've seen happen to others. Sometimes I wish the camper was a little more "slender" in certain areas but my wife absolutely loves everything about it and I suppose that's what really matters. It's a breeze to drive and I prefer this setup over a conventional travel trailer for many reasons.

If it's ok, I might hit you up with a few questions about your epic setup as the previous owner of mine didn't know much about Kodiak campers and the information online is very very scarce. There are a couple of little things about my camper that I'd like to fix/upgrade but I'm fearful that I may uncover a whole host of new issues. I guess that's the nature of this hobby

I think these campers are a great platform for doing a makeover. They checked most of the boxes for me, especially the fiberglass shell. You are always going to have a few new issues once you start peeling back the skin on any "RV" truck camper originally made on an assembly line. The biggest issue is usually virtually no real preventative maintenance, especially on the exterior, over the 30 or so years since they came out of the factory. The sunny side ?of this situation is that once you mitigate the problems, you can almost always improve on the original condition compared to when it was new. That is why it is such a great hobby! I Don't want to hijack this thread too badly so if you are interested in some Peak Industries/Kodiak/Kustom Koach/Travelaire history, send me a PM. Same for a discussion on your next steps on your project. Cheers.

 

[Regcabguy]

My manual Happijacs have been in the garage for 21 years now as I only dismount the camper every couple of years. I was always spooked at those things hanging down and with the leverage ripping out a corner.