My blog is dedicated to folding trailers (AKA PopUps or PUP’s). Hopefully non-PUP owners will find some of the posts of interest/value.
I’ll cover equipment, modifications, maintenance, camping stories, and of course SPUT’s (Stupid Pop Up Tricks). Please forgive my rants & raves and posts on my camping buddy – my granddaughter.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. So I try and keep the post short but augment them with pictures from my SmugMug gallery.
Enjoy.
He Ruide
I’ll cover equipment, modifications, maintenance, camping stories, and of course SPUT’s (Stupid Pop Up Tricks). Please forgive my rants & raves and posts on my camping buddy – my granddaughter.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. So I try and keep the post short but augment them with pictures from my SmugMug gallery.
Enjoy.
He Ruide
Who says you can’t teach an old dog a new trick?
Created 6/03/08
Now I did not add that I use a BAL leveler and a single wheel locking chock that really provides stability when camping. Neither did I say that I move the main wheel chocks about two inches away from the tire while I’m backing up so if I bump the trailer I will not damage the tongue. Maybe if I had I would not see these comments:
"If you use wheel chocks then the possibility of the PUP moving when the TV bumps it is much reduced. You should be using chocks with or without the wheel."I"'d ADVISE you to leave it (the tongue jack wheel) off if you want the trailer to sit still. Putting it on wheels is a not an example of a sound thought process for making them stable."
"BTW, I always chock the wheels front and back. I have never tried to push or pull the camper when it was on the wheel. Seems like something that could cause an injury or accident."
Those comments upset me as "Safety First" is not just a meaningless phrase to me and I’ve taught the concept of risk prediction. Yet those comments might make you think I’m this guy. So I started typing a response, but instead I moved on to another forum where the topic of chocking tongue wheel jack surfaced.
A camper 'JD and Beastlet' said “To keep the trailer from moving, chock the road wheels, but not the tongue jack - it's not designed to take lateral stress and if the trailer shifts it could fail.”
Alright. Here is someone that supports my position and in fact I thought the tongue wheel chock was a useless device. First, chocking both tires AND the tongue wheel jack is similar to putting a belt and suspenders on a pair of pants that had an elastic waist. Second, I thought the tongue jack wheel chock would come in handy if you were on soft ground but I think you were better off using lynx blocks or maybe what this camper stole from his wife.
However, the comment “… it's not designed to take lateral stress and if the trailer shifts it could fail” had me intrigued.
I assume that the tongue jack and wheel was designed to support at least 15% of the GVWR and that you could safely move the trailer with that weight on the tongue jack wheel. So I wanted to know if there was design data that would suggest something different.
Another camper 'Oz and Us. whom I respect, replied with a discussion of the lateral forces that are applied to the tongue jack if you are moving a trailer across a dirt, gravel, grass campsite.
OK that’s true but I would use a trailer dolly for that. I just wanted to move an inch or two on a flat smooth surface.
'JD and Beastlet' further clarified his statement by explaining - “If you chock the tongue jack and the trailer shifts, the tongue jack wheel, being chocked, cannot move. Because the wheel cannot move, the lateral stress exerted on the tongue jack by the shifting trailer could cause it to fail. My guess is that the most likely failure point is the location where the tongue jack attaches to the A-frame.”
OH YES… Now I had just learned a technical reason why chocking a tongue wheel jack is risky… of course this is just MHO
RUFF RUFF
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