14 replies to this topic

[Barko1]

I find loading and unloading a pain in the butt and managed to get around that by leaving it on the truck but now I have a bigger trailer and want the camper off. I have hydraulic jacks that don't work all that well and the FWC is a very tight fit in the truck bed so I was wondering if it would work to back the truck under strong supports, hook somehow to the jack supports, and using a chain hoist or winch to pick the camper off the truck bed a few inches and then drive away. Not being an engineer or terribly mechanical, why wouldn't this work or what might be the problems with it? At first I thought I could just strengthen the beams in my horse shed, that no longer has a horse, but it turns out my FWC on the F250 is about 8'6" and too tall for that option. Next option would be to build a post and beam little structure, maybe 10x10x10', tall enough to drive under, hook/lift/exit, leaving the camper hanging or putting some tall sawhorse type arrangement under it to take the strain off the jack attachments?? The other option would be to just buy a one ton portable gantry crane from Harbor Freight, stick it in a hidden corner and use it to lift the camper for the extraction process. Not sure how to best rig that, (I know pretty much nothing about this) but I suspect a load leveler or two and some hoisting mechanism. That crane would cost about $500 plus hardware. The crane can go up over 12' and is 94" wide so it would fit. If this is feasible that would be cool because then I'd have a crane and that would probably make me pretty cool

Maybe I could just let the air out of the airbags, drop the tire pressure and not even have to lift anything! Help!!

[Overland Hadley]

If this is feasible that would be cool because then I'd have a crane and that would probably make me pretty cool

I am not an engineer either, but it sounds like it would work. As long as the attachment to the jack plates pulled straight.

[Mark W. Ingalls]

I find loading and unloading a pain in the butt and managed to get around that by leaving it on the truck but now I have a bigger trailer and want the camper off. I have hydraulic jacks that don't work all that well and the FWC is a very tight fit in the truck bed so I was wondering if it would work to back the truck under strong supports, hook somehow to the jack supports, and using a chain hoist or winch to pick the camper off the truck bed a few inches and then drive away. Not being an engineer or terribly mechanical, why wouldn't this work or what might be the problems with it? At first I thought I could just strengthen the beams in my horse shed, that no longer has a horse, but it turns out my FWC on the F250 is about 8'6" and too tall for that option. Next option would be to build a post and beam little structure, maybe 10x10x10', tall enough to drive under, hook/lift/exit, leaving the camper hanging or putting some tall sawhorse type arrangement under it to take the strain off the jack attachments?? The other option would be to just buy a one ton portable gantry crane from Harbor Freight, stick it in a hidden corner and use it to lift the camper for the extraction process. Not sure how to best rig that, (I know pretty much nothing about this) but I suspect a load leveler or two and some hoisting mechanism. That crane would cost about $500 plus hardware. The crane can go up over 12' and is 94" wide so it would fit. If this is feasible that would be cool because then I'd have a crane and that would probably make me pretty cool

Maybe I could just let the air out of the airbags, drop the tire pressure and not even have to lift anything! Help!!

Think of it like this: My cable jacks actually work by *pulling*, because you can't push with a cable...

[Barko1]

So maybe I need to figure out a straight pull, no significant angles. I presume that would over stress the brackets?

[Mark W. Ingalls]

So maybe I need to figure out a straight pull, no significant angles. I presume that would over stress the brackets?

Think of it like this: When you attach a winch to the edge of the camper and to a beam, you will have a vertical distance and a horizontal distance. When you raise the camper, you will change the vertical distance, but not the horizontal distance. This will convert the force of gravity from a vertical force to an horizontal force. You will want to think about the horizontal forces when the camper is raised to its highest point...

[simimike]

The first thing that popped into my head was that you are going to have four lifting points. In order to not have the cables "bite" into the top of the camper you will need some type of spreaders. Or a system of pulleys to keep the cable clear of the camper. My experience with cranes is that unless you are perfectly centered your load will want to shift to the lowest point of the arch. That is, it will act like a plum-bob and swing to the lowest point directly below the winch. Also unless your lifting system is ridged your load may shift, as in the heaviest part will tilt down, raising the other parts.

What comes to mind is those lifts used to raise cars for servicing. They have four steel posts to spread the cable out. I'm sure there are solutions to any problems. Having a crane is to cool to not think this through. I hope this helps.

mike

[natjwest]

You stated that your original problem is that your truck is a tight fit and your jacks aren't great.

I used to have a POS camper that was an extremely tight fit with crap jacks and I hated loading and unloading.

But my FWC has stout mechanical/cranking jacks (not hydraulic) and still fits tightly and I have no problems unloading and loading, takes less than 10 minutes, maybe 5 stress-free minutes if I'm hauling ass. I think you might be well-off buying replacement mechanical jacks (Reico-Titan) instead of some other design. My jacks are so stout that I can pull up in front of the camper in a sloppy fashion, bump the camper into the truck bed, watching the camper scoot on the jack legs, without fear of anything failing. If I actually contacted my old camper with my truck bed, I swear it would have fallen over. One time while loading up the FWC, I pushed the camper off a brick that the leg was sitting on and it acted like nothing happened. Mine's a 1991 Grandby so has had some time for things to loosen, but they haven't.

BTW, sometimes I do cheat and drop airbags on the way out after dropping the camper. But cranking it up and down is so amazingly stress-free and fast that I usually don't bother.

[Ted]

Before we had the camper, we just had a shell on our truck. I used a pulley on the side of the garage that pulled four cables. Each cable ran to a cable guide on the ceiling and down to a corner of the shell. I see no reason why your plan should not work. If attached to the camper at the same location as the corner jacks, the forces on the camper would be the same as if the jacks were doing the lifting.
Mike is right that you will need spreaders. Having your crane attached to some type of rectangular frame that has cables dropping down from it's four corners to the camper should work. Maybe Mike and I can get DD to park under a tree at the next rally so we can experiment with his camper.

[Cort]

While lifting with a crane or winch is totally possible It is not any easier than corner jacks. In fact I believe it is much more difficult, time consuming, and takes a considerable amount of planning. As SimiMike and others have indicated you will need to design a spreader system to keep the cables off the camper and the lengths of all your cables will need to be exact. If anything is off the system will shift around the center of gravity making it extremely difficult to get it out of a tight fit or into a tight fit. I think you run a much higher risk of damaging the camper, your truck, and possible yourself by trying to winch or lift the camper out of the truck. I would recommend just buying new camper jacks. My jacks are extremely stout and I raise and lower them with a drill...fine tune by hand cranking. It takes me about half an hour from start to finish to get my camper on and off

I do have to admit that it would be fun to do though (just not on my camper)

Cort

[Darryla]

Ok, I know Ted will have a comment. But, I think you need to review those U-Tube videos filming people doing dumb things that destroyed their camper. I have a little experience with these types of real cranes and I could see how unforeseen things can happen that end in disaster. Unless you are an experienced crane operator, I would for get it.

Darryl