Casters on Jacks?

I am picking up my camper pretty soon and I am looking forward to many good trips....BUT as I read and I had a full size camper some time ago. It seems like the BIG PAIN here is loading and unloading!!!!
So I have found some "HEAVY DUTY" caster/wheels that I might weld on to my jacks! I will never leave the jacks on for trips/camping and I have a big shop with a smooth concrete floor!
Seems easier to roll the camper on to the truck to me!!!
Any thoughts....

I'm not sure it will be easier to roll the camper onto the truck. Full swivel casters can seem to have a mind of their own when rolling. Fixed casters would still require having the truck accurately aligned. When I used to remove my camper I put some duct tape on my concrete floor to help me get lined up and I could jiggle/walk the camper enough to get the last bit of alignment as I backed under it.

Speaking of never, you don't know when a situation might come up where you or the next owner might want to remove the casters. Instead of welding the casters I'd bolt them to the feet of the jacks.

Enjoy

What KILROY said. Too much leverage on the jack brackets if you were to hit a pebble while rolling the camper. Much better and safer to lower it onto a large dolly and roll it around that way.

W6USA said:

What KILROY said. Too much leverage on the jack brackets if you were to hit a pebble while rolling the camper. Much better and safer to lower it onto a large dolly and roll it around that way.

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Alan

I would hate for someone to blow up my camper.

Mic - I hear you. I've always found loading the camper to be a huge PITA. I've seen plenty of hints and tricks, but they never seem to work for me. It would be a lot easier to load if I didn't care about the truck, but I don't want to scratch my bed. I thought about rolling the camper onto the truck, but in the end I decided it wouldn't be safe. Although I still think there has to be a better way.

The turnbuckles are no joy either, although here we have a few options.

Thanks for all the input!!
The wheels/casers I am/was considering had a 1/2" rubber track...and I would never roll it in the drive way just the shop...But you guys have given me something to think on!!
Again Thanks!

I also considered adding braces to the 2 sides and rear of the jacks to stiffen them. This might provide enough shear strength to keep them from collapsing. It got to be more of a project than I was willing to take on.

I actually did bolt some casters to the bottom of the jacks using washers under the bolt heads to help clamp the casters to the bottom of the jacks. As other people have said, this is NOT a way to just roll the camper around for storage; I built a heavy-duty cart to do that. On the other hand, the casters have helped me easily move the camper sideways an inch or two as I'm loading it onto my F-250. Other people have found they can kick the legs to move the camper sideways an inch or two so probably the casters really aren't worth the trouble.

We used to move heavy items in past employment, still have much of my equipment from then. I have a few sets of Bond 2127 AL, fit fine on the bottom of the camper jacks. As long as the campers jacks are low & stay on clean flat surface no problem for one person for small movements of the camper. Not Cheap, $85 each. When not on the truck I have Oak wooden dollies to move camper around most of the time
.http://www.bondcaster.com/mhdollies1.html

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The casters I am looking at are 6", 1200 pound each, with a polyurethane 1/2" coating for easy rolling...at least it seems better then wiggling the camper on it's jacks...
I think a side brace, clean floor might make loading pretty fast!!!
There are sure a lot of caster choices on line!!!

KILR0Y said:

Mic, the casters I have on my wood box (that the camper sets on in the garage) are likely the same ones you're thinking of. They are Grizzly G8172 4" heavy duty ones from amazon. They don't turn for crap with the weight of the camper. I have to use a pry bar to muscle them around and get them to turn on the garage floor. Solid quality and heavy duty for sure though.

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We have a similar wood dolly setup and the 8" scaffold casters I repurposed are very difficult to turn with the camper sitting on the dolly. However, I can twist each caster individually to aim the wheels and move the camper by myself, or better yet with a helper. I should say I'm doing this on a smooth concrete floor. The casters are handy to move the camper/dolly unit off to the side of our garage, then back to loading position.

When it's time to load, I raise the camper off the dolly, and back the truck in. Backing in the truck by yourself isn't that hard to do, but I always jump out two or three times to make sure I'm on track. I think rolling the camper to the truck would be much more difficult. Also, I allow more like 45 minutes for loading and jack removal, but coming off is a bit quicker.

If my jacks could actually reach the ground I'd be inclined to attach a 4" to 6" to a side square of teflon or UHMW polyethylene to the bottoms of them to make those minute adjustments easier.

I have not seen anything good come from putting caster wheels on the end of each camper jack.

I like the idea, and I have even tried something similar at the trade shows to load/unload multiple campers and move them around by myself when setting up.

But that said, every camper I have ever seen come in the shop like that will eventually tweak the jack bracket, or the camper frame, on one corner or another.

Practice might be the only thing to make loading and unloading easier.

A camper dolly would be the best way to move the camper around in the garage.

Hope this helps.

Happy Camping.




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Casters on jacks? Think roller skates on crutches.