Anderson Jack Buckets

[JKellerJr]

Equal pressure is applied to BOTH jacks (not one at a time) during the lifting of the front jacks.

Agreed but prior to lifting the rig, let’s call it deploying, they don’t actually lift until both jacks hit something solid. I’m 99% sure they deploy one at a time but now you have me questioning and I not gonna hook up to just to confirm now when you turn on the system and hit the up button and your missing a block will it act like it’s lifting or deploying? That is the question. Im sure you could lift with one jack but I sure wouldn’t want to torque the rig that way.



Just to clarify we talking about hydraulic jacks? I don’t know exactly how electric ones works.

There are 2 conditions to consider: 1) one of the buckets has completely collapsed previous to attempting lifting 2). One of the bucket exhibits serious signs of cracking previous to the lifting.

Now, with both the middles and rears up, and given the scenarios desctibed above, how do you:

1). Lift the jacks under #1 above, collapsed bucket. How do you even attempt to pull up the middles and rears with a collapsed front bucket.
2). With a compromised front bucket that hasn’t completely collapsed (yet), what would happen if during the lifting and with the middles and rears up, if the compromised bucket were to suddenly collapse under load?

A lot of how you handle it would be based on what is at your disposal at the time. I carry 2-2” blocks and 4-1” blocks in case either the ground is soft or to out of level for the Andersen jack blocks(I thought they were all 1 1/2” shows how much I use them). I also have 2 2x8 boards for under the wheels. And then I have a bottle jack. If the front jacks want to lift putting the pressure only one one side I would either A: use the bottle jack to slightly lift the side with the broken block and use the wood I have to support that side or B: use a combo of the wood and jack for cribbing under the frame at the front jacks and then hit retract all, the front will set down on the cribbing. Remove the remaining jack block and then restart the lifting process without the blocks.

I still maintain that chances of any of these scenarios actually happening are ultra ultra slim. A block would have to completely collapse without any warning and there has been zero evidence that can or will happen.

I can come up with many other things that have just as good or better chance of happening. It’s why I carry at least some tools. What’s more likely, an Andersen block completely collapses without warning or a hydraulic seal fails, a line breaks, the pump fails, etc.

A block failure is fairly low on my worry list

[Nomadic]

Thx JKellerJr. Yes, we are in fact talking hydraulics. I don’t know how you would feenagle something in place of the bucket as I would imagine the bucket still being sandwiched. I think you would have to do as you suggested using some sort of cribbing while jacking to the frame. In any event, I’m not worried about it anymore since I’m not going that way. And, your not worried as well. So, we both are happy. I appreciate the exchange.

[Nomadic]

Oh, one other point. When the fronts “deploy”, they do so one at a time, ie when you are setting up camp and getting off of the hitch. But, when you are lifting onto the truck, both of them lift up together. This is where the stress is the greatest.

[frank4711]

Have to wonder if anyone has had a complete fail or crushed bucket. Looking at Marcy's pic's just the lips on buckets are cracking off, doubt if that core would ever fail but you know what they say never say never. Looks to me like those edges cracked from, as Marcy said gravel/rocky pads. later Frank

[Nomadic]

I tried to upload a pic to show you what mine looked like but I had no luck. 5 “deep” slits/cracks running down the sides from top to bottom, evenly spaced throughout.. with collapse looking very probable. Why I brought it up. Do I need to be a paid member to upload pictures?

[frank4711]

I tried to upload a pic to show you what mine looked like but I had no luck. 5 “deep” slits/cracks running down the sides from top to bottom, evenly spaced throughout.. with collapse looking very probable. Why I brought it up. Do I need to be a paid member to upload pictures?

Sounds like it ..... not sure about pic ... later Frank

[orbiker]

In typical Anderson Fashion they are sending replacements. Still going to go with the wood and maybe just use on the paved surface at home and not take on the road. Or possibly donate the new ones to my son who has a much lighter tow behind trailer.

My thoughts are they do not play nice with gravel or dirt surfaces, most of our camping is just that. It is rare we have a cement pd under the trailer while on the road.

I have been trying to learn from other people's mistakes my whole life. I do make my own sometimes, but recently.

Gravel and uneven rough surfaces seem to be the problem. I saw many others with the lego blocks that were damaged. We have had ours for 10 or 15 years. I decided to protect our lego blocks with thick rubber. I had a old stall mat that used to live under my pickup camper. I cut 8 12" x 12" pieces for under the lego blocks. It works great.
I also have a couple of wood blocks made for our driveway parking spot. It's a bit of a slope. I cut 8 15" x 15" 4x6's and stacked them to 10" high and bolted them together with 6" lag bolts.


KEN

[Shawn and Rhonda]

Love this thread! Ideas, ideas, ideas. When we attempted to pick up our new rig last week, the parts and service department highly recommended the magnetic buckets but didn't have them in stock. We just sold our house and farm which had in abundance of horse stalls and horse mats, kicking myself right now!

[WhittleBurner]

Have to wonder if anyone has had a complete fail or crushed bucket. Looking at Marcy's pic's just the lips on buckets are cracking off, doubt if that core would ever fail but you know what they say never say never. Looks to me like those edges cracked from, as Marcy said gravel/rocky pads. later Frank

The pictures didn't show cracks going vertical on one of the buckets. I wasn't to worried about getting that in the picture due to the obvious failure. Even with the vertical failure the buckets did not collapse, in fact we used the worse of the 2 several times after the first crack appeared. It wasn't until the last trip they started looking very scary.

We recieved the replacement, but someone failed to read the order and thy only sent one bucket not 2 . Still waiting to hear back from Anderson on the missing bucket, it has been a week with no reply to my email. That seems unusual for their CS, they usually respond within a couple days.

[frank4711]

The pictures didn't show cracks going vertical on one of the buckets. I wasn't to worried about getting that in the picture due to the obvious failure. Even with the vertical failure the buckets did not collapse, in fact we used the worse of the 2 several times after the first crack appeared. It wasn't until the last trip they started looking very scary.

We recieved the replacement, but someone failed to read the order and thy only sent one bucket not 2 . Still waiting to hear back from Anderson on the missing bucket, it has been a week with no reply to my email. That seems unusual for their CS, they usually respond within a couple days.

Thanks Marcy .... good to hear no complete collapse/failure, I will continue to like and use mine. later Frank