Working on Suspension - Jacking

Groover

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 4, 2020
Messages
166
Location
Tucson, AZ
I recently replaced all of the running gear and to do that I jacked up the entire trailer and put it on jackstands, but that was a massive pain.

Now I want to swap out the equalizers and the springs. I only have to do one side at a time and one spring at a time.

How can I safely do this without having to jack up the entire trailer?

I am thinking that I can jack up the side I am working on and use two jack stands to support the frame, then remove both wheels from that side. I will then need to remove the U-bolts from the axles and lower the axles a bit to slide the springs out. Can I do this with the wheels on the other end of the axles still attached and still on the ground?

Thanks.
 
Short answer: yes, you can do it with the other wheels on the ground. It's a bit more of a pain, because you can't move things around due to the other wheels on the ground. But I did it on a triple axle toyhauler, but I did have the truck hooked up to the fifth wheel. If you have leveling legs, it's a bit of a doddle. :)
 
What Howard said. I do it that way every year when I check/replace the bushings and repack the wheel bearings. This year I replaced our leaf springs, U bolts and shackles. One side at a time. I use our leveling system to get the the side I'm working on up, but use 12 ton jack stands for safety and support. Each of our 6 leveling jacks can take several thousand pounds load weight.

Stabilizer jacks you can not use to do this, they are not nearly strong enough.
 
Yeah, it's pretty much a full day's job. I took a weekend. :)

Me too, Only I spread it out over a couple weekends LOL's. My old knees and back couldn't handle doing it all in one day or a single weekend!
I have never really found it that difficult doing one side at a time and to keep everything from moving and lined up so the wet bolts go back in pretty easy. I use two 3 ton jacks/stands under the axles between the Ubolts to hold things steady.

For torque I used 45 ft lbs on the wet bolt nuts and 65 ft lbs on the leaf spring Ubolt nuts.
 
well replaced the wet bolts, installed a new equalizer and the cross bars. ya it was an 8 hour job.

lessons learned.
jack the entire trailer, if you don't the bolts will bind and make it difficult remove and install.

get a short throw torque wrench
 

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