RV Choice As Northern Lite Campers

In Praise of the Northern Lite Campers

One of the best things going for pickup campers has to be the jacks or landing gear system. The jacks serve a couple of very important purposes. The most important is for loading the camper onto the truck.

Loading

Northern Lite Campers need to be lifted high enough to load on and off the truck. A travel trailer will also have a jack at the tongue to help lift and lower the rig onto the towing hitch. The way a trailer is, or at least should be balanced, only a fraction of the total weight of the rig will actually rest on the tongue. That is why the trailer jack is usually a simple, hand-operated screw jack. The single jack at the front is also helpful for helping to adjust the level of the trailer fore and aft.

Camper jacks need to lift the entire weight of the camper. Actually, pickup campers will have a jack in each corner, so each will only handle a quarter of the weight. It is something that would be preferable to have done by machinery rather than by hand.

In the past, it was not uncommon for pickup campers to remain on their trucks almost permanently. This is because there was a good deal of effort involved in getting the things in and out of the truck bed. With electric landing gear, some care needs to be taken while backing the truck under the pickup camper, but lifting the rig is almost effortless.

Leveling

Another drawback owners of Northern Lite Campers dealt with in the past was the rocking and rolling while parked. Without jacks, the stability of the rig was dependent upon the truck's suspension. The suspension was often already stressed, just from having the camper installed. If one or more of the tires were under inflated as well, occupants sometimes experienced seasickness if others were coming and going from pickup campers while they were sleeping.

Travel trailers sometimes have installed manual or powered jacks to provide a solid base. More often they depend upon a set of cheap screw jacks, one at each corner of the frame. The tongue jack has the greatest mechanical advantage, so will be used for most of the leveling chores. The screw jacks simply provide a foundation.

Powered camper jacks make the job much simpler for a pickup camper. Extend the jacks until they touch the ground, then check the fore and aft and the side to side level indicators mounted on the camper. Extend the jack in the lowest corner until you have achieved perfect level. Most of the weight will still be supported but the truck. If you need to drive somewhere, simply lift the camper off the bed and drive away, releveling afterwards. Some users feel more secure if they lower their pickup campers closer to ground level after taking the truck away, but this is not strictly necessary. Visit Website to check all new and used truck campers at Scatt Recreation