Lift, winch, and jack problems.. 1st trip! Help!

[Rauch0812]

Took our new to us camper out for our 1st trip, so excited.  Back it into our camp spot, unhook it from the car.  Start to level it with our new handy dandy bal leveler that goes around one tire and *boom*!  Tongue jack slips down and front of camper drops.  We get this straighten up and level the camper back out.  Then when we go crank up the roof, it's almost up and the the handle spins out of control and the roof slams down.  Now, of course we've set this thing up at home atleast 5 times with no problems what so ever.   It was very depressing to pack everything back up and climb back into the car and head home.  When my husband climbed under the tongue to look at the problem he says the handle connects to a shaft with a small gear around it that grips in the big gear.  Now the small gear just spins around the shaft, therefore causing the handle to spin and unwind.   So...  many questions.  My DH is trying to determine how it's affixed to the shaft?  Is there a pin that came out or is it welded or...?  Has anybody dealt with this and can we repair it?  Could this have broken when the tongue slipped?  Any thoughts?  I'm desperate to repair it a make another go at this!

Thank you so much!
Trips in our new camper?  1/2 a day  :mad:
2000 Coachmen 1280
2003 Ford Expedition

[coach]

I can't offer any lift system advise!
I believe Coachman/Viking changed to the 'Goshen' lift system in the late 90s.

Based in the description, it might just be sheared pin, I'd be contacting Coachman and or Goshen.

My older PU has the removable center tongue jack.
Mine did a slow slide once and now I put something (jack stand) under the tongue, an added benefit is reduced wobble!

[austinado16]

Sorry to hear this happened.

I'd suggest your man friend cleans the gear and shaft really well, so he can get a good look at the way/position they fit together.  Cleaning the gear may also reveal if it was held by an allen head set screw, a dowel pin(split pin), etc.  If it were welded to the shaft, you would see the broken weld "lumps" where the molten weld metal was.

Hopefully it'll be an easy, quick fix.

One suggestion for set up safety.  Chock the wheels so the camper can't roll.  Make this the first thing you do before you do anything else, including unhooking the safety chains from your tow vehicle.  I got in a hurry on our second camping trip, and raised the camper up off the towing ball.  The camp site wasn't level, the camper immediately started rolling, and ka-waaang, the safety chains caught it.   Had the chains not still been attached to the truck, the camper would have rolled about 10' and then dropped off into an occupied tent site about 30' away down a 45 degree slop.  I got very lucky.