the sky is falling

[j&h]

i greased all the lift components and now it works to well. after i crank it up it slowly falls back down. am i missing a posotive locking mechanism or somthing??? my alternative right now(please dont laugh) is to tie the crank to the tuonge.

[AustinBoston]

i greased all the lift components and now it works to well. after i crank it up it slowly falls back down. am i missing a posotive locking mechanism or somthing??? my alternative right now(please dont laugh) is to tie the crank to the tuonge.

I knw that the Coleman brand trailers made by Fleetwood (factory was sold in the late 80's, I think) have a ratchet mechanism as part of the winch.  Sometimes, it can loose it's "ratchet" so that it can come back down.  The typical solution was to make sure it was cranked all the way up.  It will make a significant "KLUNK!" when the ratchet resets itself.

IMPORTANT: I do not know if this applies to trailers as old as yours.

Austin

[tlhdoc]

I know that there were some years that the Coleman trailers did not have the ratchet mechanism.  I am hoping yours does (do you have the owners manual?).  If it does all you should have to do is crank the trailer to the top and then give the crank an extra push.  It is only turning the crank a little bit more.  You have to push hard to get it to over crank, but that should reset your lift system.  If you end up tying the crank handle to keep it up, consider cutting two 2 X 4s to put in two corners (on a diagnal) as a saftey thing.  When the door is in palce the roof can not come down.