RV FEATURE
You need to have a level surface to park your
van on and ideally it would be smooth concrete,
bitumen or brickwork. Not all of us are lucky
enough to have easy access to such a surface so
if it’s coarse bluechip or grass, then you’ll need a
piece of thick timber to support the scales.
Make sure the park brake is on and that wheels
are chocked. With the timber in place under the
coupling and the scales sitting on it, simply raise
the caravan on the jockey wheel until you estimate
that the piece of timber and scales will be able to
slide under. Then check that the scales are level
on the ground (or timber) so that when you raise
the van the scales do not fall over.
Then lower the van’s coupling very carefully onto
the scales using the jockey wheel, until the jockey
wheel is raised clear of the ground. Do not take
the jockey wheel off the van or swivel it up – if the
scales do tip over, you’ll want the jockey wheel
there to stop the van landing on the A-frame.
LOOSEN THE ANTI-RATTLE BOLT
Most vehicles’ trailer hitch receivers have a
bolt under the hitch that threads into the hitch
assembly and stops the tongue from rattling when
towing. The thing is, such an anti-rattle bolt is not
meant to stay tensioned against the tongue when
you’ve hitched up. It’s possible that the tongue
might crack at the point it’s pushing against the
tip of the bolt. It’s a two-minute job to release the
bolt tension off the tongue (not forgetting to nip-
up the locking nut once you’re done so the bolt
doesn’t unthread itself entirely).
Of course, the bolt will need to be slackened off if
you’re replacing your towing tongue with another
weight distribution hitch tongue anyway – just
don’t re-tension it with the new tongue in place.
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