Off road tire change with no jack.

[Wulfthang]

I had to replace the rear brake pads on our motorhome today. It's a heavy 28 footer so after I jacked it up, I set three jack stands under it. All three of the stands and the jack were on metal plates because I was doing it on dirt. It's to tall to fit under the roof on my carport to get it on concrete. It was perfectly safe.

I took both wheels off and replaced the pads but it started to rain so I quit and went inside. It was fine overnite sitting up on three jack stands and the jack. Yeah sure until the rain softened the ground up and everything sank about two inches into the dirt. That is a heavy motorhome!

Ok, no problem. I'll just jack it back up a couple of inches and put the dually wheels back on. Nope! I ain't crawling under there to get to the jack because I can see it's twisted sideways. That thing would squash me like a bug if it fell on me. Hmmm. How to raise the motorhome to get the wheels back on?

Then I remembered a thing that happened to me and my VW, The Panzer. (I used snow chains in the swamps and it clanked like a tank) I had a flat off road and had no friggin' jack handle to crank the jack up. But, I did have a shovel.

I drove it over a convenient log that almost touched the bottom of the car. Then I dug a hole under the tire, removed it and put the spare on. The car had settled down onto the log so I piled dirt and rocks into the hole and drove it out.

I left the motorhome sitting as it was and dug a hole where the tires would fit. Then I rolled them in and tightened them up. Filled in the hole and drove it out. I thought I would share that experience about changing a tire with no jack.

[s.e.charles]

i don't understand how you got enough dirt under the tires to drive out, but i understand sometimes the story gets longer than we have energy to type.

Q: don't some RVs have build in leveling jacks?

could those be of any assist?

in any event, glad you didn't get squished like a Bug.

[Dan_Lockwood]

My fifth wheel toy hauler is a triple axle and grosses out at 18k#.

I had to put new tires on it and didn't want to take them off one at a time to the dealer to change them out. My Raptor has an Auto-Level hydraulic system. I put the three hydraulic jacks down on one side and removed all three wheels/tires at once. Then got the tires swapped out and did the same on the other side. No jack required...

Problem I have now is that since my new to me sand rail was stretched to a 4-seater, and I'm finishing it as a 4-seater, it is too long to fit into my 12' garage... Don't know how I'm going to get it AND my fifth wheel to Glamis when we go next year. I'll figure something out hopefully!

I like the dig under story too.

Dan

[Wulfthang]

On my old VW Panzer, I had to set the parking brake and tied a cord to the brake cable underneath to hold it tight for that wheel. The other wheel pulled me out.

On the motorhome, I had to pile a lot of dirt under those wheels and use a "drive out pad". A piece of cut off milk crate for traction. It climbed out pretty easy.

Edited to add:
Yes, a lot of motorhomes have leveling jacks but they can't lift the wheels off the ground. All they can do is move it around on the suspension to make it level.

[Stinky123]

I once had a flat in a company Ramcharger....no jack.

I was on a graded dirt road, with a V-groove at the edge. It had a right angle, to the road, verticle lip. I drove it diagonally across the edge....to the left, the driver's rear wheel went into the air, at the edge. I changed the tire, backed it up and tightened the nuts, and drove on.

[BFB]

Love the story & ingenuity.
Also, apparently not all RV’s will but ours will lift high enough to lift the tires off the ground, on a flat surface
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[Wulfthang]

[BFB]

[Dusty1]