I'm brand new to this board, and looking for advice from experienced truck camper owners.
We've had a number of different campers in the past, so know a fair bit about them, but never had a truck camper before. We recently found a camper/truck combo for sale that was an awesome deal and agreed to purchase it from the gentleman selling it. I've not yet handed over the check because we're waiting on receiving it from the bank, but the seller dropped the truck and camper off at our house on his way out of town.
While familiarizing myself with the workings of the camper I decided to plug it in to the house power to charge up the batteries (that were dead) and to run the heater and check lights, etc. I finished up, but left the camper plugged in to charge overnight, checking it once before I went to bed.
This morning as I was pouring my first cup of coffee, the neighbor knocked on my door, and I opened it to find the truck nearly tipping on it's side. One of the camper jacks had extended on it's own and was pushing the whole deal to the side. The jack motor (or whatever?) was still running, trying to push it even further.
As soon as I unplugged the electrical power the jack stopped trying to extend, but I hadn't paid very close attention to how to run the jacks since we didn't plan on taking the camper off the truck at least until Jim returns from Iraq, so I started calling everyone I know with a camper hoping to learn how to retract the darn jack.
Finally got in touch with the owner, who told me how to retract it. The remote deal didn't work for any of the jacks and so we had to retract it manually (a major pain in the @ss since the jack is the swing-out kind and the handle couldn't make a full turn).
There is some visible damage to the truck, where the camper hooks to the truck is dimpled and bent back a little and there's some denting scraping where the bumper cranked up... but my big concern is if there could be other non-visible damage to the truck or camper from the weight having been so off-center...
I had the truck checked out pre-SNAFU - it passed a mechanical inspection with flying colors.
Anybody have thoughts for me on this? Ever had a jack go rogue on you? Should I bag the whole deal?
Sorry this is so long, hopefully you at least got a giggle at my expense
Working on the assumption they are happijacs, the problem may be a short in the Telco style RJ-11 plug that the remote plugs into, check the pins for corrosion. I have heard of runaway jacks when the remote gets wet. That is why on my old camper I installed a kill switch by the rear door.
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