Corner Repair and damaged Jacks

[John Bee]

Hi All,
I recently bought a 1999 Lance Lite 8'6"� camper. The previous owner damaged the front Atwood manual crank up jacks and brackets. The drivers side front jack needs attention the most. Standing in front the jack slants more toward the center of the camper than vertical. Looking from the side the jack slants more toward the front than vertical. When taking the camper off the truck there doesn't seem to be any problem but when lowering al the way to the ground the jacks are stressed a lot. Looking closely at the brackets that mount to the camper I notice that the brackets move about 3/16"� away from the caulking. I took everything off the camper and determined that the angle iron bracket is not square and twisted slightly. There is a second part of the bracket that is a plate about 3/16"� x 3"� wide by about 16"� long. It too is twisted slightly. I appears the previous owner has tried to make repairs and the first thing I noticed is caulking between the plates and the aluminum siding. Logic seemed that this would make it impossible for the plates to make a "solid"� bond to the camper with this slippery rubbery caulking between the plates and aluminum siding. Is this normal installation practice?
The lag screw holes don't seem to be torn too badly and I was thinking of drilling the ¼"� holes out to say 5/16"� and then use a dowell rod with some gorilla glue and seal the existing holes. After that I was thinking of fabricating a slightly thicker angle iron and plate and drill new holes to mount the brackets. The dowells are probably birch and I suspect the camper corners are doug fir.
I was also trying to figure a way to re-square the existing angle iron.
Any ideas? Thoughts? Don't let me make a blunder if you see it!
Thanks in advance,
John

[John Bee]

Hi All,
I recently bought a 1999 Lance Lite 8'6"� camper. The previous owner damaged the front Atwood manual crank up jacks and brackets. The drivers side front jack needs attention the most. Standing in front the jack slants more toward the center of the camper than vertical. Looking from the side the jack slants more toward the front than vertical. When taking the camper off the truck there doesn't seem to be any problem but when lowering al the way to the ground the jacks are stressed a lot. Looking closely at the brackets that mount to the camper I notice that the brackets move about 3/16"� away from the caulking. I took everything off the camper and determined that the angle iron bracket is not square and twisted slightly. There is a second part of the bracket that is a plate about 3/16"� x 3"� wide by about 16"� long. It too is twisted slightly. I appears the previous owner has tried to make repairs and the first thing I noticed is caulking between the plates and the aluminum siding. Logic seemed that this would make it impossible for the plates to make a "solid"� bond to the camper with this slippery rubbery caulking between the plates and aluminum siding. Is this normal installation practice?
The lag screw holes don't seem to be torn too badly and I was thinking of drilling the ¼"� holes out to say 5/16"� and then use a dowell rod with some gorilla glue and seal the existing holes. After that I was thinking of fabricating a slightly thicker angle iron and plate and drill new holes to mount the brackets. The dowells are probably birch and I suspect the camper corners are doug fir.
I was also trying to figure a way to re-square the existing angle iron.
Any ideas? Thoughts? Don't let me make a blunder if you see it!
Thanks in advance,
John

[RedneckExpress]

I had a jack bracket pulled slightly loose when a wind storm picked 3000lbs of camper up and shoved it down a hill, digging the front jacks into the dirt 6". I wound up having a friend weld up a new heavier bracket that tied back into the existing corner and also up underneath the wing to provide leverage against the torque being applied to it by high lifting.

I upgraded all the bolts at this time to 5/16" lags and used polyurethan glue in the holes when I installed the bolts. So far, so good, the corners water tight and holding quite solid.