Community Forums

CraigAllegro · 06-29-2011, 09:22 AM

My bus is sitting on a pad beside my garage. I had some deep excavation beneath it before it was laid. As it started the rain forest like weather over the last month we had a significant sinkage. I had to level the unit to its limits. I'm not looking forward to getting her out of there!!!

mccsix · 06-29-2011, 09:28 AM

I'd focus on getting it out there before you can't without some damage. Consider filling it over with large gravel rock till it quits settling.

bbeane · 06-29-2011, 09:31 AM

Wow, looks like 2x12's, friends(extra help beer afterward!) and some fill dirt in the holes then back er out carefully. Not a nice thing (twisting) to do to the coach but it's got come out.

JMonroe · 06-29-2011, 09:33 AM

I agree, I'd be getting it out now. From the photo I'd already be worried about the front end hitting the pavement when it comes off the jacks.

**JohnRR** · 06-29-2011, 09:44 AM

The sooner you start getting it out of there the better, the situation is only going to get worse.

Wolfpack Fan · 06-29-2011, 10:38 PM

Hope you get it out without any damage, but I would be concerned that the front end is going to touch ground in a pretty unpleasant way when you retract the jacks. Just as another poster mentioned.

I had a similar situation occur many years ago in the Army. I'll share it with you and maybe an idea will come out of it. I had to recover a flat bed trailer that was to close to the ground to get the tractor under it, and the landing legs were broken. I had plenty of wood (dunnage), and a 40 ton bottle jack that had about 12" of lift, so I built a jack platform out of the wood, put the jack on it, and jacked up the trailer as far as I could. Then built a temporary support for the trailer and lowered the jack, easing the trailer onto the support I'd built. Built another platform for the jack and raised the trailer again. Added to the trailer support I'd built and lowered the trailer onto it again. I repeated this several times until the trailer apron was high enough to back a tractor underneath it. It took quite some time to complete the operation, but it worked, and I got the trailer high enough to get the tractor under it.

I don't think a bottle jack would be appropriate for your situation. Perhaps a floor jack instead, or even the on board jacks, because of the lower profile. I did a lot of recovery operations for various wheeled and tracked vehicles in the Army. They don't necessarily, directly relate, but maybe my experience will give you some creative ideas to recover your beaufiful rv without doing harm to it.

I doubt that I've provided the complete solution, but we're men and we figure things out. It's how we're wired. Sometimes we figure things out from pretty abstract references to a similar situation. That's me anyhow.

Good luck with it. I hope you recover it without any harm to body or equipment.

Nuge · 07-01-2011, 06:03 PM

When we first got our RV and took it to our River place I asked my son to re-position it so we could open the awning. He found a soft spot and it was buried!! Just our luck he had to leave so it was up to the little woman and I to get it out. We couldn't even GET under the RV to jack it up, so I took off the chrome wheel cover, piled up a few 2 x 4s against the wheel, and used our bottle jack to jack it up inside the wheel rim. Maybe not the best or safest move, but we were left with no other choice we could see and it was MUCH better than having to take up all the slack in the suspension before the wheel started coming out of the hole it was in. After several lifts and literally pounding sand and 2 x 4s under the wheels we were able to drive it out that night and get it where we wanted it.

The funny part was the neighbor who came over telling us we were screwed and would never get it out. He has a bad back and couldn't help and his dump truck had sat through a flood and the gas tank was full of water; he couldn't help us and we'd NEVER get it out. Well, he don't know ME very well and the last thing to do is tell me I CAN'T do something!! LOL!! When I backed up the lane to get it where we wanted it I hit our horn which is actually a siren just to let him know we were out...

We'd be glad to come help you out for a small fee and travel expenses... LOL!! J/K!!

wa8yxm · 07-02-2011, 07:44 AM

I too have to support getting it out of there.

Start by jacking up the wheels that have sunk in using a good quality hydrauilc jack, the 12 ton air/hydraulic jack-jack from Harbor Freight is what i carry.

Then shovel gravel or something in under the wheel to fill in as much as possible

Then lay plank over that (Go for the top of the plank about 1/2 inch higher than the concrete.

As for the 2nd attachment.. Unable to see anything on this computer.

lay enough plank to allow for mistakes driving out

Now, fill in the other holes as best you can, same way, gravel with plank over the top Or plywood, as thick as you can get.

Then drive it off and have a professional fix it.

ctcamper · 07-02-2011, 08:02 AM

I would fill with process or stone dust, help compact with water, let dry, then pull forward to clear front wheels and get rid of the board and add more stone and pull the rest of the way out.