Atwood Gear Repair Kits for 5th Wheel Landing Gear

Question:

Recently bought a 1995 Knight King of the Road 5th wheel 36ft. Has Atwood jacks that have stripped gearsboth sides. Cannot find any model #s or info on the jacks except Atwood logo on top plate. Gears had 15 teeth each. NTP is out of stock and not sure when they will get more. Now from what I have researched,these 15 teeth gears are good for 1000lbs but I know the camper weighs 14,300 empty weight. Seems a little light for landing gear to me. Not sure if someone has tried to replace before and installed with wrong gears or would this be correct ? Really dont want to spend 700 bucks on new landing gear when these seem to be fine except for the gears. Do they make an upgrade set of gears ? Thanks.

asked by: Don T

Expert Reply:

When it comes to 5th wheel landing gear like # RVLG-8000, tongue jacks or winches, it is usually best in the long run to use an over-spec product that can handle more weight than you're going to ask it to. This tends to increase the working lifespan of such items since they will then be operated conservatively, well below their limits. Landing gear rated for 1000-lbs on a 14k+ trailer is surely a bit on the light side.

Atwood landing gear repair kits are shown on the linked page. These kits are intended for specific weight capacity products and unfortunately just swapping out gears does not increase the jack's overall weight capacity. Other jack components including the tubing also bear on its weight rating.

If you prefer a new kit to a repair kit all such landing gear sets are shown on the other linked page.

expert reply by: Adam R