My 2 favorite mods so far have been the ones to the rear bumper. The first is the addition of a storage box. My father-in-law and I built a storage box out of 22-gauge sheet metal. I painted it and mounted it to the rear bumper with some angle iron. The box is big enough to hold the spare tire, extension cord, water hoses, and various tools. Needless to say, it keeps a lot of "stuff" out of the inside of the camper.

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The second mod (again, stolen from my father-in-law) was to install new stabilizer jacks. The UHauls (like the Scamps and most other FG rig I've seen) have the fold-down stabilizers mounted underneath the frame. I have had enough of busted knuckles while trying to lower the jacks, so I went looking for some better ones. I found these on sale at Lowe's for $18 apiece. The nice thing about them is you don't have to crawl under the trailer to get to them, and they offer much more precise leveling capability.

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Isn't it nice to have a trailer that is uniquely your own without spending an arm and a leg and sacrificing your retirement funds or the kids college education

Jason, I hated those stablizer jacks on my Scamp and dumped them. The road rash and busted knuckles was awful, I can understand you wanting to change them.

Lookin' good

Interesting mods. When the box is fully loaded, how does it affect your CT13's tongue weight?

Jack, I haven't measured the tongue weight to be able to give you a definitive answer, but it hasn't affected it enough to be noticed. The spare tire is the heaviest item I keep in the box, so I would estimate the total laden weight of the box to be on the order of 50#. Out of curiousity, where do you store your spare? The only other spare storage on a UHaul I've seen is a bracket mounted to the top of the bumper.

I like those stabilizer jacks. I'm gonna have to pay the local Lowes a visit. I might have a problem though, if they are too long from the swivel mount to the base.

Curt

I want to shop at Lowe's too, what do they call the jacks? Trying to locate on the web and can't seem to find the right word to search.

Thanks

Found these at Harbor Freight - they are on sale for $12.99 right now - only thing I noticed is that they are to be welded on - mebbe there is an easier way - still thinking about this "mod" - I like the idea though

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/disp...temnumber=41006

I'm not sure if Lowe's has them on the web or not, but in the store, they are located with the rest of the towing accessories.

I remember the local Wal-Mart carried a similar item a while back, not sure if they still do. Seems like they were more expensive, on the order of $30 each. Harbor Freight also carried a bolt-on version at one time, but again, not sure if it was on the web or not. Good luck folks, it looks like I may have struck a nerve!

I'm thinking there's folks impressed with what you've done and want to duplicate the effort on their own trailers. That's what sharing modifications is all about. Just as there's more than one way to do the same or similar thing. The whole idea is to get people to think....

Although Jason is using these as stabilzers, they are normally intended to be used at the tongue, and some travel trailers (and many utility and boat trailers) do use this swivel-mounted design there. I had thought of doing this with fixed (not swivel) jacks, but they are usually too heavy and expensive for this application. In searching, I think "trailer tongue jack" is the key phrase, combined with "swivel" or "swing-up" to get this variation.

When looking at the ratings of these jacks, I think it is relevant that tongue jacks are designed to lift their rated load, and support it, while stabilizers and jackstands are not intended to lift, just to resist motion once in place. As a result, a cheap stand could be rated for thousands of pounds, while a much more substantial-looking tongue jack might only be rated for a few hundred pounds.

Brian,

Good point. For what it's worth, mine are rated for 1000# each.

The bumper mount is standard UHaul design. Tongue weight on my UHaul is 185lbs., about 12% of loaded weight. I'm a bit leery of rear-mounted spares - or anything else - after reading an NIHS article stating that vehicles with rear-mounted spares sustain much greater damage in rear-end collisions.

I really like your stabilizer jack mod - but I'm probably too lazy and cheap to replace the knuckle-busters on my UHaul. Maybe someday I'll get organized...