Have you ever wondered how in the world to replace electric fifth wheel landing legs? Well, it turns it’s a surprisingly easy DIY project! We’ve done it twice now, once on our full-timing Hitchhiker fifth wheel 10 years ago, and again on our current Genesis Supreme Toy Hauler a few weeks ago. Yikes!
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At the end of our RV trip to Colorado last summer, our 2022 Genesis Supreme toy hauler fifth wheel landing legs started acting up when we were getting ready to hook up and leave one day. Our fifth wheel landing legs are electric, not hydraulic, and they are driven by two separate motors, one for each leg.
Suddenly, the driver’s side leg started making a clicking sound as we raised the front of the trailer to hitch up. The sound was coming from the gear box which is driven by the landing leg motor. The gears were slipping for some reason.
The Reese Goose Box was a GAME CHANGER for us. We got the bed of our truck back (yay!) and hitching/unhitching is easy.
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We were able to get hitched up despite the slipping gears, and we stayed hitched up all the way from Lake Granby in Colorado, to our home in Arizona. We didn’t unhitch once the whole way!
When we got home, Mark removed the landing leg from the trailer to do some investigating. With the trailer hitched to and supported by the truck, it was easy to remove the driver’s side landing leg to check it out.
When you remove the top cap from the leg, you should be able to turn the shaft on the side of the leg by hand. However, he could barely turn it. Something was binding and making the leg very stiff to retract or extend.
We weren’t sure just how stiff this gear should be, though. So, just to verify whether the gear on this leg was unusually stiff, he removed the passenger side leg and repeated the process. On that side the leg was butter smooth and he could easily turn the shaft by hand.
10 years prior, we’d had a similar problem on our 2007 Hitchhiker fifth wheel. However, that fifth wheel had had only one motor to drive both landing legs — not a very rugged frame design.
We’d been pleased when we bought the Genesis Supreme that it had a dedicated motor for each leg. Nevertheless, here we were again! Argh!!
The Hitchhiker landing leg motor was made by Venture Manufacturing in Ohio. So, when those landing legs failed, Mark purchased a replacement landing leg kit from them. He installed it while we were boondocking in the Arizona desert. We never had any trouble with our landing legs after that.
Mark called Venture Manufacturing again this time to see if they could help us with the binding landing leg on our new toy hauler.
He was delighted to speak to the same customer service rep as he had 10 years prior, Sue Haller. She asked him for some details about the landing legs on our toy hauler. It turned out that they were made by a Chinese knock-off company.
Once he heard that, he decided to replace both landing legs, gear boxes and motors with parts made by Venture Manufacturing. These come in a kit.
The installation was surprisingly simple and the new parts are super smooth. We now feel confident in our trailer’s landing legs as we get ready for our next adventure.
All the parts that are in the Venture Manufacturing replacement landing leg kit.
Here are the basic steps for replacing the landing legs on a fifth wheel trailer:
- With the trailer hitched to the truck, run the landing legs all the way up.
- Turn off the battery disconnect switch
- Pull the spring pin and drop the lower legs and foot all the way out and set them aside
- Cut the positive and negative wires to the landing leg motor
- Remove the 8mm bolt from the lower gearbox shaft and slide the plastic collar off
- Remove the two 10mm bolts (11 and 5 o’clock position) from the motor and slide the motor off the shaft
- Slide the gearbox assembly off the motor shaft.
- Remove the two 9/16” nuts and bolts holding the leg onto the “U” channel
- Spread the “U” channel slightly to slide the leg out.
Do these next steps for each landing leg:
To install the new landing leg assembly, simply follow the above steps in reverse order!
Here are some pics from our installation:
Remove the lower leg section to be able to drop the upper leg assembly out from trailer.
Looking in from the outside: The landing leg and gearbox.
To remove the gearbox just remove this screw and slide the plastic piece off the shaft. The gearbox will slide off next.
Motor & gearbox removed.
If your fifth wheel has electric landing jacks but didn't come with Quick Release Pull Pins, they'll make you're life easier and they're super easy to install!
To remove the upper portion of the leg, remove the upper leg 9/16″ nut.
Remove lower 9/16″ nut. You may need to spread the “U” channel a bit to slide upper portion of the leg out.
Ta Da! New motor and gearbox attached.
All done! To install the replacement fifth wheel landing legs, do these steps in reverse order.
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More Info:
- Venture Manufacturing – Official website, 5th wheel landing leg page
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You guys make it look very simple with great, detailed instructions. And excellent photos! I ordered some of those headlight wipes from your website to help my 2009 Mazda and 2012 Subaru!
How cool is that! Thanks Pete!! Mark uses this spray on the headlights too and loves it!
How wonderful that you were able to get a quality US part from the same company you dealt with before. What a relief!
It really was, Annie. It had been so long since our previous failure, we had no idea if Venture Manufacturing was still around. What a great surprise it was to work with the same gal as we had all those years ago!
Such a valuable resource for RVers !!!!!
Love, Mom
😊