Fine Tuning The Lifting Mechanisim

[countrygirl]

Originally Posted by Barb&Tim

Welcome to the forum!

There is a good guide for making the adjustments posted earlier in this thread and is located here:

http://www.trailmanorowners.com/foru...51&postcount=2

Tim

Thanks

I printed this one out to save!

In the thread it talks about adjusting all of the bolts. My question is the tension on my rear shell is fine. The problem is my front shell is much harder to rasie. Is this normal? Should they be the same ease-difficulty?
I'm assuming I can just adjust the front shell by turning the bolts "out" which would be clockwise? Also did I read the thread correctly in that the front bolts are actually in the back-opposite to what you might think?

Thanks.

[Barb&Tim]

My front shell is harder to raise than my rear due to more weight on the front shell -- but not so much that it is causing a problem for me.

<Out, clockwise>
Lets try it this way, to increase a tortion bar tension you need to tighten the adjustment bolt for it -- to decrease tension losen the bolt.

<back-opposite to what you might think??
The adjustment bolts for the streetside tortion bars are on the curbside and vise vera.

[Bill]

You need to stick your head under the trailer. You can see the torsion bars. There are a total of 8 of them, four for the front shell and four for the rear shell. They are round steel bars, about 1/2 inch in diameter, painted black, and as was pointed out earlier, they run across the entire width of the camper.

Each shell is lifted by four "lift arms". A lift arm is the white rectangular metal tube, approx 1X2 inches. These lift arms pivot along the sides of the camper to lift the shell. They are horizontal when the shell is down, and vertical when the shell is up.

Now go under the camper and look closely at the torsion bars. You will see that one end of each bar is bent upward and is inserted into one of the lift arms. The other end is bent and inserted into a cage under the trailer. The cage has a short but BIG hex bolt, the end of which presses on the bent end of the torsion bar. It is these hex bolts that you are going to adjust. Adjusting them "in" means "make them press harder on the torsion bar". The direction will be obvious by inspection.

Whatever you do, DO NOT remove the stainless steel hose clamp that keeps the end of the torsion bar in its cage. Doing so could have fatal consequences - literally.

You can adjust the bars for the front shell without adjusting the bars for the rear shell, and vice versa. However, having chosen which shell to adjust, you should turn all four of its hex bolts by the same amount - start with a quarter turn. I really recommend not trying to tweak one bolt more or less than the others.

Bill

Just to clarify, if my front shell is hard to open, but closes easily. Do I turn the bolts in or out? Thank you so very much.

[Barb&Tim]

Originally Posted by wilma1002

Just to clarify, if my front shell is hard to open, but closes easily. Do I turn the bolts in or out? Thank you so very much.

In, which will increase the tension.

Tim

[Unstable_Tripod]

I've found that the shells open and close much easier if the trailer is level than if it is not. Beyond that, I'm very glad to have found this thread because I was just wondering if there was any way to adjust the force on the torsion bars. Even level, my shells are significantly harder to open than in the TM videos.

Thanks, I've been under my TM numerous times-not that I yet understand all of the torsion bar structure. Are the hex bolts hard to turn? And do they ever vibrate out of adjustment enough such that the tension changes over time or do they pretty much stay where you set them?

I just visited the TM plant on Monday. One of the things the service department did was to back out the hex nuts with the shell up to zero tension. They then adjusted the hex nuts 2.5 turns each and I think leveled the shell.

Its lifts fine now.

TM is an interesting place, but the grounds need a little bush hogging...

[Sherocks222]

what web page do you have and how do i get to it?