Broke the corner steady
 

Fixed this morning :D

Due to the loss of my remote for my mover, I was unable to push the caravan fully onto the levelling block when I last pitched, so instead to get it side to side level I decided to use my Alko jack under the chassis jacking bracket, to raise it the final couple of inches to level. I then set the corner steadies.

When the time came to pack up, not thinking straight, I lowered the jack first, then the steadies. The rear one let crunch and a lurch, but wound up the rest of the way fine, so I made a mental note to check it further once home on my drive.

I got around to looking at it earlier this week and it seemed the bush/nut must be stripped of its thread, the nut which runs along the threaded rod you rotate to raise and lower the steady. Its a Bailey, with Alko Chassis and corner steadies.

No urgency, so I abandoned it, to research the chances of replacing the nut and found there were two sizes 18mm and 20mm, so then I needed to find out how that was measured to be sure I ordered the right part. I also found others had managed to break them and were struggling to replace them, mostly they were complaining of struggling to release the corner steady, from the floor of the van, due to rusted nuts and bolts through the floor which just rotated.

Rather than try to release it from the floor bolts, I tried knocking a roll pin out, which held the threaded rod in place - couldn't bugs it. I then tried bend the inboard bracket out the way, supporting the end of the rod, that wouldn't bend far enough to release it.

Finally I decided to risk trying to undo the two nuts on the through the floor bolts. No rust at all, they came off easily and the steady came away and into my workshop, to find the cast alloy nut was shattered and in several pieces. I finally worked out, that the 18 or 20mm was measured over the peaks of the thread and mine needed a 20mm nut, which I ordered up yesterday, delivered this morning from Taunton.

The nut has lugs either side, which fitted tightly into holes either side of the U channel of the steady, with a 6mm phillips screw and washer, to make them stay put. So the U has to be forced/sprung apart to remove the old nut and fit the new one, which is tricky. I ended up using a 10mm nut and bolt to push the U apart. Bolt long enough to just fit in the width, then with a spanner unscrew the nut off the bolt, then repeat with a slightly longer bolt. The phillips screws either side of the nut were very tight, I needed an impact wrench to undo them.

The cast alloy nut is obviously designed to be a sacrificial nut - designed to break up if the corner steady is over-loaded.