ratchet jockey wheels

Hi Toohey,

Yes they would. They are painfully slow, but they do work. It probably depends on how far you need to move the van.

I have a dual wheel Maco Mule which gives more traction than the single wheel model, but still require a bit of effort.

Check the price carefully and you may be able to justify THIS


Bill.

Hi toohey

We can move our single axle van up a bit more than slight slope (with a bit of effort but ok) and certainly turn it no sweat. Its about the same mass as yours.

We have only a single wheel ratchet wheel. It is an Alko - we bought it to move our camper trailer across a lawn into a spot on the other side of th house. When the lawn was wet, we had a couple of short lengths of plank, lowered the wheel on to one plank, then rolled the CT along one length, then to the other etc. That saved churning up the lawn.

We don't need to travel off the driveway with the van, but moved it up the last three metres until I learned to back it all the way, and have on occasions in tight caravan parks moved the van in and out no sweat, and turned it around too.

I'd recommend the Alko, pretty rugged and nothing has worn at all in 9 years or so of intermittent use. The instructions call it an "Alko Power Mover" with no model number.

Cheers
Max

Hi there. I bought a Maco dual wheel unit for that very purpose. I would be nervous with a single wheel unit on a slope with a tonne and a half trying to get away, so I recommend a dual wheel unit (twice the skid resistance, and twice the braking effectiveness). I am assuming you are working on a hard surface,and make sure the tyre(s) on the unit are inflated properly.
I guess I am saying the Maco works hard and I don't feel hugely confident with such a weight. Pushing and turning is not the problem, so much as a fairly small tyre contact area to rely on when braking such a load. My van is a single axle one, so should be easier to turn than a tandem, on paper.
I am not promoting the Maco, I just don't have experience of anything else.
Any chance you could borrow one to do a test, before you lash out the purchase price?
Hope this helps.

We had an Alko Power Mover single wheel ratchet device, and it was fabulous with our previous camper except for one thing. If you use it hard it overstresses the jockey wheel clamp. On one occasion it tore the whole clamp bolt out of the clamp nut with such force that it scared the hell out of me and left an incredible rubber tread pattern on the side of the A frame. Had I been closer it could have caused a serious injury. The old clamp had to be cut off and a new one bolted on in anticipation (well founded) of the clamp being damaged enough to need replacement again. When we upgraded to a 2.5 tonne (loaded) dirt road van, we found it was inadequate to do anything except the most minor straight line moves on flat concrete or similar. It could not steer the van at all, and we gave it away.

Cant help you but will watch the thread with interest. We store our van in our back yard & the situation is that we can reverse it in with the vehicle far enough backwards, but having got it to "far enough in" we then have to manually push the very front of the "A" frame in at a 90 degree direction for only for about a metre & a half with slight incline in order to get the gate shut.
We used to have a single axle van, and the manual pushing was as easy as.

We now have a dual axle & to manually push it in at 90 degrees is just about impossible with three people as the tyres have to drag across the pavement. I recently bought a boat winch, but hey, it seems to be under one heck of a lot of strain when pulling it in or out.

Had considered a dual wheel solid rubber ratchet job at about $350 & would be happy to buy it but reluctant, not knowing if it has the capacity to push the 90 degrees. Cheers

The brand I got is Ark I think and I can't recommend it.

G'day
We have the Alko power wheel and is is ok to move our single axle van weighing 1650 kg to 1700kg on paved and only very slight slope and turn it more than 90 degrees
I think a tandem axle rig would not be able to be moved in the same way
and it does place some load on the jockey wheel mount but so far all ok
Garry

I know of a guy who years & years ago used a block & tackle with appropriately placed anchor point/s in his yard.