How do you apply Al-Ko wheel locks with ramps?
Can anyone offer any tips and advice to someone who having become the proud owner of a new van has become a bit disillusioned with one small but very significant aspect of caravanning?
I refer to the Al-Ko security wheel lock as supplied as standard on many caravans, including mine. If the owners of such caravans would care to inspect the small print of their insurance documents they, like me, will probably find that it is a condition
that the lock is fitted at all times when parked.
This is fine when the parking is being carried out on the typical billiard table pitch as can be found at most organised sites but my wife and I prefer to use the more ‘informal’ arrangements of Certificated Locations (CLs) where things are often far from
level.
My problem is that the degree of accuracy with which the wheel needs to be positioned to enable the lock to be fitted and the caravan to remain level is nearly impossible to achieve and I wonder if I am missing something obvious. Mr Al-Ko really was very
clever in convincing the major manufacturers to use his product, especially as he had obviously never tried using it himself on uneven ground.
To both level the van and enjoy the views it invariably means that we need to raise the nearside wheel, ie the side with the door and view as the ground is usually sloping down away from us. This is also the side which houses the security lock on the wheel.
The only way I have found so far is to manoeuvre the van up a ramp until it is level and then to jack it up further until the wheel can be rotated to the correct position. Even that rarely works first time and without issues as when the handbrake is applied
and the jack lowered and the wheel starts to take weight once more there is invariably a shift in position which throws the lock out of alignment - and that is ignoring the fact that I actually bent the jacking point on one occasion because it was not man
enough for the job despite being well below the maximum weight.
Am I doing something wrong? Am I missing the point? Am I worrying unnecessarily about the unfair conditions that insurance companies like to introduce so that they can grasp any chances not to pay a claim?
I cannot be the only one who wants to enjoy my time in a level caravan whilst parked securely on uneven ground.