Electric landing gear that stops mid-extension usually isn’t broken – it’s a blown inline fuse. Ours took an hour of crawling around on crushed rock to find.
The Story
Fourth of July weekend, we pulled into our campsite and got the camper leveled and settled. Time to unhook from the truck. We have electric landing gear – the legs that lower to support the trailer once it’s off the hitch – and as we started extending it, we felt some resistance. Then it just stopped moving.
We were still new to this fifth wheel, so we called the help line we’d paid for. It was after dark by the time they called us back. The person on the phone was patient and genuinely helpful, but the fix required finding an inline fuse buried somewhere in the landing gear assembly, and they had us stop every few minutes to send them pictures so they could tell us where to look next. We spent 30 minutes or more searching, looking from the landing gear to the battery compartment. Right about when we were ready to give up, I ended up flat on the crushed rock – not comfortable, and swatting at bugs the whole time – looking straight up into the landing gear housing. And there it was: the fuse.
The next problem was that the wiring had been taped up out of the way, and my arm couldn’t reach far enough to get to it. Scott had to cut the tape to free enough wire to actually swap the fuse. That fixed it for the rest of the trip.
Except it kept happening. The same tech also mentioned, almost in passing, that we should keep the landing gear’s screw lubricated and consider adding an inline circuit breaker instead of relying on the fuse – good maintenance advice, but neither touched the actual cause.
Before Labor Day weekend, we took the trailer to a trailer dealer – not an RV-specific shop, just a trailer repair place – for something unrelated, and mentioned the recurring fuse issue. That’s when we learned the real cause: fully retracting the landing gear is what blows the fuse, every time. The fix wasn’t a part or a repair at all – it was simply stopping short of full retraction. Since we started doing that, it hasn’t blown again.
What Was Actually Going On
An inline fuse on electric landing gear is doing its job when it blows – it’s a safety device protecting the motor from a current spike, not a sign the motor itself is failing. If your landing gear stops partway through extending or retracting and won’t restart, check for a blown fuse before you assume you need a service call or a new motor.
A few things worth knowing before you’re the one lying on crushed rock at 9pm:
- Stop just short of fully retracted. Running the landing gear all the way in is what blows the fuse – leave it an inch or two short every time and it won’t happen.
- Keep the screw lubricated. General maintenance advice from the phone tech, and worth doing even though it wasn’t the actual fix for us.
- Consider an inline circuit breaker instead of a fuse. Also suggested by the phone tech – a breaker resets with the push of a button instead of requiring a spare fuse on hand.
- Know where your fuse is before you need it. Ours was up inside the landing gear housing, not in an obvious panel. Find it on a calm afternoon, not during a breakdown.
- Leave yourself room to work. Wiring taped up out of the way is tidy, but it meant we had to cut tape mid-repair just to reach the fuse. If you’re doing any wiring work yourself, leave a little slack.
- A spare fuse costs a few dollars. Keeping the correct replacement fuse on hand (check your camper’s manual for the amperage) turns this from a stranded-at-the-campsite problem into a five-minute fix.
A blown fuse and a few feet of taped-down wire turned into an hour-long repair in the dark. Knowing not to fully retract the landing gear in the first place would have made the whole thing unnecessary.