Pop Up Camper Repair - Addendum - Lift Arms

I was approached through the website www.popupportal.com to explain how I had repaired the springs on the lift arms of the camper.  Like the person who asked the question, I was hesitant to rip into it.  I purchased four new springs and cables. I felt that if messed up, I could buy four new complete arms.  What I found was that there isn't any real magic going on inside the arm.   The repair is fairly straight forward.  I wish I had taken pictures when I was repairing the arms.

When I purchased the cable and the springs, the supplier also provided me special sized rivets and brass wheel that the cable is lopped through  and passes over.  I didn't ask for these, but the supplier knew how important they would be and included them in the kit.

Rivet #1 is the large rivet below the safety spring pin in the picture below.  It holds the brass groved wheel that the cable runs in. The cable enters the slot in the arm and runs in the grove of the brass wheel. This free rolling wheel allows the cable to easily move without causing friction between the cable and the rivet.  Two of my cables broke because this brass wheel was rusted onto the rivets.   Rivet #2 is the smaller rivet that runs through the larger cable loop.

Without these rivets, the arm repair will be difficult.  Assuming you have the rivets, the repair is straight forward.  I will try to recount the steps by memory.  These direction work best if you have a workbench with a vise installed.

1)      Remove the two rivets from the arm “elbow” and disassemble the arm by removing the old cable, and springs. Old rivets can be drilled out by using a drill bit that is slightly smaller than the rivet body. The springs and cables can be accessed and removed after the rivets are removed.

2)      If you want, you can clean the arms while they are disassembled.

3)      Reassemble the arm

a.       Run the large looped end of the cable through the new #2 rivet. 

b.      The new #1 rivet and copper wheel and cable will need to be put together in the cut out in the arm under the cable slot and pushed into position attaching the upper part of the arm with the bottom portion.  The small loop of the cable will need to be attached to the new spring at this time.

4)      I attached a plastic zip tie to the bottom of the spring and pushed it into place.  You may need to hook this zip tie with stiff wire to pull the spring as far down as you can.

5)      The plastic zip tie loop was long enough to peek out from the bottom of the arm.

6)      With the arm lying flat on the bench and the cables and rivets in place (BUT NOT PERMANENTLY INSTALLED). I hooked the zip tie to a hook that I had tightened in the vise.  

7)      With the help of an extra pair of hands (but not impossible to do by yourself), I pulled the arm assembly away from the vise which positioned the spring further down the channel toward the bottom of the lift arm.  

8)      When the bottom of the spring was in position with the bottom bolt hole, I pushed the bolt into place.  

The spring was now tensioned and I unhooked it from the hook in the vise.  

(I kept zip ties on until I had the arm assemble on the trailer.  This proved worthwhile as I had made a mistake and had to reverse one the bottom bolts.  I merely went back to my work bench. Hooked the zip tie to the vise again and repositioned the bolt after I took the tension off the bolt.)

With the spring tensioned, the rivets are held into place.  The only thing you need to finish is to open up the end of rivets. I did this by gently and carefully tapping the end of the rivet with a ball peen hammer spreading the end open.