While unhitching one day I found the remains of what I at first thought was a fibre washer directly under the stabiliser and this was eventually identified as the rubber seal that protects the innards of the ratchet mechanism from dirt and water ingress. Kits of seals are readily available for around £17 (12/21)




All the items marked '4' in the diagram are in the seal kit



Although this job could probably be done with the stabiliser in situ, I decided to remove the whole assembly in one piece so that I could work on it on the bench. The stabiliser is held onto the drawbar by two 12mm bolts but before you undo them you need to make up a 12mm dia x 50mm long dowel with which to drift out the bolt nearest the rubber gaiter in order to retain the damper that attaches to the bolt. The rear bolt is easy to remove but the front nut on my caravan was very tight and difficult to grip and I ended up damaging the 8mm hexagon recess in its head and mangling the nut necessitating their replacement. I have seen these bolts advertised at up to £17 each (gulp!) but managed to find them at Taunton Trailers priced at £2.50 so do shop around.


Here you can see the dowel in place retaining the damper while the stabiliser is being serviced.

With the two tiny wire circlips removed from the friction pad spindles (be careful not to lose them as they tend to fly off), the pads and their bearings can be pushed out. Check if you need to order new pads and or bearings.

The ratchet control knob can now be unscrewed and removed and once the grub screw has been removed (mine was very tight) so can the operating lever. The two parts of the stabiliser body can now be separated but at this stage the seals and spring fell out before I could make a note of how they fitted.

My next job was to strip the Burgundy paint from the operating handle as mine was badly flaking and the alloy was covered in oxidation. I picked most of the old paint off with cocktail sticks and used Nitromors on the stubborn bits that still adhered. My initial plan was to use red Hammerite aerosol directly onto the aluminium but I then read on the can that it needed a special surfaces primer which only comes in brush-on form. I gave it one coat of primer and four coats of gloss. I did intend to repaint the ratchet wheel but as this is plastic, thought best leave it alone. New operating levers are available for about £27 and probably, given the time and money I spent renovating mine it would have been a sensible purchase although they are only available in bright red and not in the original Burgundy.



With the lever repainted I was ready to reassemble the stabiliser incorporating all the new seals.


All the parts laid out ready to reassemble with the old seals to the right of the picture.

Start with the two internal seals, one is just a push fit and the other consists of a spring and a plastic cup. The smaller end of the spring goes into the cup and the wider end goes into the machined housing. I found that lubricating the faces of these two components with a light smear of silicone grease made reassembly much easier.



You can now ease the two parts of the main housing together by maintaining firm pressure against the newly-fitted spring and easing the lip of the rubber seal over the metal surface so that it lies flat without kinking and at the same time engaging the indicator button in its hole in the casting. At this stage it's a good idea to refit the friction pad assemblies. I de-glazed the pad surfaces and then greased the shafts and bearings sparingly with general purpose lithium grease. Make sure no grease comes into contact with the pad surfaces. The thin washer goes onto the pad shaft first followed by the roller bearing and then the thicker washer.

The large circular seal can now be fitted to the ratchet wheel which is screwed into place and the pad secured with the tiny circlip that snaps into place in the groove at its end.



There is one more seal to ease over the operating lever housing and the lever can then be screwed back into place and secured with the grub screw that provides the click stop action when the lever is moved.




Here you can see how the friction pads fit within the stabiliser assembly

The final seal is the one around the indicator button on the top of the unit and this is simply eased carefully into its locating groove with a screwdriver.

Fitting the stabiliser to the drawbar is straightforward. First insert the front bolt through the security device fixing plate and then tap the rear bolt through its hole drifting out the dowel as you do so. Fit the security plate on the side with the nuts, tighten the nuts and the job is done.