I wondered if this happened to anyone else. It was definately up when we set off but maybe it wasn't turned tight enough and made its way down with the motion of the vehicle. Overtaking motorist spotted it and kindly pulled us over. We heard nothing and noticed nothing on the handling. We were on a good straight road at the time. Freaked me out a bit and from now on we'll attach a bungee or something to the winder and fix maybe to one of the grab rails to ensure it doesn't do it again.

ETA I just looked on google and it has happened to others. Obviously it wouldn't be taking any weight but not something I want repeated.

Hello Blueyonder

It happened to me too. There is a slot either side at the bottom of the outer steel casing and the wheel brackets should slide in to that slot. This prevents the wheel from spinning around and descending whilst the car is in motion. If this is not the same problem, please excuse me - but I did get a real fright at the time, and am now always careful to ensure that the wheel brackets are tightly engaged before setting off.

Best wishes

David

I had a look around for a thumb-screwed drive clip to fit on the jockey wheel tube.
Raise the jockey tighten up then put the clip down the tube and tighten.
I also have the Alko red grab handle fitted which makes it difficult for someone
to drop the jockey and spirit it away.
This what the worm drive looks like, ( for illustration purposes only)
http://jupiter-clamps.com/products/worm-...th-thumb-screw/

Ah ha, so my concerns of many moons ago were not without good cause. Sorry it's happened to you but at least you can thank your lucky stars that the thing didn't break off altogether and do some serious damage to the van which I've also read about.

I'm feel sure that I've posted this before but in view of your experience I supposed it's worth repeating. If you care to look at this image.......

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you'll notice that on our Triton 430, Hymer decided in their wisdom that this van only needed the two-bolt type of clamp. In my opinion this allows for far too much leverage around a line drawn between the two securing bolts and allows for the possibility of the Jockey wheel splaying out too much and eventually breaking. In fact, this is what the Jockey wheel on our van looked like even before we took delivery. Needless to say, we insisted that they changed it prior to our assuming ownership.

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Observing what was happening to the Jockey wheel during our first trip out, especially the levering effect around the two bolts, convinced me that it wouldn't be too long before the replaced Jockey wheel would look just as bad as the original and, worse still perhaps, break altogether.

The answer was to replace it with the 4-bolt bracket for which holes are already drilled in the frame. Now when we lower the Jockey wheel it remains vertical when moving the van around with absolutely no leverage around the bolts at all. Quite why Hymer use the two bolt bracket is totally beyond me especially considering the frame is pre-drilled for four bolts. Anyway, that's by the by - the second problem to overcome was the possibility of the Jockey wheel lowering itself onto the road during travel and which I'd read about many times.

To get round this I fitted a pipe clamp to the Jockey wheel. This is available from all DIY outlets and is used for securing downpipes to the outside wall of a house amongst other things. Some come with a tail piece for driving/screwing into the house brick which you may to saw off - the one I purchase didn't have this so fitting it was only a 5 minute job.

If by any chance the Jockey wheel slides down due to vibration from the road it's fall will be arrested by the additional bracket and so far by testing it by deliberately letting the wheel drop (stationary on site of course) it does the job well. So for the sake of splashing out a few cents, I feel much more confident that the Jockey wheel is not going to come down of it's own volition, smash into the road and subsequently break off and then smashing into the van.

Edit: a bit of time spent experimenting finding the best location/height to fix the bracket before finally tightening down means that once fixed in place you can forget all about it. Ours is located so that when the pipe bracket is lowered onto the Jockey wheel bracket the wheel is approximately 5 inches above the road surface.

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I bought my first Eriba from a caravan mechanic,his tip was to locate the wheel between the two lugs tightly then give the handle a slight tap with the Palm of the hand to ensure it doesn't unwind. I have a 2012 Familia that came with the flimsy two hole fixing bracket and I changed it out for the four hole that Deeps mentions, it's a big improvement especially if you have a motor mover.

I think there are 2 different issues here.
One refers to the winding handle spinning whilst travelling so that the jockey wheel winds itself down and the other is the whole jockey wheel assembly dropping. Mark at Lechlade always used to supply a small bungee to stop the winding handle spinning. The clamping issue is another problem which Deeps addresses here.

I still use the small bungee, but in all my time caravanning I've never had the problem I can only assume not all jockey wheels are equal mind you I check and then check again! It's also surprising that lots of people don't know what the slot in the jockey wheel tube is for! I saw one guy who had completely flattened his jockey wheel, presumably though he left it down. Worrying as I guess it could possibly force the van to part company with the towing vehicle????

I use bungees one for the give and take of slack on the 13 core cable
and one on the jockey handle.
I will admit I had a few unpleasant moments recently when the jockey
bumped the road a few times.
I pulled into a layby expecting to find the wheel on the floor and looking
like a threepenny bit, it was only that I had left too much weight in the
front end of the caravan which caused it to dip the jockey wheel was still
firmly clamped up. A quick redistribution of the caravan load to the over
the wheels position sorted it.

Our problem was exactly how Tony described it in his scenario one, the winder working it's way down with road rattle (presumably because it wasn't done up tight enough) rather than the assembly falling down. Simon usually overtightens everything, so we were surprised when it happened. It probably won't happen again but we'll use the bungee fix to be on the safe side.

Yes I have come across this problem before ----but when towing boats.
However it does not seem to occur if the wheel is positioned in the two slots in the outer jockey wheel.
That however is not enough, it is then necessary to turn the handle anticlockwise until it meets resistance and go beyond this to firm.
This method seems to prevent the jockey wheel dropping, but of course a secondary fail safe tie off has to be a good idea
Andrew and Elisabeth

We once managed a hundred odd miles with the jockey wheel assembly not retracted but having wound the wheel up. There was some damage to the wheel!