Spare jack!!!!

They dont come with a jack. I bring along a small hydraulic scissor jack I picked up years ago.

Never, ever put a jack under your axle, @rickwe818, as you will take a chance on bending it. Use the frame instead.

I use an 8 lb bottle jack from Harbor Freight. Inexpensive. I guess I had better check to see if it works with my new T@B 400....

https://youtu.be/l7tTf0JBgVw

At üCamp18, the nüCamp factory rally last month in Ohio, Marvin and Creed, the two nüCamp techs, did say they no longer felt the stabilizer/ tongue method was believed to be the best way to jack up the nüCamp campers.

They recommended using a jack under the frame to jack up the nüCamp campers.

There is also a small piece of metal that is inside each tire (I’m not a mechanic, guys, so help me with the name of the piece of metal) that is safe to place a small jack. There is another YouTube nüCamp video on jacking up the axle, but not using the stabilizers and tongue jack to get the tires off the ground.

But, still you must never put a jack under the torsion bar axle because the axle will bend.

Rick,
I'd be amazed to discover that your jack won't work on the trailer. We're not lifting a WWII German U-Boat here. Just leave your trailer connected to the tow vehicle and you'll be fine as frogs-hair. If you really want to do yourself a favor, replace the lugnuts with proper lugnuts that do not have chrome sleeves. That's to say, one-piece lugnuts. The chrome covers tend to strip the chrome covers, creating a situation where you have 5 wheel-nut locks and no key. Or you could also spend your vacation alongside the road with a tiny, sharp chisel removing the chrome covers so you can pound off the round-shouldered lugnuts underneath. To get the right size and pitch, just remove one and take it with you to the parts store. The parts guy will just smile quietly and know EXACTLY what you are doing. He's seen it before, the wild hair, the bug-eyed, sweating, bleeding guy on the other side of the counter....
Don't ask me how I know any of this....This didn't happen to me....I heard of a guy who had that happen and he learned how to curse in 8 languages over the course of an hour. I mean....I heard of a guy.....
"That's all I know about that....." Forrest Gump

WilliamA

@BBsGarage said:
Just how fine is frogs-hair?

Can't see it with the naked eye, but then who wants to look at naked eyes anyway....
WilliamA

I finally decided to get serious about a potential tire change scenario on the T@G after a sidewall puncture on my tow vehicle on Harry Wade Road in Death Valley. Changing that tire was no fun on a one lane dirt road using the Honda OEM jack. I've been tempting fate a bit thinking I would rely on the tow vehicle jack or the original NuCamp recommendation of the tongue jack and stabilizer for a flat on the trailer. Knowing that NuCamp no longer recommends the tongue jack/stabilizer technique, I kept it in my back pocket for an emergency.

But now I'm not as comfortable with that kind of hopeful planning. The frame is really high on the T@G Outback/Boondock, about 17". Most jacks won't jack that high unless you use a lot of blocks (unstable and very dangerous). Some scissor jacks might reach that high, but scissor jacks are inherently unstable at full extension. An old style bumper jack might work with some modifications, but I didn't want to deal with that. I considered replacing the OEM BAL stabilizer jacks with beefier ones like some have recommended, but jacking the tongue jack up to put the trailer weight on the two rear stabilizers transfers weight to a part of the frame not designed for that, puts a lot of stress on the tongue jack, and creates an unstable tripod if you are using both. I also didn't want to carry a high lift floor jack - too bulky and heavy to carry around for an infrequent need. I opted for a 4000lb bottle jack and heavy rubber jack pad with a slot designed for unibody car pinch welds. The jack pad fits perfect on the metal bracket that @Verna mentioned in an earlier post as an acceptable jack point per NuCamp.

As others mentioned, you never want to put a jack on the Dexter axle or it will bend. If you ever look closely at your axle, there is a slight upward bend in the middle called a camber. I found this nice explanation about camber: The reason is load deflection. An unloaded axle sits with that upward bow, but when you put the trailer's weight on it, the axle flexes downward and flattens out closer to straight. The goal is for the tires to sit roughly perpendicular to the road (full tread contact) at the axle's rated load, rather than riding on the inner or outer edges. If the axle were built dead-straight, a loaded trailer would push the center down and splay the wheels into a negative-camber (knock-kneed) stance, wearing the inside edges of the tires. So the camber is intentional, and jacking the axle in a vulnerable location could bend it more and affect the designed camber.

Our local tire and trailer shop confirmed that lifting the Dexter axle near the edge where the metal bracket is located will not bend or hurt the axle. So the bottle jack with the hard rubber jack pad seems like it is a good solution for a field tire change since it sits nicely on that bracket but also supports the axle on either side of the bracket for a more secure lift. 

I'd be curious other folks thoughts. This seems to be a much debated topic without a lot of definitive answers. I'd also be interested if anyone has a link to the NuCamp video with their revised recommendations for a tire change (post stabilizer/tongue jack recommendation).

Happy camping!

@JamesDow, I hear what you're saying. But I feel a $30 jack and $10 jack pad are worth the small cost and 8lbs of weight to have an appropriate solution rather than relying on two pieces of equipment not designed for that purpose. And the bottle jack beats the heck out of an OEM screw jack for changing a tire on a unibody tow vehicle too. Especially in a more challenging situations. 

I found the newer NuCamp video showing their current recommended method for changing the T@G tire: 
https://youtu.be/w6tGIqfkubA?si=xTmZhd8m4b4qKIPQ

This video confirms that the metal bracket is the recommended lift point on the axle - it sits just inside the wheel on each side of the axle. So I feel confident that the bottle jack/rubber jack pad is the best field solution for tire changes. That is unless you carry a floor jack with you in the field. :-)