Jockey Wheel Spring Clip Set in Zinc Plated Steel

The bit that holds the front up: the clips that hold the clamp shut, sold in fours because they are lost in ones.

Towing is the one thing you can buy for a car where the wrong part is not merely disappointing. Every towbar listing here states the type approval number, the D value, the maximum noseweight and whether the bumper has to be cut, because those four facts decide whether a bar is legal on your vehicle and whether it will pull what you want to pull. Every electrical listing says plainly whether it is a dedicated loom or a universal one with a bypass relay, and what each will and will not do. We would rather lose a sale to a cheaper part than sell you one that does not fit.

Specification

• Fits: chosen above by clamp size. The three standard sizes are 34mm, 42mm and 48mm, and measuring the outside diameter of your existing column takes ten seconds and saves a return
• Approval: not a type approved part. The static load rating is stamped on the tube and is worth reading
• Rating: 150kg static load
• D value: not applicable, this is an accessory rather than a load bearing towing part
• Noseweight: a jockey wheel takes the noseweight when the trailer is unhitched, and the gauge models let you read it. Noseweight is the downward load the trailer puts on the ball, and the figure you may use is the lowest of four numbers: the towbar's S value, the vehicle handbook's noseweight limit, the towball's rating and the caravan coupling's rating. Most people know the first and none of the other three, and a combination that is legal on paper is often over the limit on the one that matters.
• Ball height: not applicable
• Electrics: not applicable
• Fitting time: ten minutes to change a wheel in an existing clamp, half an hour to fit a new clamp
• Bumper: not applicable
• Materials: zinc and clear passivate, which resists road salt better than powder coat does at the bolt faces where powder coat always fails first
• Weight: approximately 0.2 kilograms
• Guarantee: two years
• Clamp size: chosen above. Measure the outside diameter of the column you already have, not the wheel
• Wheel type: as described above
• Winding up: a jockey wheel left down is a jockey wheel torn off at the first kerb, and it is the commonest single damage claim in towing
• Greasing: the thread wants grease annually. An ungreased steady or jockey wheel on a caravan stood outside will seize within two winters

What arrives

• the jockey wheel or steady
• the clamp where included
• spring clips
• fitting instructions

Fitting

Ten minutes to swap a wheel into an existing clamp, half an hour to fit a new clamp. Grease the thread before you fit it and once a year afterwards, which is the single thing that decides whether it still winds in five years.

Before you order

Solid or pneumatic is the only real decision and it depends on where the caravan lives. A pneumatic wheel rolls far better on grass and gravel and will be flat when you come back to it in spring. A solid wheel never goes flat and is harder work on soft ground. If the caravan sits on a storage field for nine months, buy solid. If it lives on a drive and gets used monthly, buy pneumatic.