How to Stabilize a Fifth-Wheel with the MORryde X-Brace

Frustrated by your fifth-wheel swaying from the wind or walking? MORryde’s X-Brace stops annoying front landing gear movement and stabilizes your fifth-wheel.

If your fiver is like mine, every time a strong wind blows against the sides of the trailer, it moves a little even though the jacks are deployed and the wheels chocked. The movement is subtle, yet a little annoying, especially during bigger storms.    

Fifth-wheel trailers, by their very design, are less stable when they are parked than a conventional travel trailer. The reason is the stabilizer jacks, a.k.a. landing gear, are closer together fore/aft than they are on conventional campers. That’s because the open front area of the fiver that accommodates the fifth wheel forces the front landing gear to be located farther aft than would be on a conventional travel trailer. 

This means there’s more leverage being placed on those front legs, which makes them more susceptible to rotational and side-to-side movement. They are like the wall of a house under construction where there’s no “cross-bracing” to provide lateral support.

Stabilize Your Fifth-Wheel With Cross-Bracing

Cross-bracing the front landing gear is an easy way to stabilize a fifth-wheel trailer, which is exactly the purpose of the MORryde X-Brace 5^th Wheel Stabilizer kit.

Quick and Easy Installation

The X-Brace kit consists of two adjustable tubular metal braces and mounting brackets to attach them to the front landing gear.

The increase in the fifth-wheel’s lateral stability with the X-Brace installed is immediately seen and felt. The two steel tubes lock the landing gear so they act as one solid footing. (MORryde also makes a similar kit for campers with scissor jacks.)

How To Install the MORryde X-Brace System on Your Fifth-Wheel

It took me all of 15 minutes to put the X-Brace on my 2020 Sprinter fifth-wheel with nothing more than a 9/16” open-end wrench and socket.

Removal is easy too because each brace has a spring clip in the middle section that can be pulled out so the tubes can slide inside each other when the landing gear is raised to their travel position. If you want the X-Brace completely removed, each end of the tubes are also attached with spring clips (or the supplied ¼” bolts). 

Here’s how to quickly (and easily) install the MORryde X-brace system on your fifth-wheel.

Step 1

The brackets that come attached to the X-Brace tubes are removed and bolted as high up on the landing gear as possible.

In my fiver, the plastic box in the front storage compartment protruded down under the floor so the upper brackets had to be mounted lower on the landing gear than I’d liked so the braces would clear.

Step 2

The “Z”-shaped lower mounting brackets are bolted through the hole that the landing leg’s snap clip would normally go into using the supplied 3/8×3” bolts (one per leg).

The bracket on the curb-side (passenger-side) landing gear should be located with the bracket toward the rear of the trailer. The “Z” bracket on the driver’s side landing gear should be toward the rear of the trailer.

Offsetting these lower brackets allows the tubular braces to clear each other where they cross in the middle. (Note: The spring clips that held the feet on the landing gear are put back in the next hole up from the original location.)

Step 3

Screw out the threaded portions on each leg at least one inch to allow fine adjustment when the braces are locked into place. The tubes turn like adjusting a turn-buckle.

Step 4

Attach the smaller end of one cross brace to a lower bracket. Then remove the center spring clip from each cross brace and slide the inner tube out until the upper end reaches the upper mounting bracket. Replace the middle spring clip and turn the tube until the holes in it and the upper bracket align so the supplied ¼” bolts can be installed.

With the X-Brace in place and adjusted tight the landing gear can’t move laterally. This instantly adds stability to a fifth-wheel—or any travel trailer that uses scissor jacks or independent stabilizer jacks.