Crank on lift goes Clunk

Just attempted to crank up the tent trailer, a 2003 1200 SL. The roof raised about 4 inches before it stopped with a loud clunk.

When I crawled under to investigate I noticed the gear attached to the cranking shaft wasn't set with the gear attached to the cylinder that winds the cables. The teeth are actually aligned with the teeth on the other gear instead of the teeth of one gear aligning with a gap on the other gear.

I could easily lower the roof back to travel height. Gears align on lowering and on raising until the clunk occurs.

Any thoughts on the cause, or on a repair? Will another manufacturers crank/gear/ratchet system work?

Appears that a bushing in the gear box was toast. Shop had to modify a bushing to make it fit/work.

$10 part, $400 labour.

At least we can use the trailer again.

Wow....Labor is a bitch heu ??? Thanks for the update !!!

I also had a gear box issue last summer, sounds like the same story. Inside the box is a very simple gear set. On first blush it didn't look like anything was wrong.

Turns out the large gear wheel, which looks like one solid machined piece is actually two, with the shaft (the main one you crank on) welded to the gear. The weld had let go, but it was not immediately visible.

I had a friend put a thin weld around it, then ground it down for fitting on reassembly, and so far it works great. Cost nothing other than a few scraped knuckles.