About the Mr Shifta3
Although the Mr Shifta3 is no longer manufactured this information remains to assist those who already own a machine or may have purchased one secondhand.
The Mr Shifta3 has been carefully designed to help all those caravanners who have difficulty in manoeuvring their caravan, who are not as young as they once were, or not as fit as they would like to be. Is that you?
Mr Shifta3 has the most powerful motor/gearbox combination fitted to any caravan mover today. It is built into a heavy gauge steel chassis and has twin drive wheels.
The first Mr Shifta was made in 1989 and produced in small numbers with a grey set of covers, these were superceded by the first full production model still called the Mr Shifta (not Mr Shifta1 as we never thought there would be other models) the covers on these were black. They were made from 1990 to 2000. The motors were a single reduction combination motor/gearbox from EMD in Halstead in Essex.
In 2000 we introduced the Mr Shifta2 with bright yellow covers, these had a new motor/gearbox with multiple reductions giving almost three times the torque of the original models. They were made by Parvalux in Bournemouth (who eventually bought EMD) These continued until 2005 when we introduced the Mr Shifta3, the final version of the machines. The power output was virtually the same as the Mr Shifta2 but had the advantage of an adjustable handle allowing for an upright position for easier storage and an intermediate position for more convenient transporing not under power.
The first machines were designed to suit the hitch head couplings popular at the time made by Al-Ko Kober who made 95% of all U.K. caravan chasiss.
Al-Ko had a machine for testing and finished up buying the test machine and several more over the next few years.
From the mid 90's there began to appear several different manufacturers arriving with different styles of hitch heads, they were all 50mm ball fitting but had varying contours on the underside face, unlike the original Al-Ko which was flat. Al-Ko also changed their design so were also no longer flat.
This meant that the flat topped locking disc on our machine would rock backwards and forwards resulting in instability of the Mr Shifta. The amswer proved to be a series of aluminium castings to act as a sandwich between the shaped underside of the coupling and the flat topside of the locking disc.
These are still available today as there is a constant trading of Mr Shifta's and as we have six different castings it is common for new owners to need the
casting to suit their particular caravan. UNFORTUNATELY AT THIS TIME APRIL 2024 CASTINGS ARE NO LONGER AVAILABLE DUE TO THE FAILURE OF THE FOUNDRY WHO DESTROYED OUR PATTERNS. WE ARE EXPLORING 3D PRINTED VERSIONS BUT THIS WILL TAKE MANY MONTHS AT LEAST.
The machine carries its own semi-traction battery on board. We have always advocated using a Varta LFD75 (this is the current number in 2018)
Our Mr Shifta3 is unique in being the first machine to locate in the caravan hitch just like your car
These are the features that make the Shifta the most popular mover with users, as proved in a survey by the Caravan Club. Over 95% of users said they would recommend the Mr Shifta to their friends. A figure far higher than any other mover.
The essence of a successful caravan mover is to apply sound engineering principles to the concept. We at Shifta Products saw that the hitch was the only point on the caravan designed by the manufacturers to push and pull the caravan under power.
Al-Ko Kober, who manufacture 95% of all caravan chassis in the UK recommended our method of fitting in the hitch and warn that damage caused to a chassis by the use of any other type of caravan mover will not be covered under their warranty.
