Trailer jacks are essential tools for raising and lowering the tongue on a trailer. Having a smoothly operating jack makes positioning the tongue for towing or parking much easier. Installing a new jack onto a trailer is not too difficult as long as you purchase the right size jack for your trailer. The jack needs to be big enough to lift the tongue without failing. The jack also must fit on the trailer and be able to either be folded or raised out of the way for towing.
Trailers with a heavy tongue weight need a system to raise the front of the trailer to clear the towed vehicle’s hitch ball. This is accomplished with a trailer jack located on the trailer’s tongue. By cranking the jack handle, the jack’s caster wheel is lowered to the ground, raising the trailer tongue to clear the hitch ball so that the trailer can be either connected to or disconnected from the towed vehicle. Once the trailer is unhitched, the trailer jack can be used to level the trailer from front to back by turning the jack handle.
Installing Trailer Jacks Guidelines:
1.) Measure the height and width of the trailer tongue where the jack will be installed. This will help you purchase a jack that is the right size for the trailer and tongue. Grip the tongue of the trailer and raise it enough so that the jack can be installed and blocked up with pieces of wood or concrete blocks. You may want to enlist some help if you’re working on a large trailer with a heavy tongue weight.
2.) Position the jack between the trailer hitch and the trailer along the tongue of the trailer. Make sure that the jack will lower enough to raise the trailer so that hitch can be placed easily onto the back of the tow vehicle. If it is a fold-up type of jack, enough clearance must be left for the jack to fold up without hitting the body of the trailer.
3.) Look at the plate on the new jack where it will attach to the trailer tongue. If it is designed to be held to the trailer tongue with U-bolts, hold in place and insert the bolts around the tongue and through the plate. If it requires you to drill a hole into the tongue of the trailer, you will need to mark these spots by holding the plate in place and making marks inside the bolt holes and onto the tongue. Drill the holes and insert the bolts through the tongue and the jack plate.
4.) Screw the nuts onto the ends of the bolts. Tighten them with a wrench until the jack is firmly secured to the trailer tongue. Lower and raise the jack a few times to verify that it is solidly attached and will move the trailer tongue up and down without any problem.
Trailer jacks are special jacks that mount off the end of trailers. The trailer jack is operated by using a cranking handle. When the handle is cranked, the end of the trailer rises until your trailer hitch is equal in height to the ball hitch on your truck or SUV. If you ever need to store your trailer jack away in tight quarters, it might be necessary for you to know how to disassemble it.
Disassembling Trailer Jacks Guidelines:
1.) Clear your trailer of any towed vehicles such as a boat or lawn tractor. Unhook your trailer if it is attached to the back of a truck or SUV.
2.) Unbolt the bolts that hold your jack to the trailer. You may have to use a spray lubricant if the nuts are tight. Once the bolts are loosened pull the jack away from the trailer.
3.) Lay your jack flat on a work bench and finish removing the mounting bar assembly. There are four bolts on the back of the mounting bar plate. The bolts will have to be removed with an open-ended wrench because the space between the bolts is not large enough for you to fit both a ratchet and socket head.
4.) Loosen the bolt on the end of the handle crank. This bolt holds the handle crank in place on your trailer jack.
5.) Remove the bolt that holds the caster wheel in place on your jack. This bolt can be removed also be removed with a wrench.
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