Electric trailer jack

flrockytop · Posted: Thu Oct 21, 2010 8:13 pm Post subject: Electric trailer jack

It’s not under $20 but it’s the best money since adding my freestanding canvass. The biggest pain I have with the C-dory has been that you have to jack the trailer up so high to get it to drain out of the drain plug while on the trailer. With just one of the crank up jacks it just would not go high enough. For the last year I have solved the problem by having two of the manual jacks. I would crank one to raise the trailer tongue about 8 to 10 inches then I would swing the second jack down and with a piece of 4 x 4 under the second jack I could raise the bow of the boat enough for the water to drain out of the back. This worked but was a heck of a lot of jacking.
I looked around for an electric jack(12v). The local trailer guys wanted $220 for one. The best I could find on the internet was about $180 until I got a flyer in the mail from my ol standby Harbor Freight. They had the exact same thing for $129. These jacks are made to fit in the V of trailer. Boat trailers aren’t usually made this way so it had to be modified. I just took off one of my swing jacks and had a local welder cut the bracket off of the old one and weld it onto the new jack. The whole job took about 30mins. I couldn’t decide whether to get power from the boat or the tow vehicle. For now I’m getting it from the tow vehicle. At some point I’ll probably also run power from the boat forward to be able to operate off of the boats batt. Some of the ones I saw on the internet just used a Y connector and got power from trailer light connector. I don’t really know how much current this thing draws but I was afraid the trailer wire was too small to handle the load. I ran a separate pair a wires from my vehicle batt to the back by the trailer hitch with a quick disconnect.
No more jacking. Just hold the switch and it does its thing. The travel on the electric jack is 21” How sweet it is Smile

Forgot to mention that the jack did not come with the wheel. I also got that at HF and bolted it to the flat base that came with the jack.

Byrdman · Posted: Thu Oct 21, 2010 9:06 pm Post subject:

Sweeeeet

May add this and have both an electrick wench and jack. Save the forearm work for things that are truly needed. Beer

Byrdman

Captains Cat · Posted: Thu Oct 21, 2010 10:49 pm Post subject:

flrockytop · Posted: Thu Oct 21, 2010 11:44 pm Post subject:

Captains Cat · Posted: Fri Oct 22, 2010 6:20 am Post subject:

You must have enough tongue weight there to depress the tow vehicle and hitch quite a bit then or else the tow vehicle goes waaay down when you lower the trailer tongue onto the hitch.

If your short crankup will raise that 8-10", that should be enough to clear the ball and let the vehicle come up 4" or so. What are you towing with?

Charlie

rogerbum · Posted: Fri Oct 22, 2010 10:15 am Post subject:

Charlie,

It's also possible (and perhaps more likely) that his parking space slopes towards the bow of the boat. As a result, he needs a lot of travel in the jack in order to get the bow up high enough so water drains out the back. I have the same problem where I normally store my 22 and I never did the two jack thing. Rather I'd jack it up, through a couple of cinder blocks under the hitch, lower it down on those, put some boards under the jack, raise it further, put some boards on the cinder blocks, lower it down, put more boards under the jack and raise it up, etc. After 2-3 raises and lowerings, I got it to the correct height. Hence, I can really appreciate the setup. I'm not sure I'd want to go the electric jack route though as it's another electrical thing and set of connections that one has to keep working. I got tired of that with my electric winch and replaced it with a 2-speed Fulton.

Captains Cat · Posted: Fri Oct 22, 2010 8:12 pm Post subject:

Agree Roger. I thought the problem was that he couldn't get it off the hitch ball to get it disconnected.

Charlie

flrockytop · Posted: Fri Oct 22, 2010 8:48 pm Post subject:

Doryman · Posted: Sat Oct 23, 2010 9:16 am Post subject:

Captains Cat · Posted: Sat Oct 23, 2010 9:29 am Post subject:

Warren, if it's not because your jack won't lift it enough, it frequently is caused by not enough grease on the ball and inside the cavity that the ball fits in. The little retainer that holds the hitch on the ball, when the lever is locked down, has to move freely. I keep a 3# hammer handy at the tailgate of the truck and usually a tap or two with this puppy lets it pop out.

Charlie

Pat Anderson · Posted: Sat Oct 23, 2010 9:30 am Post subject:

That 'splains a LOT about my good friend Patrick Byrd!!!!