September 1, 2019

While I was out of town for the 2019 International Trip, our amazing neighbor did some welding work on my trailer. If you need a welder this dude is fantastic!

When I got back I decided to continue the trailer maintenance and replace the trailer jack. This was mostly a necessity because the inside mechanism had become bent and it was getting harder and harder to hook and unhook the trailer. The final straw was having to get my husband’s help to wind it high enough to unhook it.

I searched around and found that you replace the whole piece not just the inside and it was actually pretty affordable. I did some measuring and decided I wanted the top part to be slightly shorter but could take that up on the under side. So I picked out a trailer jack on ETrailers.com.

There were plenty of jacks to pick out. I selected one that was rated for well more weight than I needed and had the correct amount of lift. I considered the electric ones which were way more affordable than I would have thought but ended up selecting a gray economy one by Bulldog that would match my trailer. It was about $65 after shipping and arrived in about three days.

Full disclosure, my husband did the actual installing. He used some DW40, some jack stands, and a ratchet wrench. The whole process from collecting tools, changing the jack out, to putting the tools back away took about 10 minutes. It was way easier than either of us expected.

First we sprayed DW40 on the three nuts. Then we wound the trailer up and put the two jack stands under the hitch bars, one on either side. Then we wound the original jack down, putting the weight on the jack stands and none on the actual trailer jack. Next my husband used the ratchet wrench to loosen and then remove the three bolts. This was the hard part and took a bit of arm strength.

Once the bits were off the old jack was easy to remove and the new one was easy to slide right into place. The nuts were put back on and tightened down and then the new jack was wound out and the jack stands removed. Done.

We both wound the jack up and down a little. It turns way easier than the old one but not as easy as we both expected. I put that to it being the economy model and that it is lifting quite a bit of weight. I don’t recall any other trailer ever being any easier than this new one.

Two days later I hooked up the trailer and the new trailer jack worked just fine. That night I unhooked it and it worked great. I am completely satisfied with this project and still amazed that it was easier than expected.