Bent Trailer Jack

[Don52]

You will notice that there are a lot of bent jacks on landscape trailers. There are several reasons this:

• The first is if you load a trailer when it isn't attached to the tow vehicle.
• The second is if you don't lift the jack up enough, so when you are driving over a hump the jack hits the hump.
• Another way is if you knock the jack off the cement or wood block when you are backing the tow vehicle up to the trailer. In this case the bottom of the jack stops when it hits the ground and the trailer keeps going. The inertia of the trailer causes the top of the jack to bend towards the rear of the trailer.

This last failure mode is what happened to my customer. The solution was to remove the jack and straighten out the mounting plate on the trailer using a rosebud tip on an oxyacetylene torch and a hammer. I supported the tongue to the ground with a 4x4, so that I could effectively transfer the force to the tongue plate. Then I straightened the flange of the jack and bolted it back together.

The first picture that I included a picture of another trailer with a bend jack, because I forgot to take a picture of my customer's bent jack before I got started. This other trailer is a dump body type trailer and it is bent in the opposite direction as my customers jack, but you get the idea.

The rear of the tongue plate was not attached to the trailer. In the second picture you can see a plate that I wedged between the tongue plate and a cross brace so that I could pry the rear of the tongue plate straight.

Don