Powered Trailer Jacks

Some time ago I initiated an inquiry about powered trailer jacks. I wanted to share the solution I implemented.

When I back my gooseneck flatbed trailer into the shed, the crank is right next to the wall making it dificult to crank the jacks. Powered jacks would be great, but wow the cost of commercial units. Looking for a cost effective retrofit I came up with this. Here is a link to the Yahoo photo album where the pics reside;

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The project involved removing the welded on jack crank and machining a simple adapter to slip over the shaft. The crank can be reattached simply by sliding the crank over the stub shaft and pinning with a clevis pin and clip.

The machined adapter has a key and sprocket to provide a drive to the jack drive shaft.

The gearmotor is a Harbor Freight ATV winch. It comes with the reversing switch and wires and the ability to disengage the motor to freewheel the drum. Necessary if the battery is down or the motor fails. I disassembled, removed he cable and the drum. I machined off one flange and milled in a keyway. Now I could attach a sprocket to the hub of the drum.

Fabricating a simple plate and bracket allowed attachment to the trailer gooseneck upright. Some #40 sprockets and chain from the local farm supply store (Rural King) and I was done.

It works well but is slow. I looked at changing ratios with different sprockets, but there are limitations. The driver (winch gearmotor) has the bracket so you cannot go too large. The shaft adapter (driven) can only accept so small of a sprocket because of the hub size. So I am pretty much stuck with what I have. I do not recall the number of teeth, but I'll get them if someone wants to know. Ratio is slightly overdriven but close to 1:1.

By slow I mean that it probably takes a minute or so to raise or lower the jacks when hooking or unhooking the trailer. Not a problem and something that can be lived with.

Total investment was about $50 for the winch and about $40 in chain, sprocket and misc. The materials (a 1/2" plate and a shout piece of

3X5 tubing) came from the stock pile.

I hope that this helps someone else

Bob

Reply to
rleonard
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Before someone beats me up over this, I forgot to add that I need to build a guard around the chain. On the to do list.

Bob

Reply to
rleonard

snipped-for-privacy@consolidated.net wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

Nice job.

Reply to
Anthony

One of my friends has a large travel trailer with crank-up/down leveling jacks. He got tired of hand cranking them and just welded a hex on in place of the crank handle. He used a cordless ratchet with suitable socket to run them up and down. Not necessarily faster, but not as much effort and if the ratchet is run down, he can still use it to move them by hand. Just another way of doing the same thing.

Stan

Reply to
stans4

Nice work Bob. Well done.

Chris

Reply to
Christopher Tidy

$5.00 to $10.00 at your local junk-yard... Look for big old Sat-lite dish actuators ... The units are 24 volts but works great on 12 volts... I have about 20 units... I use them for jacks, dump cly, pull jacks,Snow-plow lifts and many more things... Very strong...

snipped-for-privacy@c> Some time ago I initiated an inquiry about powered trailer jacks. I

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Reply to
kbeitz

Thanks for your comments. I'll keep that in mind regarding the sat actuators.

Bob

Reply to
rleonard

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