Electric trailer tounge jack - which one and how much capacity

cranbiz

cranbiz

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 11, 2015
Location
Wentworth, NC
Broke another jack this weekend. I'm at the point that I'm just going to bite the bullet and buy an electric jack. It will go on my 16' all metal Kauffman car trailer. I'm thinking that a 3500 lb jack is not going to be enough for it. The Jeep would not normally be on it when I'm using it but the possibility exists that it may be on it.

Will a 3500 lb be enough or should I do the 5000 lb jack from the start? What brands should I look at? Really don't want a Long Duk Dong Chineseum Amazon special. Would prefer to keep it under $300 if I can.
 
Dumb question…. How do you continue to break your jack? In theory, the tongue weight should be around… what 10% of the trailer loaded weight? 7k trailer should be 700lb.

My math may be wrong.. assuming it’s right, they’re something else is at work here and the weight rating of the jack isn’t the issue. Perhaps jack angle? Jack location? Bidenomics? Mike from Jersey Shore did something to it?
 
Jeffncs said:
Dumb question…. How do you continue to break your jack? In theory, the tongue weight should be around… what 10% of the trailer loaded weight? 7k trailer should be 700lb.

My math may be wrong.. assuming it’s right, they’re something else is at work here and the weight rating of the jack isn’t the issue. Perhaps jack angle? Jack location? Bidenomics? Mike from Jersey Shore did something to it?
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Not a dumb question. This is a 2001 trailer so it is used to me. The first one was most likely the original and the main screw stripped out. The one I replaced it wit was a Curt and the shaft at the crank snapped (where the factory hole was). I do suspect that jack placement has something to do with it as it has been moved to a location on the front of the bed and not on the tongue.

My guess is that the shaft on the Curt was brittle, that's what it looked like from the metal grain structure. So the Curt was defective but of course, out of warranty. I'm really to the point where I don't want to crank it up and down manually and since I need to buy another jack, I want to take the lazy way out.

You did bring up a good point about tongue which I didn't think about. If I go with the electric, I'm relocating the jack to where it should be. With you asking the questions you did, It tells me that the 3500 lb jack should be fine.
 
cranbiz said:
Not a dumb question. This is a 2001 trailer so it is used to me. The first one was most likely the original and the main screw stripped out. The one I replaced it wit was a Curt and the shaft at the crank snapped (where the factory hole was). I do suspect that jack placement has something to do with it as it has been moved to a location on the front of the bed and not on the tongue.

My guess is that the shaft on the Curt was brittle, that's what it looked like from the metal grain structure. So the Curt was defective but of course, out of warranty. I'm really to the point where I don't want to crank it up and down manually and since I need to buy another jack, I want to take the lazy way out.

You did bring up a good point about tongue which I didn't think about. If I go with the electric, I'm relocating the jack to where it should be. With you asking the questions you did, It tells me that the 3500 lb jack should be fine.
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That makes a lot of sense! Even name brand stuff seems to be made really poorly these days. Good luck with it! Hopefully this one gets the job done for a lot of years for you!
 
loaded or not, how realistic do you think there would be more than 3500lbs where the Jack is mounted? It shouldn’t be too far from the ball, which has a weight rating way less than 3500lbs.

But isn’t bigger always better???
 
I have a 10K jack on my trailer. Can leave it completely loaded and unhook no problem.
Bigger is better.
 
I don't ever envision unhooking the trailer with the Jeep on it but it's always a possibility it could happen.
 
I have a 5000lb electric jack and it is great. When I mounted it I made sure when fully up the the bottom plate is almost flush with bottom of frame on trailer. never had an issue.
 
If you go electric keep it covered. All the electric RV jacks I have owned failed because of water intrusion.
I keep a bucket over mine and only still have electric because it came with the camper swap.....I put a manual back on the previous.
I also shopped for models with zero electric jacks on the corners for the same reason.
 
WARRIORWELDING said:
If you go electric keep it covered. All the electric RV jacks I have owned failed because of water intrusion.
I keep a bucket over mine and only still have electric because it came with the camper swap.....I put a manual back on the previous.
I also shopped for models with zero electric jacks on the corners for the same reason.
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I keep a 5 gallon bucket over mine almost all the time to keep water out of it.

mine also has a manual crank if electric fails.
 
BRUISER said:
I keep a 5 gallon bucket over mine almost all the time to keep water out of it.

mine also has a manual crank if electric fails.
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And it's stupid low geared I bet. Mine failed and all I had was a ratchet. It failed on the coupler. Lord that was like a mile long fine threaded bolt. Glad it had the feature.
 
I have installed them on all my car trailers I have had in the past. I still have one on my enclosed trailer. All of mine have been the 5k variety and work well. I probably got an extra one floating around the yard lol
 
cranbiz said:
I was looking at that one, Ken. The only problem with it is it's at least 2 months out. Estimated delivery Dec 22-24.
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maybe this one?

Amazon product ASIN B00JMHHF9Q
There are cheaper but Lippert is a big brand. Figuring warranty issues would be easier of from a big name brand.

I have bought Lippert products off Amazon and Lippert didn't have any issues with warranty.
 
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