Cranking a Trailer Jack

I bought a nice gooseneck trailer to tow behind my F150. The thing is, it has landing gear jacks, and it takes me 500 rotations to cycle the jacks between fully UP and fully DOWN. Oh, my aching back!

The usual solution is to tote along large wood or concrete blocks, and manually place them beneath the jack feet to reduce the length of the stroke required to raise the trailer up off of the ball in the truck bed. Listing those things in and out of my truck, or onto and off of the trailer … Oh, my aching back!

So I drew up this solution. By mounting the “pods” on arms that rotate 180 degrees, I can stop the truck, rotate the pods beneath the jacks, lower the jacks to the pods, then lower the PODS to the ground, and raise the jacks off of the ball hitch in only a few inches of leg extension.

This is not measured or perfected yet, but the CONCEPT is there.

What think ye?

Joe

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I guess I would use a cordless impact wrench with an adapter to do the 500 revolutions in a few seconds… The only thing you have to make is the adapter.
I do the same thing with the feet of my caravan.

Yes, I do have a nice DeWalt large model cordless impact on my truck. That would work okay. However, you are relying on a small battery, or having spare batteries, or rigging a way to CHARGE the batteries on your vehicle.

The cranking mechanism on the leg jacks are not designed for IMPACT. They are designed for a steady torque with a hand crank or motor. I could see using a strong cordless drill motor though. What would happen if those tiny pins that hold the gears to the crank shaft SHEAR from too many impacts? :grimacing:

On a cross country trip, you may encounter a half dozen times (or more) when you want to unhitch the trailer. Will a cordless tool give you that many reliable hitch/unhitch cycles on a single battery?

A nice deep cycle battery on the trailer assures me of repeated hitching cycles without issues. The trailer is going to have a winch, and other accessories also, such as night time work lights, 4-way L.E.D. flashers for a trailer that might need to be left unhitched and unattended on the side of a dark road through a dark, stormy night, and I might even add auto-retractable loading ramps, and they will all run on 12vdc. So this trailer will get a large deep cycle battery, and a nice solar panel on the top to keep it charged while parked for long periods of time.

It also has a concealed GPS tracker that will use battery power as well. That way, if someone manages to steal the trailer, I can grab my gu … er … BIBLE and go have a talk with the thief about Jesus, until the cops arrive! :thinking:

So I decided to get a geared motor designed for the task rather than go with Bubba and Cooter’s “Hold My Beer and Watch This!” method of operating the jacks.

Joe

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