View Single Post
  #4   Report Post  
Posted to alt.home.repair
DerbyDad03 DerbyDad03 is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 14,845
Default Do I want a trailer jack for my little trailer

I had one of those trailers for years. I carried around a cheap Harbor
Freight jack stand to stick under the tongue when I unhitched. It
served 2 purposes:

- Saved the back from lifting the tongue off the ground
- Kept the bed more level

One problem is that if you stand on the rear of the trailer, the tongue
will lift off the jack stand and if the trailer rolls left or right,
the tongue will hit the ground rather harshly when you get off. With an
attached jack stand (preferably with a wheel (~$40)) it may lift up,
but it will return to it's original position a bit more calmly.

Once I upgraded to an enclosed trailer, I found the wheeled jack stand
to be a must if I wanted to move the trailer by myself.

BTW I built a nice set of walls for my trailer from 1 x 6 douglas fir.
I've seen cheap, fast plywood walls, but my walls made an inexpensive
trailer look pretty nice. I got it on sale for under $200, put about
$50 into the walls and sold it for $200 4 years later.

P.S. Never had a spare, never had flat.

mm wrote:
Do I want a trailer jack for my little trailer?

I'm buying a small trailer, only 4' x 8' bed, the one that folds in
half sold by Harbor Freight and NorthernTools (I'm not saying they're
the same, but similar). Buying it new, with new tires.

And they push accessories such as a trailer jack that holds the tongue
up when it isn't resting on the trailer hitch. Do I want one, do I
need one, for a trailer that weighs 200 pounds on which I'll put less
than 100 pounds of furniture? After all, I'm supposed to put the load
on so the tongue weight is no more than 50 pounds, right? And I can
lift 50 pounds easily. OTOH, I love accesories and gadgets? OT3H, I
will rarely if ever use it, but I will pay for gas to carry it around
with me whereever I go.

In fact, I plan to use the trailer only once, to go from Dallas to
Baltimore, and I don't expect to put the trailer on the hitch more
than once, or take it off more than once. At the start and at the
end. Since I have no place to keep the trailer, I'll have to sell it,
cheap. So should I buy the jack?

Should I buy a spare wheel, tire, and spare tire carrier, for a total
of 40 dollars? I'm not made of money.