Trailer-Valet move tandem axle by hand!

RedAllison

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Well I've lived in my current house now for 9 years. I have a 3 car garage but only the last bay is long enough for a boat/motor/trailer because there is a storage room at the end with double doors. I've left the doors open since day one and actually pull my boat into that bay NOSE FIRST so that the trailer tongue and maybe 1-2ft of the boats nose actually go into that storage room. When I had my XB03 it was still work but not nearly as bad because with it's lighter weight and tandem axle trailer (leaf springs) I could raise the tongue jack all the way up and the front axles tires would essentially lift off the ground. That ISN'T the case with my XB21 2+2 and it's tandem torsion axle trailer! This beyatch is flatout HEAVY.

For the last 7 seasons now I've grunted and strained getting my big red baby out of the garage. Pushing/pulling it into/out of the bay isn't that bad as it's essentially table top flat and all concrete. But the PITA comes when it's time to spin the trailer 45-90 degrees in the driveway so it can be hooked to my truck. I always had to turn the tongue jacks wheel whichever way I wanted it to go, raise it up, hope it didn't collapse and then do my best Lou Ferrigno imitation pushing/pulling the big heifer back and forth. :furious

Yeah I'm a cheap bastard and didn't want to buy one of the motorized movers I've seen on the market, they are a GREAT idea but I honestly do NOT believe they should cost anywhere NEAR what they do! ($1200-$2k+) But lastweek I found this lil tool on the net and decided I'd give it a try. It's called "The Trailer Valet" and it's a mechanical tongue jack that is made for moving trailers around by hand. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqVDxOMrgak

I've seen them on Amazon for just shy of $300 (But at nearly 50# I'd imagine shipping would get pricey!) and most retailers/stores list them in the $350-$400 range. My local Gander Mountain has them on sale for $319 (regular $399) PLUS they charge no shipping and will drop ship it at your house.

I did a little searching online before buying it and of course the nays scream louder than the yeas. But it became apparent that if you used common sense then it should work fine. So I ordered it in the store Monday and it arrived at my house Wed aftrn! I had read a few sites that dealt with painting them. They are powdercoated and that powdercoat is like most, supposedly a plastic based finish and painting them was recommended to be done with Krylon's Fusion paint. (A rattle can spray made for plastics, no primer, no clear necessary.) So Wed night I sprayed the Fusion on the trailer mounting bracketry, I put 3 coats in succession on it with about 30mins between coats. It's not billet, show class worthy but it certainly "blends in" and makes the bracketry much less of a stand out or noticable vs just leaving them the original confederate gray of the powdercoat.

I toyed with locations on my trailer of just where to mount the thing. I considered the right side of the trailer, directly opposite of the original tongue jack. But a couple things steered me from that. 1). I wasn't sure about jack handle clearance being near the hulls bow. 2). One of the most common complaints of reviewers was that of traction. So I knew that the further back toward the trailer I moved the unit, the more traction it would need as leverage was decreased plus the unit itself would be more on one side than the other. 3). If I mounted it directly opposite the original jack I'da had to remove the yellow marker light there plus I'd likely run into problems with the brackets on the backside/inside of the trailer frame and the spare tire! So I settled on mounting it on the tongue of the trailer itself. Now it's nearly dead center and gets "max leverage" being as far ahead of the axles as possible.

So after the paint dried overnight I went out yesterday morning to mount the thing to the trailer and give it all a whirl. But suddenly I realized I was "SOL" with the 4 factory supplied bolts. They are 4" long and would be fine on the trailers side rail/tube but they wouldn't be long enough to span the wider tongue housing and still leave enough room for the bracketry on each side. So I ran down to Ace Hardware & they hooked me up with 5" SS bolts of the proper size. (My next stop would've been Fastenal because our Lowes and Home Depot choices for Stainless hardware SUX!)

So I returned home and had it hooked up in a snap. I removed the wheel chock from under the trailer and away we rolled! I had moved the boat out of the garage and was just about completely on the driveway when I heard something hit the boat and then the garage wall! :confused: Everything was still working so I assumed it was something small the T-V had run over and shot out from under the tires. I then moved the boat about another 5ft and looked down to begin turning the T-V in prep for my 90 deg test. I then noticed the axle was sticking out 1/8" on one side and was barely visible on the other! :shock: I then realized what that noise I heard was, it was the c-clip/retainer clip on the end of the axle that popped off and went flying. I figured I was SCREWED then! I turned around and don't ask me how, but I noticed it RIGHT THERE on the garage floor about 5ft away. So I looked it over, grabbed a pair of retainer pliars and a large clamp. I clamped the wheel housing tightly to expose the axle end as much as possible and I replaced the retainer clip.

So with the new "lesson learned" I figured this thing only really needs to go in essentially straight lines. You can steer the trailer a foot or two either side but to grab it and turn it 90degs like in the vid I think will put everything in a bind to much. (At least with a couple/few hundred pounds of tongue weight on it. I can lift my 21s tongue off the ground if I HAVE to but don't want to, I'd estimate it at 300-350#) That is why in the pics you'll notice I still have the original trailer jack lowered down. It's NOT on the ground however, I raised it about 1/2" above. I did that 1). To assure if this T-V failed or collapsed my trailer wouldn't crash to the ground. 2). Whenever I want to move the T-V in a direction over 10degs or so from it's present course, I raise the trailer jack up to take the load off the T-V and then move the T-V before steering it towards the new direction.

It DOES move the trailer a full 90 degs so that's what I mainly bought it for. But today I moved the boat out of the garage again this aftrn to hook everthing for the river tomorrow. Again I began backing the boat out of the garage with the T-V and by the time I got out onto the driveway I noticed AGAIN that retainer clip had flown off! :furious So I started studying... the clip was a lil bent from it's first detachment/reattachment yesterday. So I made sure it was all back into correct specs with a pair of channel locks. Then I got to looking at the axle and T-V itself. The axle turns inside that housing and actually spins that retainer clip. (It has to since the drive sprocket for the chain is connected to the axle right there between the two tires) So I thought, maybe a little lube is in order to lesson the chance of any binding? So I grabbed a can of chain lube and soaked down the axle EVERYWHERE I could get to, ESPECIALLY on and around the clips on each end of the axle. After that I had no more problems. I moved the boat 90 degs out into the drive, hooked up my truck, removed the T-V and put it back into the garage. (If I ever need to carry it with me I'll throw it in the truck. I wouldn't leave it hooked up and tow with it on the trailer. Besides looking like crap, it'd be open to theft and road grime!)

So anyway here's the pics, I'll post if I have anymore problems but I hope the axle/clip problem is solved for now at least. (Why didn't they just make the axle an inch longer, thread it and use loc-nuts on it?) The "high gear" is just that, it's faster than I can hold onto everything, turn the crank and keep it all headed properly. The low gear works properly. I've read where guys claim they put a socket drive on a chordless drill and actually use it to turn the drive instead of the handle. I may or may not try that at a future date. I'm not in THAT big of a hurry and I suspect that "could" create some binding/torque issues that could cause problems. (Not to mention the warranty void doing so would cause!)
 

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