onnecting or disconnecting a travel trailer or utility trailer to a tow vehicle with a manual crank jack can be a slow, tedious process. Sure, you can simply accept it as the price of camping — and even include it as part of your cardio-vascular exercises while on the road. If you’d rather take a pass on revving up your rotator cuff muscles, however, an electric tongue or A-frame jack can reduce this to the push of a button.
That said, not everyone wants to invest the money in a power jack or be reliant on enough battery power to operate it. Indeed, many utility trailers don’t even have a battery to run it.
A third option is Lippert’s Quick Drop A-frame jack. The Quick Drop is a hybrid of a manual jack; it includes the topwind handle for manual operation, but also includes a ¾-inch built-in drive nut in the head of the jack. Fit your drill motor with a ¾-inch socket and you can run the jack up and down just like the scissor stabilizing jacks many RVs have. The design allows for much quicker deployment and stowing of the jack with less physical effort required, while at the same time reducing the cost of a “powered” jack. The Quick Draw is capable of supporting 2,000 pounds, features a black powdercoat finish to resist corrosion and comes equipped with a removable foot with locking pin.
The Quick Drop is easy to install with a basic ratchet set, although you will need to support the front of the trailer to swap the jacks out. You can do this with jack stands or by just hooking it up to your tow vehicle. Don’t use the front stabilizer jacks for this; they’re not designed to carry the weight of the trailer.
One point about the Quick Drop is that it’s only available in a top-handle version, so clearance to the propane cylinders is a concern. If your trailer has a front crank jack you may need to move the LP-gas cylinders in order to manually crank this jack. Some trailer designs may prevent installing a top crank jack altogether, so check everything out before you buy.
We installed a Quick Drop jack at Tim’s RV in Erving, Mass., on a new Cruiser RV Fun Finder travel trailer, and found it necessary to move the tray for the LP-gas cylinders back for clearance. We made the swap in about 15 minutes; even with a bit of tool-chasing, most RV owners can effect this upgrade in about a half-hour.