Toubleshooting Non-Functioning Lippert 3500-lb Tongue Jack  

Question:

Expert Reply:

Based on your description of the problem it sounds like either your jack has a bad ground connection or that the battery is not charged up quite fully enough to operate the jack motor.

If the jack's ground connection is made by its mounting plate, as is often the case with an a-frame tongue jack like # EJ-3520-BBX, you can try sanding/cleaning the mating jack and trailer surfaces to remove paint, primer, rust or trapped dirt that could interfere with the ground connection. Ideally you will have bare metal to bare metal with a light application of dielectric grease # 11755 to protect those bare metal surfaces from future corrosion.

The lights on jacks are usually high-efficiency LED types or small low-power incandescent bulbs that will illuminate with very little power. Just because a jack's LED lights operate this does not necessarily mean the battery is charged enough to operate the motor, which will pull many amps from the battery when asked to lift the trailer's weight.

A battery charger like # CTEK56353 can keep a trailer-mounted battery topped-up so it will have the power you need.

If you can remove the jack cover to get access to the motor power terminals you can try directly applying power to the motor, bypassing the trailer wiring and jack power switch. If the motor works this way then you know you have either a ground issue or bad wiring.

expert reply by: Adam R

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