Replacement Handle Shaft for etrailer and Ram Square, Direct Weld Jacks - 10,000 lbs

Video Transcript for Rebuilding of an etrailer or Ram Square Jack

Today we're going to be showing you the rebuild process on the large, square-style, weld-on, twelve thousand pound jacks. This is part number TJD-12000SP-F2. Typically these jacks are going to be welded on your trailer. The last thing you want to do is cut them off, grind it down, and weld a new one on. Here at Etrailer we have the full assortment of replacement parts. This in particular is the Ram, brand or the Etrailer brand jack.

A few of the different replacement parts that are available are going to be the cap, that's going to fit on top of the jack, keeps out the moisture, keeps out the dirt. This is part number TJD-12000-CP. We also have the gear kit. This is part number TJD-12000-GR. We've got our bearing replacement. This sits in there and reduces the friction so we don't have all of that weight riding metal on metal.

You can see the inside portion of our bearing spins while the outside portion spins freely. This part number is TJD-12000-BR. We're also going to have the return spring. This is going to draw that drop-leg back up. That's what causes it to spring back up.

This is part number TJD-12000-RSP. Even have the clip for the handle. Now, this is going to come unfinished. These need to be welded on in a location of your choice, however you want to store your handle. This is part number TJD-12000-CLIP. We're going to have the replacement shaft.

This is the handle shaft so our handle can connect on either side here. It's also going to come with the bushings that fit in the side of the jack. This is part number TJD-12000-SHABUS. Lastly, we're going to have the replacement handle. This handle can be mounted on either side. It has the vertical clevis. It's part number is TJD-12000-HD. Now, to remove our cap, we've got the two bolts that hold it in place. There's going to be one here, and catty-corner there'll be another one. Small socket, in our case it's going to be an eight-millimeter we're going to use to remove that. Get that one out of the way and do the same thing for the other one. If it's just the cap you're replacing, at this point you'll grab your new cap, and we'll just thread those bolts right into that same location, but go a little bit further into it. The next thing we're going to do is get our handle removed. Now, you really only need to remove the handle if you plan on replacing it. If you don't plan on replacing it, you can get this shaft out without removal. We're going to show you how to replace it, so it's coming off as well. To do that, use a fourteen millimeter. Now, your bolt's not going to be very tight here. You want it to be able to slide, you want the handle to be able to slide in and out there. It's going to be a washer on each side there. Then the handle, just set it to the side. Now, if we look at the internals of our jack, you can see the smaller gear, it's going to fit on the handle shank, or handle shaft. That larger, the base gear, it's going to sit down on the bottom. Now to see what we're doing here, give you a little bit better look, we're going to get all this grease out of here. You want to be sure you've got some grease on hand during your rebuild, so you can get it replaced with some nice, fresh grease. Doesn't necessarily need to be a high-temp grease, or anything like that. Let's get it all wiped off there. All right, that gives you a good look. You can see right where that pin's going to go through the gear, here. It comes out of the other side. You just need to drive that out. Going to use a punch for that. Small hammer and a flat tip punch is going to be your best bet. You want it to be up on a solid surface, or of course if it's on your trailer it's all ready going to be on a solid surface, you won't have to worry too much about it. Now, once we get that partially started, we don't want to knock it out of there too far, or it's going to get captured in that lower gear. Just want to be sure we've got enough room as we do that, so we can still rotate it. Get in here from the outside, just grab with with a pair of pliers. Just kind of wiggle and pull, and we'll get it pulled out. Now, the pin for the handle is going to be the one that's got the splines in it, and then the other pin that comes with your gear kit's for that base pin, we're going to show you that in just a minute. Now, of course since this is a brand new jack, we're going to be reusing all of the parts that we are going to be removing in the process, but this will give you a step-by-step on how to get yours replaced. Once that pin's out, the handle shaft should be pretty free to move side-to-side. We're going to pull that out, just like that. Your little spacer tube that's there, get it pulled out. Get our gear pulled out, a little recess there, that's going to go towards the outside, so you just want to keep that in mind when you put it back together. With our replacement shaft for the handle, you have these bushings. That just spreads out the amount of area in which we crank that handle on, rather than it just riding on that thin piece of metal on the outer tube of the jack. We'll get both of those popped out of the way. Now, we'll be able to reach in and simply pull out on that larger gear. See, there's a slot in there, you can see the pin. That pin is just a free-floating pin, and the gear keeps it in position, kind of captures that pin in there. This we'll set aside, and that base pin we'll just pull out. At this point, the only two components we haven't seen are going to be the bearing and the return spring. To get to those we have to lift the outer housing for the outer tube of the jack, off of the inner tube, so we'll stand it up. Grab it at the bottom, lift straight up on it. Now you'll see our bearing. That's what reduces that friction and prevents metal-on-metal contact. Now we're going to remove the four lock-nuts. At that point we can lift out our screw. That's going to be what really drives our jack up and down. As we rotate that, that increases the distance between this inner tube and our outer tube which sits on top. As that expands, our jack leg goes down, and those are extremely hard to damage. As long as you keep grease inside of it they should last a lifetime. This typically isn't something that you ever replace, going to be that screw. We'll get that lifted up and out, we can set it aside. Right inside here, we can get the grease off of it, you'll be able to see it a little better. You can see there's a small tab there that our return spring, or that our rebound spring, or drop-leg return spring is connected to, so we want to unhook it right there. We just kind of want to bend that open just a little bit there. Once we open that up a little bit we should be able to use a hook pick, pull up on that spring, it's going to be caught right in there. Now, we are going to be releasing a little bit of spring tension, so as I pop it off of that catch, it's probably going to pop down towards the bottom of the jack. Now that we've got that removed, we'll stand our jack inner leg back up. Now we'll rotate our pin, and then lift it up, and then just engage it in one of those higher holes, that's going to give us access right in here to the bottom where that spring is connected. You'll see right inside here, the spring's going to be connected to a small catch that's on the bottom foot-plate of the jack. Locate exactly which corner of the square tube that that's on. You're going to have a little notch in the bottom of the foot-plate. Once you unhook the end of the spring to it, bring in your new spring, hook it back on, and then we'll lower our jack back down, then we'll want to reattach it at the top. Now, we'll reach back down in there with our pick, or whatever you decide. We want to bring that up and get it reattached into that small hole in our tab on the top. Now we'll get our spring pulled out a little bit here, and we may need to flex that open a little bit more to get it engaged. Then we'll have it reconnected to our tab. Now, with our spring back in place, we can drop our screw assembly back in. We'll want to replace our four lock-nuts. These weren't fully tightened down. We'll just run all of these down until they come to their stopping point. The studs that they stick on are not fully threaded. It gives you a good reference point for where you'll stop. We can slide our bearing back down into place. With that in, now we'll slide the outer tube back over that inner tube. Lay this assembly back down, and we can see where the screw comes out, right there in the middle. Now, we'll take the smooth pin, which is our base pin. It's going to slide through the hole in the screw. We want it about centered. It doesn't have to be perfect but we want it pretty close to centered in that screw. We'll align the groove in our gear up with that pin, and slide it into position. As it seats it should be about flush with the top of the screw. It's not going to be exactly flush, but it should be pretty close. Now, our bushings, these are going to go from the inside out on each side. These, if you need replacements, are going to come with the handle-shaft replacement. We'll bring our handle-shaft and our gear. That gear's going to engage the lower gear there, that's important. Then, our shaft is going to slide right through that. Put our spacer pipe in place. Slide right through that, and then on through. As we slide this in, we just need to line up the hole for our pin in the gear with the hole for our pin in the shank. We'll take the pin that has the grooves in it. We need to get that in to where it's nice and flush. Just like that. We do have grease inaudible 00:13:05. One located here on the bottom, and then one located a little bit lower. You can decide to use those to grease it after you've got it reassembled, or you can take a few minutes now and kind of fill this area in with grease. That way you can visually see it and make sure that you get it fully engaged into the gears. You can see we're right back, nice, operating smoothly. It's time to bring our cap back into position, and replace the bolts that we removed earlier. Your new cap does come with new hardware, so if it's completely missing it's not a big deal. We'll want to get those re-secured, just like that. Then, we can replace our handle. Bring our bolt up through the bottom, or the top, doesn't matter. Make sure that we've got our flat washer on both sides. One there, one here. Then, we're just going to tighten that up enough so that we fully engage that locking portion of the nylon lock-nut. We've got a little bit of slack there still to take out. That's going to be too tight, you want that to be able to slide. We'll back it off just a touch. That's where we'll want it, just to where that handle can slide easily in and out, that way we can tip it down and connect it into our clip, whether we weld that onto our jack, whether we want it on our trailer, wherever we decide to put it. That's going to complete our rebuild of the twelve thousand pound, weld-on jack. I hope this will show you how with just a few parts and a little bit of time, you can rebuild your existing jack rather than having to buy a complete new one, and get it re-welded to the trailer.