Floor Jack Helpers

I need a 3 ton jack to get 1/2 my boat/trailer off the ground. I used to have a couple smaller floor jacks where you pumped it up, then to let it down you removed the handle and slid it over a small valve peg and twisted it. Never again.

The 3 ton jacks normally let you twist the handle in place to lower the load, so that problem is taken care of. But no matter how hard you try to ease that handle twist to bleed the pressure slowly, it never works that way...it's grunt, grunt, grunt then all of a sudden wide open and the load slams to the ground.

There's a fix for this that not only offers precise lowering but also lets you drag the jack across the grass to where the truck is. Drill a couple holes near the top of the handle and slide a rod through them. I originally had a holder for this rod, but found I can just leave it in place with the help of a cable tie.

This handle makes it easy to lower the load slowly and also is handy for dragging the jack across uneven terrain.

I'll put the jack's metal cup directly under a rear axle, the pumpkin, or front suspension parts to get a truck wheel or two off the ground, but I hate to go metal to metal when lifting the boat trailer because there's such a small area of the jack cup pushing against the trailer frame. Can't you hear the sound of that 2 X 4 cracking as it gets squished between the jack and frame as you raise up the trailer?

So I bought a cap for the metal cup on the jack and I guess it's OK, but it's hard to tell when the jack is properly centered under the relatively narrow trailer frame.

Plastic cap used to distribute the load at the frame.

Here's my present joy for something between the jack cup and the trailer frame...

It's a Hockey Puck!