Repair/Maintain Fulton Tongue Jack

I launch and retrieve a boat from a trailer dipped into salt water.  Soon the tongue jack balks and finally it is frozen.  If I try to free it using the jack handle, a broken bevel gear and sheared pin rewards my effort.  Several suppliers of trailer parts also offer a Fulton rebuild kit with two bevel gears, two shear pins, and a block washer pair.  The same kit costs between ~$8 and $15 depending on source plus shipping.  I paid $11 but with shipping it came to $24 or just under the price of a new jack on sale before sales tax and shipping.  Several of the vendors had $15 minimum purchases before shipping charges.  Repair kit pricing suggests picking one up in a store is the best alternative.  Regardless, knowing how to disassemble the tongue jack and lubricate the long screw will lengthen jack life and preclude the need for the repair kit.

I have a 1,000# static capacity model.  The top plastic access cap is retained by one removable screw on the side of the tube.  Remove the plastic cap.  The handle rod has a bevel gear slid onto the rod.  At the base of the bevel gear, locate the shear pin and drive it out with a steel drift.  Slide the handle rod out of the tube toward the handle side.  Now pick up the bevel gear and shear pin located in the top of the tube.  Be careful when driving the shear pin not to damage the very brittle bevel gear.

The rod and bevel gear you just removed hold the lower horizontal bevel gear in place.  Locate the elongated hole under the plate that goes from one side of the tube to the other side of the tube under the bevel gear.  Using a small screwdriver and rotating the jack wheel, carefully free and lift the gear off its vertical shaft.  Remember the gear is very brittle.  Now remove the exposed shear pin that does not extend through the base of this bevel gear.  Lift off the washer under the bevel gear and remove the tube with the wheel from the tube that attaches to the trailer.  The plate mentioned above can now be slid out of the tube but there is no need to do that other than making certain you don't loose it.  Note the two washers on the top of the long screw of the wheel tube portion.  Remove them.

If the screw is still free, lubricate its full length and work the screw several times for its full length.  Mine was dry, rusty, and frozen.  Use traditional methods to loosen a frozen screw.  I used Blaster penetrating oil, heat, vibration, and brute strength.  My Vise Grips would not hold the small stub shaft so I switched to an 18" pipe wrench.  I used graphite based antiseize to lubricate the screw.  The rod stub on the long screw will have to be dressed with a file to remove burrs from the pipe wrench so it will fit through the washers.