I recently bought a second hand “Tractor Supply” trailer. For whatever reason, they don’t come with a foot plate when they’re new so I bought one because I don’t care for the jack tube sitting directly on the ground or a brick or block of wood. When the plate came today, it had this warning sticker on it.
What’s the thinking here? Do people actually remove the plates before using the trailer? Seems like an unnecessary pain in the arse to me.
It doesn’t seem to attach to the leg very securely. Maybe people leave ones that a rusted on attached.
Because the trailer is bouncing around, the forces on the clip get larger than what they are designed for. The clip on the pin may suffer metal fatigue, its not structural quality steel so it can work fatigue and break easily.
Also, the extra produding bit of metal might be in the way of something. maybe it prevented the jack locked up properly. maybe it just touches the body and scratches the paint.
WAG: So it doesn’t fall off while you’re driving down the road and kill the person behind you when it smashes through their windshield or punctures their gas tank and blows their car up…or at least so they can say ‘told ya so, not our problem now’.
If that cotter pin falls out for any reason at all, I would think the pin going through the landing gear would back itself out without any hesitation while driving down the road.
Looking around online, I’m coming up with two random answers that A)make no sense and B)make a little bit of sense.
A)I’ve seen some that suggest removing for clearance. But ISTM if adding an extra inch of clearance makes a difference, you’re probably going to bottom out at some point anyways.
B)It could fill with water and rust. I saw one or two people suggesting they drilled weep holes in it for just this reason.
In either case, I’m still guessing it’s so it doesn’t fall off in transit. If you really wanted to keep it on all the time, I’d suggest using a nut and bolt setup instead of the pin/cotterpin or putting a few tack welds on to make sure it stays (and then removing the label to avoid some kind of obscure DNR fine). If you did that, the idea of drilling some weep holes does makes sense.
You’re generally supposed to take them off for extra clearance.
The plate itself hangs down lower than the tube without the plate.
Some plates may keep the tube from retracting all the way.
If you did run over something like a curb or went over a sharp incline and the tube hit the ground, it would probably just damage the tube, but if the plate got hung, it would probably cause more damage.
It probably has to do with the fact the footplate manufacturer has no idea about your setup. It probably doesn’t hang down low enough to make a difference, but how would they know? Maybe you have a lifted 4x4, a big fancy trailer that you use to haul pillows with and you have to put two 4x4 blocks of wood under it and extend the jack all the way to get it high enough to unhook. Or maybe you have a homemade trailer that you installed the jack on yourself and you’re using it to tow a Bobcat with Luv truck and you’re already close to leaving a trail of sparks without the footplate.
Probably the results of a law suit.
Some one probably did not retract the tube properly once. It hit something and did some damage. In a law suit the foot was blamed for causing a shortage of clearance. With that label the foot manufacture will claim the foot was not use properly and therefore the manufacture is not responsible for the damage.
I once heard of a extension ladder that had the warning not safe if used on a manure pile.
Probably a combination of all of the above valid answers, plus: with the plate attached, the risk of snagging and dragging something is greater - without the foot plate, it’s just a tube. With the footplate, it’s like a hooked anchor.
The manufacturer has to cover all possible hitch configurations which could be using their footplate, hence the generic warning.
Their are many different hitch types, including some which will interfere with a footplate as they pivot. Here is a video of one of my hitch setups. This is a trapezoidal hitch (doesn’t pivot on the ball) and around 0:49 you can see how the trunnion bars (lowest set of bars, looks like a “V”) move directly under my trailer jack. If a footplate were there, something would get bent.
For anyone who continues watching, the hitch doesn’t center because I hadn’t completed the side-to-side adjustments (the reason for the video in the first place).
Now you know the reason for my username. 
I put this trailer jack on my utility trailer, the foot is welded on. The jack swivels 90 degrees out of the way.
I think you got it backwards - only the tube hitting on asphalt could gouge a big divot, and possibly bend the jack as well. Having a foot on there could mean the the jack will just slide over the surface with no damage to either.
I say, forget the pin, and weld the footplate directly to the tube. And drill a drain hole, just to be sure.
Thanks guys. Based on the above information, I think I’ll just retract the jack more than I think is really necessary and maybe drill a hole in it too.
Maybe sometimes but I’m not really talking about it dipping down and touching a flat surface, but hitting various obstacles. Take this pic for example. Assume the jack scrapes when the guy pulls in the driveway. If the footplate has those little upward turned edges like the OP’s (many footplates don’t), it might help it get over the edge of the concrete. But what if the edge of the footplate is still a half inch lower than the edge of the concrete? It’s probably going to bend the jack then the footplate may get hung and tear things up even more.
That’s not a great example, I couldn’t really find a better one, but most trailers get off the road from time to time. They’re used on farms, in construction, campers are used out in the wilderness, etc where there’s plenty of broken ground, rocks, logs, etc. I think the chances of a footplate helping when you hit something are far less than it making things worse.
That said, it’s not that big of deal. When I have owned or used trailers for an extended time, I make it a habit to take them off. But it wouldn’t bother me to drive with one on.
