[RockyMtnRay]

Originally Posted by terryjones1

I have just ordered a new 2720 with swing-around tongue.

Does anyone know if an electric tongue jack will interfer with the swing-around tongue's ability to "swing around"?

Anyone with experience in this area?

In my experience, there are two issues with using an electric tongue jack on a swing tongue TM.

First, most electric jacks (certainly this Barker model I bought from Camping World) have a footpad instead of a dolly wheel on the bottom. Therefore, you are not going to "swing around" the tongue if the trailer's weight is on the tongue. Since I consider swinging the tongue with the trailer's weight on it to be inadvisable anyway (although the TM engineers allegedly say this is safe); I simply lower the front leveling jacks (equally) enough to take the trailer's weight off the tongue, then retract the jack enough to get the footpad off the ground, then swing the tongue.

The second issue is ensuring a good ground for the jack. The jack I bought uses the trailer tongue/frame as a ground...there is only one wire (the 12V power wire) going to the jack head. That means the return current from the jack (which can be very high...as much as 25 amps) has to travel through the swing tongue's hinge points. And depending on circumstances, those hinge points could present substantial resistance to current flow...and that means reduced jack power, heating of the hinges, and possibly even arcing/welding of the hinges. To my scientific/engineering mind, dependence on the hinges for solid electrical ground continuity was not a good idea at all. So I rigged up a flexible ground wire (12 gauge) between the part of the tongue that pivots and the part that doesn't...and made this wire long enough that it easily flexes when the tongue is swung around to the side.

So far so good...the jack has worked flawlessly now for 2 towing seasons. And there's no way that I'd ever go back to using a manual jack...the electric is much faster, creates far less perspiration when hooking up/unhooking on a hot day, and makes it very easy to attach my WDH's spring bars (I use the jack to lift the trailer tongue several inches after attaching it to the truck and latching the hitch ball).