I’ve got the Tailgate Blues! The new Delta Power Jack (Bastion) won’t allow my tailgate to fully open. While this is nothing new in the RV world, it is surprising that manufacturers, like Bastion, don’t solve for it.

Lippert Power Tongue Jack
Lipperts Power Tongue Jack

Now, not being able to open the tailgate when hooked up is not a showstopper. However, it makes things much harder at places like the dump station when I’m hauling the poop wagon. Lifting supplies over the tailgate is a pain. Secondarily, it is nice to be able to get things in and out of the truck easily when we arrive at our campsite. I can’t do that when I am unable to open the tailgate.

Obviously, there are some options available. The easiest way would be to have a mounting plate that has the versatility to rotate on the A-frame. The second approach is to allow the power head to be unbolted from the drive shaft, rotated, and then re-bolted into new holes.

The Bastion doesn’t allow for either of those two options. So, what you could do with the Bastion jack is drill a new hole, or two, in the baseplate. Or you could swivel it “as-is,” and then it will be at a weird, back-facing angle. This is because the holes won’t allow for 90-degree mounting. I did see one owner who completely tore the Bastion power head apart in order to reorient it. This involved a lot of work, like removing gears and drilling. That did not interest me.

I don’t think the 3500 lb Bastion is a great jack to begin with. It is by far the slowest jack I have ever had.

Since I had great luck with the Furrion power jack on my last trailer, that’s the option I chose. If you remember from a previous post years ago, I did turn the head on the Furrion. Back then, Furrion supplied additional holes for moving the head, but they needed to be tapped. Running a tap in the unit was not a big deal, but you did need to make sure you didn’t let metal shavings fall into the unit.

The good news is that since 2024, Furrion has threaded the spare holes.

Once the new Lippert jack arrived, I removed the head bolts, turned the head 90 degrees, and reinserted the bolts. Due to a massive storm coming through North Texas, I had to wait a few days before I could get back to the replacement.

Once the yard dried out, Eva and I continued working on the replacement. I cut all power to the Delta and turned off the 12-volt switch. As an extra precaution, I disconnected the batteries. Next, I jacked up the front of the trailer and placed a safety jack on each side of the A-frame.

I had raised the Bastion about two inches off the ground before I cut the power. This was so I could remove the baseplate before removing the jack.

Next, I removed the power wire from the junction box under the trailer, unbolted the jack, and lifted it up and off the A-frame. One thing that was quite apparent was the lightweight nature of the Bastion tongue jack compared to the Lippert. The Bastion is much, much lighter. I think that speaks to the better quality of the Lippert model.

Next, it was simply a matter of reversing the steps to put the new tongue jack onto the A-frame. The hardest part of this job was running the new power wire through the plastic conduit into the junction box. That took about fifteen minutes. If that had gone smoothly, I would estimate this job as a thirty-minute project.

Well, everything worked perfectly, and I no longer have my tailgate blues—and that’s a good thing!