Friday, June 7, 2013

A Screw Bottle Jack With An Oversize Base


This spare tire-changing jack is so old I've long forgotten how I came by it.



Its base is small, and 'tippy' from side-to-side -- a feature that I found a bit annoying. The jack mostly just languished for years, until I got the bright idea to make a big, flat base for it. That turned out to be a very good move. Here's a view of the jack mounted on its hardwood base.



All I had to do was drill a hole at each corner of the jack's steel base; then a few tee-nuts, washers and hex socket head screws got me a much-improved jack.

One of the first uses I found for it was on vehicle exhaust system work in my driveway. I had a rusted-out muffler hanger to replace on a Pontiac Sunfire, and this jack was just what I needed to support and position the muffler, while I installed a replacement hanger.

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Adapting 1/4" Square Drive to the Crank Socket

The great, long crank for the jack proved to be pretty clumsy for my purposes, so I made a 1/4" square drive adapter for the crank socket from a 12mm socket wrench, like so.



The 12mm socket wrench was a cheap, no-name one, and it proved to be relatively easy to cut and file. It fits that 'rectangular' crank socket perfectly.

With that adapter, I can easily hand crank the jack when delicate positioning is called for, or I can apply a variable speed drill when a fast, lengthy ram excursion is needed.

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Accessorizing the Ram

I drilled a hole in the centre of the ram's face, and tapped it 10-32; that made it possible to attach helpful accessories for specialized applications.

Adding a hook gave me a way to elevate a lawnmower for changing its oil, like so.



Adding a rectangle of Ikea flooring material gave me a spray-painting stand for the upturned hopper of a fertilizer spreader I was restoring.



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Idle Storage

When the jack's not in use, it stashes away nicely overhead between a couple of joists, on cleats that I made for it.



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Obtaining a Screw Bottle Jack

No retailer that I know of sells these things -- hydraulic bottle jacks, yes; screw bottle jacks, no.[1]

The local auto wrecker is likely to have a zillion of them. My '99 Ford Ranger came with a very similar jack. I suspect that virtually all production of this style of jack gets sold to car makers.

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In Closing

This jack is a good example of how creating/acquiring an item with no immediate 'payback' to it, merely because it's a good thing in principle, can end up 'paying back' over and over again as uses crop up and suggest themselves.

When I was working, I noticed that the bosses would never 'invest' a dime in anything that they couldn't see an immediate, right-this-instant payback from. Maybe, to be profitable, there can be no other way to operate a business. I don't know; I'm no businessman.

But I do know a bit about tools and physics and getting work done and what it takes to get work done. And I know that all those profit-making outfits that I worked for over the years were the shabbiest, most ill-equipped hell-holes on the face of God's earth.

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Note:

[1] 'So why even bother with screw bottle jacks, when hydraulic bottle jacks are readily available?'

Good question. Answer -- for several reasons:

a) Lighter weight. A screw bottle jack is just less 'stuff' to have to grapple with.

b) Orientation insensitivity. A screw bottle jack can operate in any orientation -- from 'right side up' to 'upside down'; the jack couldn't care less.

c) Ruggedness. An extended hydraulic jack's ram has little tolerance for abuse. You could accidentally saw a small notch in the extended ram of a screw bottle jack, and the jack would just 'shrug' and say, "Oh, ouch.", and carry on working.

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3 comments:

  1. Why drill holes in that plate, instead of removing the screws/rivets that are holding it in place? Is the plate needed as part of the jack?

    And that spare socket as a key is a great idea. Exactly what I need to do for a spare screw jack I am going to use to modify a badly designed dirt bike stand/lift.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I wanted to retain the jack's original foot-plate, in case I ever needed to have it that way again. As it turned out, drilling the foot-plate as I did served me well when I had to replace a rotted carport post:

      https://rougeriverworkshop.blogspot.com/2017/07/replacing-carport-post.html

      'Glad to hear that you like the socket wrench 'key'. That has worked well. I haven't broken it yet.

      Regards,

      Tom

      Delete
  2. looks just like the jack from my toyota landcruiser circa 1996.
    as it sits on 35" tires it no longer reaches the axle so i had to find other means to jack it up while out an about....

    ReplyDelete