Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2003 08:51:56 -0500
Reply-To: Derek Drew <derekdrew@RCN.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Derek Drew <derekdrew@RCN.COM>
Subject: Re: high lift jack?
In-Reply-To: <000101c2e213$513551a0$4f0afea9@pacbell.net>
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<font size=3>Now that everybody's heads are turning to this, I have the
following additional points about using a high lift jack. <br><br>
1. They are fantastic. After using one it quickly became apparent that
the OEM jack was of limited utility by comparison. <br><br>
2. In off road conditions they are especially useful as you can never
tell how high you will want the van to go and with the high lift whatever
that height is you can go to it. <br><br>
3. It is absolutely essential to bring along rebuild kits because
periodically the high lift jack components fail and then the jack is
worthless unless you replace the components in the kit. <br><br>
4. As another lister did, I found it expedient to shorten the jack just a
tad so it would fit under my back seat. I cut a hole in the end of my
rear seat compartment to allow the end of the jack to extend further
toward the passenger side wall so I would not have to shorten it so
much.<br><br>
5. I have long felt that the best mounting spot for the jack would be in
a compartment hole cut into the westy roofline at the rear edge of the
luggage rack. The jack would slide into this hole and span the width of
the vehicle and you could slide it out when needed and close the
fiberglass door you built there. I plan to see if I can do this mod at
the earliest opportunity, which means probably 2004 (I hope not!).
Ideally, one might even use a PVC tube up there for the jack. Aside from
getting the jack out of the underseat storage area where it takes up
space, the other advantage to this is that I can assure you that in
actual use this jack can get dripping with mud and it is a pain to have
to have that mud threatening to get inside your vehicle each time you are
done jacking. Sliding the jack up into the rooftop area would eliminate
this problem because it would have its own self contained place to go.
<br><br>
6. It is critically important when using the jack to lubricate it with
oil. This is a pain. However, we began simply spraying PAM on it from the
kitchen cabinet in the camper, which was a convenient solution. Not sure
if Pam is a good lubricant oil for jacking, however. <br><br>
7. I found that in actual use in adverse conditions that the base of the
jack was much to small to keep it from submarineing into the ground when
you begin jacking. Many a time I began jacking, the jack action would
cause the jack to simply go into the earth 18" inches and not raise
the van at all, and not hit the bottom at all, which was frustrating to
say the least and also a little amusing. Accordingly, I cut a square
piece of wood as a platform and affixed this spare piece of wood inside
the roof rack with bungie cords. I think the wood is somewhat larger than
1' x 1' square, but I find in actual, use that depending on the
conditions even this size wood is sometimes too small, and the whole
piece will sometimes travel down into the mud a foot or more. <br><br>
8. A final word on the high-lift is that there can be a real problem with
the length because if you don't position the jack just right, the top
part of it can begin to angle in torward the bodywork of your vehicle and
then press against it with great force. Many a time I have jacked the
vehicle up in adverse conditions and found that the top of the jack began
to move or travel toward the van side slowly -- say, an inch a minute. It
is then a mad race to let the van back down before your van is damaged
and reposition the jack. If I had a large piece of very hard
plastic/rubber that I could use slip between the top of the jack and the
body of the vehicle to prevent bodywork creases this would have saved me
at least one crease that I see on my van today. <br><br>
9. One time I was camping and I had the idea that I wanted to go under my
van and check something out. We were on high ground dirt and I had two
OEM jacks with me and were beginning to cook dinner. So I put one OEM
jack on either side of the front of the vehicle thinking how nice it
would be to have both sides lifted instead of just one while doing this
work. I was amazed to find, just as the 2nd front wheel left the ground,
that the vehicle in a jacked condition depends on one side or the other
remaining on the ground for stability, and that when you lift the entire
front, the van will swivel toward the side that is even just a little
downhill and then plop down with both wheels back on the ground. My van
did this and as a result I had the benefit of a belly laugh at my own
lack of foresight so loud that I am sure the bears could hear it more
than one mile away. At that time, one of the two OEM jacks I had then
broke at the main shaft so I am back to one. I used to carry it as
a spare with the high lift but discontinued this after I discovered that
all High Lifts come with rebuild kits. Now my spare is a very small
bottle jack bought for about $10 from the local auto parts store, which
fits nicely inside the right rear taillight area. <br><br>
10. While using a high lift, I felt from time to time uneasy about the
fact that my extension that slid into the van was not affixed securely to
the jack. Some of the solutions offered in the last day or so seem to
offer to correct this. I think this is good, but I am unsure if I would
want the position of the extension fixed in all plains or not. Have to
think about that. The one comment I have is that almost all extensions I
have seen are not long enough for real world use because otherwise when
the conditions become bad, the jack will threaten the van bodywork as I
said above. However, making a long extension is a mixed bag because then
a lot of force is put on the extension to bend it. I have bent some.
<br><br>
At 10:00 PM 3/3/2003 -0800, you wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>So who will leap into the
breach? Jim of syncrohead fame has a pair of<br>
lifting inserts specifically designed for Hi-Lift Jacks Simple
design. If I<br>
do it they'll be 25$ each prepaid. If BenT does it it'll be 45$
each but<br>
you get a set if shiny black studs too. If Jordanvw does it who
knows what<br>
it will cost? If terry does it ... well. If schvenkenstein
does it you're<br>
stuck with stolen goods and springenthingys that don't. If Tassi's
does it<br>
you'll get em next year. If Kasper does it, he'll be
single. So Ben McC,<br>
fame and glory awaits... Did I miss anybody? ...reloading...
</blockquote>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
_______________________________________________<br>
Derek
Drew
<br>
CEO & Co-Founder <br>
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<br>
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============================<br>
derekdrew@rcn.com<br>
202-966-7907 <br>
(cell) 703-408-1532 <br>
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