Some thoughts on portable jacks.
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There are many subjects one could bring up for discussion (these days it may tip over into most), where myriad thinly-supported yet highly calcified opinions quickly stink up the place. This post pertains to when the subject being “raised” is the relative utility and safety of various portable lifting devices, with everyones’ bete noir being the venerable Hi-Lift farm jack, and its numerous imitations.
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Hi-Lift and the knock-offs can be had for around $100 in two or three stanchion heights, with all being long, heavy, awkward to stow, and rattly in transit. Despite those horrid drawbacks, nothing approaches its versatility and speed, and that’s without even considering its ability to be a winch or a spreader to pry open a wrecked vehicle. It is at once the safest, because you can only lift from outside the vehicle envelope, and most dangerous if you don’t know how to operate it safely. But knowing how, and not forgetting what you’re doing while you’re doing it, it is perfectly safe.
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Such comparisons are pointless anyway, anyone arguing the safety of their preference over someone else’s elides the obvious fact that lifting things as heavy as motor vehicles is extremely dangerous no matter what you use. So it’s not as if you can use another jack type and leave your wits at home, any method can kill you if you fail to take care in setting up the lift, or you let your concentration lapse. Treat a suspended vehicle like a large angry beast that you don’t dare to turn your back on for even a second, and you’ll probably get out alive.
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I’m not trying to sell anyone on the Hi-Lift, although after using all other types in the field, it’s my first choice personally. As everyone is eager to point up, once again, they are indeed, heavy, rattly, and require a bit more familiarity than other types, maybe even a little pre-trip practice, to be used safely. But if I was sending anyone into a situation where prolonged exposure during a breakdown increased personal risk, there’s nothing else I would even recommend.
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I sometimes carry a hydraulic bottle jack as an auxiliary, such as to manipulate a suspension control arm separately from my main lifting device. But the way many people use them as a primary lift for an independent-suspension vehicle they are in my experience the most dangerous, because by it’s nature a hydraulic bottle type has limited lift range, so nearly none of them can lift a truck by its chassis high enough to get a large truck wheel off the ground. Instead they are usually used to lift under a control arm. I cringe every time someone talks about primary lifting that way. The bottoms of control arms are generally irregularly shaped or compound curved, and the contact angle of the jack ram and control arm change as the arm swings, meaning the engagement point can shift as you lift, which will sometimes cause the little bottle jack to shoot out from under the vehicle like a wet watermelon seed. You should not main lift by a moving or “unsprung” component. Safe main lifting is via designated lift points or rigid frame members, under the tires like the ground does, or by lifting a wheel. The only field lift by a moving suspension component other than a wheel that I would consider reasonably safe is lifting by a live axle with a jack having a saddle top ram, because live axles don’t swing fore/aft or inboard/outboard like suspension control arms do.
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I have a Hi-Lift adapter sling that hooks into a wheel’s spokes and lifts one corner very safely, but it then requires a separate support to remove the wheel, so not as useful for a wheel change because we don’t generally haul jackstands around with us. But it’s a quick way to elevate a corner for better access underneath for some other repair, or to shore up a wheel that’s dug into the ground, and if the jack fails the vehicle comes down on the tire as normal; that may make the person underneath have a hard time wriggling out, and maybe need a change of underwear once they escape, but it’s unlikely to crush him. Naturally, you have to judge each situation on its own merits.
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Small hydraulics are reliable right up until they’re not, which I’ve at times discovered at the moment I needed them most. Bottle jacks should only be stowed vertically in a moving vehicle, and even then they are fairly prone to simply fail to deliver when you pull it out of long storage and need it to work. In my shop, I use my hydraulic trolley jacks first, but hydraulics are not my first choice in the field. A simple, sturdy mechanical mechanism is much more likely to work as intended after long stowage, and is always field-repairable. That’s another advantage to Hi-Lift, but also one that telescoping screw-jacks can claim. If I needed a compact jack in bottle-like form, I’d go for a telescoping screw jack over hydraulic. Some larger ones are also multi-staged and may have enough lifting range to lift by a frame member enough to get a tire off the ground, plus they can be stowed in any position without risk.
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I would warn people off the stock VW Vanagon jack or screw scissor jacks, because they both have a critical flaw in conception: All the load is held by the screw in tension, its weakest property. There is no warning prior to the screw snapping and the lift crashing down. In bottle-shaped screw jacks the screws are in compression, the material’s strongest property. Farm jacks support load with thick hardened dowels in shear, where they are also very strong, and can be easily inspected and replaced if they are worn or damaged.
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I have a 48″ original Hi-Lift that rides in the rear cargo area of my tintop Syncro Vanagon. It nestles neatly on the rear deck, wedged between the big rear foam slab and the bench seat back. I stow it there to keep it out of the weather and to avoid broadcasting what a bad-ass off-roader I am when I’m just sportin’ about town. Except when I’m going to camp, then it gets moved to a bracket atop the front bumper.