Quality bottle jack?

for what it's worth to anyone, i just threw a 20-ton torin into the dumpster out back. 1 use (thank goodness it wasn't an emergency), would not hold the back passenger side of a rav4.

in the hunt for something proven now.

Try jacking up the rear axel on a C mh. Not only is it hard to operate the jack while laying there, but I didn't like laying under the mh while it was being jacked up.
I now have a hydraulic jack with a remote pump.

Regardless of the quality of any bottle jack you might want to add to your RV's mix ... make sure you get one with as high a lift (not including the screw top) as possible, for flexibility in any situation, and one with as high a tonnage rating as you can afford, for reliability.

I carry a two-stage 12 ton bottle jack in our RV with plenty of wooden blocks to go with it. The blocks are to put under the jack in soft ground and/or to hold the axles high enough off the ground after you use the jack to raise the axles - since you never want to work around any portion of a raised vehicle with only the jack holding up whatever you raised up.

I have a few bottle jacks, but I decided to get a US Jack 8 ton high rise jack. It is true that they are expensive, but when you have to lift a lot of weight with one jack, and you aren't near civilization, you don't want it to fail. I looked at the other jacks, and the next best option is 2/3 the price, but it has welded construction, so you could never get it apart if you had to. If you never need it, the HF jack is nice, but the US Jack should last a few lifetimes.

I still use my '64 WEN.

Found a brand-new made in 1964 in USA 250 watt WEN soldering gun at a yard sale a few years ago for a dollar. In its original box with all untouched accessories. The thing was a time warp that could have appeared on Antiques Roadshow.

As an alternate source; try checking out some of your local Pawn Shops. I always check out their tool section and I am able to snag a good American made tool at a good price. I have seen quite a few floor and bottle jacks. Key is know which ones to look for, what they are selling for and then just check them out real close.

I bought a solid state Miller welder that had a damaged cord, no way to test it and Pawn America gave me a warrante that if it did not work when the cord was repalced they would refund my money. I still have it, it works great and no way whould you ever get one for $225.

I just snagged a USA made 24" Ridgid Alluminum pipe wrench for $20 that doesn't look like it has had any use. The new ones are being made in China and are $93 at HomeDepot.

I use a 4" length of 1/4" X 2" angle iron welded to the jack pad with Super Missile Weld or Allstate 275. A foot square 1/4" steel plate with pegs to keep the base from slipping also helped to overload my poor rig.

Why do they all have such small tops with no or very little indentation to hold an axel or jacking pin?

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
Hein Werner. Bought one floor jack, brand new, two hundred dollars. Forty years ago. Removed it from the box. Fitted the 2-ton jack under the front of a car that weighed 2,200 pounds total. Jacked one front tire off the ground. Noticed a puddle I contacted the seller who contacted the manufacturer. Hein Werner insisted their jack was mistreated. Since that point I have avoided Hein Werner and both from my avoidance and twisting of arms, HW has lost about 40,000 dollars in sales, easily.

fj12ryder,

Thanks for the laugh. I needed that!

Until prices went stratospheric, my choice in Jacks was WALKER.

I have a 16 year old Harbor Fright 12-ton with synthetic fluid that hasn't lost a drop. Same with the 4-ton, and a 5-ton floor jack. I didn't replace the oil in 1 3-1/2 ton Costco special and was told last month it has started to leak. My Bad.

In the late 70's to late 90's the outfit I worked for had over 60 Hein-Warner jacks from 1T bottle to 50T bottle, transmission-car, Transmission -semi, Floor -various sizes. In the 90's they started moving stuff off-shore and warranty became problematic. We moved to Walker and Jet for the most part.