Tips for operating manual levelling jack with painful hands?

I'm getting an impact wrench before our next trip. I have tried using a cordless drill but it just doesn't have enough power to even stabilize much less level the rig. I always felt trying to level with the corner stabilizers was an act of futility.

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
Aghhhhh!

Getting old, means knee-pads, gloves, and even positioning a scissors jack is agonizingly painful to hands and wrists (and knees and toes and spine and swear to budda I think ever what's left of my hair, hurts!).

Can't see, can't hear, but nerve endings are a thousand times as sensitive as they were 30-years ago.

Good fortune to you Naio!

Awww... thank you, and to you, Mexico!

Aghhhhh!

Getting old, means knee-pads, gloves, and even positioning a scissors jack is agonizingly painful to hands and wrists (and knees and toes and spine and swear to budda I think ever what's left of my hair, hurts!).

Can't see, can't hear, but nerve endings are a thousand times as sensitive as they were 30-years ago.

Good fortune to you Naio!

Another suggestion if you had an air compressor.. is a air driven hydraulic jack.. They are the cats meow ..

HERE

Alternately you could check out small "floor" jacks (these are the ones that have the long handle), they do make some small compact sizes but may be a bit hard to place unless you are on pavement..

I have a large 2.5 ton floor jack which is nice when you don't wish to crawl under something to get a jack under.. But it is big and heavy, the smaller ones should be more manageable.

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
Newton and counter-reaction is naio's issue. I am a member of his club.

Yeah, I felt kind of dumb when I did not anticipate the counter-twisting :).

Naio your jack leveling connecting point rises as the jack rises. This makes it hard to control counte-torque. Harbor Fright used to sell an electric 12-volt scissors jack. Using blocks I use that jack to raise each corner of the rig then when it gets high enough I use the original jack alongside to make it stay up. Sometimes thus has to be done in a couple of stages. Raise, set the original jack to keep the rig up, place a block under the electric jack raise some more then the original jack is extended to keep things up. Move the electric jack to another corner. It's fast and by god a lot easier on hands and wrists. I could not afford electric lifts in a million years.

GOOGLE 12-volt scissor jack. You'll need enough power cord to reach the furthest point.

Hope this helps.

Thank you :)

Newton and counter-reaction is naio's issue. I am a member of his club.

Naio your jack leveling connecting point rises as the jack rises. This makes it hard to control counte-torque. Harbor Fright used to sell an electric 12-volt scissors jack. Using blocks I use that jack to raise each corner of the rig then when it gets high enough I use the original jack alongside to make it stay up. Sometimes thus has to be done in a couple of stages. Raise, set the original jack to keep the rig up, place a block under the electric jack raise some more then the original jack is extended to keep things up. Move the electric jack to another corner. It's fast and by god a lot easier on hands and wrists. I could not afford electric lifts in a million years.

GOOGLE 12-volt scissor jack. You'll need enough power cord to reach the furthest point.

Hope this helps.

I definitely make that mistake! Thanks for taking the time to educate me :).

Naio wrote:
Hmmm... reading the reviews on Amazon, they seem to consistently say this jack is flimsy and only good for a few uses. Maybe there are other electric jacks?

There are a lot of different makers of those jacks so not a bad idea to look around. But Amazon is pretty good on returns, so sometimes you just have to take a little risk and try one out..

One of the main issues I see with most scissor jacks is the base is on the small side. Not enough foot print but that can be fixed with either bolting a piece of 2x8 or steel (welding a steel plate would be best) to the bottom.

However, the key to scissor jacks is to NOT extend them any farther than needed.

They fold down pretty flat, something like under 6 inches so you put some blocking under them which allows you to extend very little..

So if your vehicle is say 12" you use 4 pieces of 2x6 under the jack and you only need to extend the jack a couple of inches..

Most folk make the mistake of extending the jack 12 or 14 inches and that makes it pretty dicey..

Yeah, but reading the reviews it sounds like that particular jack would not last long in that role :(.

I see lots of electric tongue jacks. Could I adapt one to this job? Would they be unable to handle the side forces?

Naio wrote:
I saw my neighbor pull out a cordless drill, and I thought, 'That's what I need!'

Went down and bought a socket, and adapter for drill (I hate buying tools I already own, back at my S&B). Got back to camp and, nope. Ok for stabilizing, but not for leveling -- drill just twists in my hands.

My van is now all cattywhompus, and my hands have given out for the week. Ideas?

To actually answer your question: If the electric drill is too much to handle because you've tightened the jacks too tight, just replace the electric drill with a break handle the same size as the socket. Plenty of leverage to regain control of the situation. May be a bit slow, but will make the effort, duck soup.