Flat

Buzzcut1 wrote:

Kayteg1 wrote:

JRscooby wrote:

Kayteg1 wrote:
10 tons?
I wonder what it takes to bend the axle?

What does it matter? The jack can't put any more force than what the axle weighs, no matter the capacity..

It does matter when you put the jack under the axle pipe, like most of us do. When you have axle overloaded and lifting it in the point that was not design for it- something will give, just like Titanic broke on several pieces as it could not hold its own weight hanging in the air.

If your axle cant take a jack lifting up a little more than half the load that it normally carries down the road then I would say you are driving junk. Seriously we are only talking 4-5000 pounds.

The difference is in pressure to area applied. Your spring perch transfers the load across the curvature (the strongest part of the tubular structure ) if the axle tube.

With a smaller bottle jack you're concentrating all that weight into a much smaller contact patch, which increases the psi being applied and can damage the tube potentially.

In terms of total weight, that part is moot, the psi at the contact patch is the critical bit.

If you look at most factory jacks, they use a cradle which spreads that contact patch out into the curvature of the axle tube, reducing the total psi, but they are generally only rated fir lifting an unladen truck, not one with a full load in the bed.