BOTTLE JACK

MOST good 4WD vehicles come with a bottle jack for lifting a vehicle to change a tyre – and in most cases they are the basic screw-type jack that are simple, strong and reliable. They aren’t particularly user friendly and the foldin-half or two-piece handle that comes with them can be frustrating to use. Most people, from the short survey I did, carry more than one. Still, they have a place in our tool kit even though one of the major disadvantages of a bottle jack – whether screw or hydraulic – is their height when depressed. They are often too tall to slide under an axle at the preferred spot when you have a flat tyre. At the other end of the game, their fully extended height often isn’t high enough to remove a flat tyre or fit a fully inflated tyre. One thing you really need for a jack (of near any sort), for those situations off-road, is a jacking plate, which can be as simple as a piece of milled timber – say about 300 x 200mm and 15mm or so thick. Or you can buy a custommade base plate that a bottle jack can lock in to. For years, I’ve just carried a piece of wood and it works fine. A lot of people (from the survey I carried out), myself included, have added a hydraulic bottle jack to their jacking repertoire. These jacks are easier to use than the screw-type jacks but after a few years use, they can leak fluid to the stage they can’t lift any heavy weights. For the last few years, I’ve also carried a supplementary kit for my bottle jacks: a Safe Jack Bottle Jack Recovery Kit. These are available through Pro-quip International in Melbourne (see: www.proquip.com.au). An American sourced kit, it comes complete with a six-tonne bottle jack, a six-inch (15cm) extension, a three-inch extension, an 8.5- to 12-inch (21.6-30cm) extension, a flat jack pad and an axle jack pad (the most handy of all the items), all in a heavy-duty Husky bag. I opted for everything but the bottle jack itself, as I had a few of these at home. Mind you, a couple of the jacks weren’t suitable for the other accessories as their lifting ram was not the right size – 18mm is the magical diameter of the ram. Price wise you’ll pay between $40 and $150 for a good four- to eight-tonne bottle jack. If you are adding an hydraulic to what you already have, get one with a different profile and minimum height; you’ll find that offers flexibility when the time comes to sliding it under an axle to change a tyre. Some vehicles come with a scissor-type jack. They are not my favourite, as they are unstable at the best of times. My advice is to replace them with a bottle jack, at least.