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Stock bottle jack stuck. Suggestions?

J

jjnavarro

NAXJA Forum User
NAXJA Member
Location
San Francisco, CA
I busted out the trusty stock bottle jack after getting my rear diff stuck on some granite this weekend.
When I tried to stow it again under the seat, I couldn't get it to fully retract.
The exterior sleeve of the piston retracts, but the interior one stays fully extended.

Has anyone run into this and fixed it, or am I SOL?
 
Whack it a couple times and it should retract, maybe crank it back out and in again. It's happened to me before.

If that doesn't work, toss it on the scrap pile and pick another one up for $2 at the junkyard.
 
Thanks for the suggestions guys. All good advice.
If the wacking method doesn't work, maybe I'll just upgrade for a small hydraulic jack and stick it in there.
 
Lowrange2 said:
I don't think mine would do any good.
Click to expand...

With any lift the only thing a stock jack is good for is

1. a small canoe anchor.
2. spreading suspension components apart.
3. whacking marauding zombies in the head (that's how you kill them!!)

jjnavarro said:
... just upgrade for a small hydraulic jack and stick it in there.
Click to expand...

:thumbup:...that's the ticket!!
 
And a larger flat board for a base on soft ground and a couple of blocks....
 
jjnavarro said:
Thanks for the suggestions guys. All good advice.
If the wacking method doesn't work, maybe I'll just upgrade for a small hydraulic jack and stick it in there.
Click to expand...

Then you can be like me and have hydraulic fluid all over the floor!

Make sure to store it with the fluid fill plug pointing upwards. Mine rolled over, ripped the plug out, and sent the fluid everywhere.
 
Take the jack and drop it in a bucket of waste oil and let it soak. After a day, take it out and wack it on the side with a 2lb hammer to loosen the sleeve, then wind it back down.

I find that the OEM jacks are great for everything from changing tires (OEM or larger [carry a 6" piece of 2X4] ), to pushing the front axle back into position when re-installing the lower control arms.

The best replacement I have found for the OEM XJ bottle jack is a bottle jack out of a Dodge Maxi Van or Ford Pickup due to their longer length.
No hydro to deal with and fits in the OEM location for easy storage :D
 
I have a bottle jack I took out of a dodge 2500 pickup before scrapping it, it is probably very similar to the maxivan/ford pickup ones. Works great, it's nice to have two bottle jacks on hand sometimes, like when we had to pull the inner shafts out of a friend's frontend so he could stubs&hubs it home with a busted d30 carrier.
 
Stock Bottle Jacks are also useful for changing girl's tires in the school parking lot when they've removed the jack from their Honda and the high-lift on my roofrack looks "scary".. She thought the highlift would break her car even though I had a nice jacking point.. The stock bottle worked just fine though.
 
given the nature of a hi lift I would choose the bottle jack over it anyway, as long as the bottle jack fit and would do the job.
 
I would not recommend buying a hi lift without purchasing body armor first. The exception is using the hitch to lift. Even then it is fairly unstable.
 
My bumpers are made from straight sections of 2x6 1/4" wall tubing - they sure don't look like anything special, but the point on my high lift fits almost perfectly inside the end of the tubing. It works out really well and I didn't even plan it that way, I had originally intended to cap the ends of the tube.

This does no good on a stocker, but its great on a lifted rig with big ugly bumpers.
 
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