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most useful jack?


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Another vote for a bottle jack, trouble with high-lifts are that you have to lift the suspension before the wheel lifts making the whole thing a bit unstable.

Discovery bottle jacks are good, they have a "y" piece on top to jack the axle tube with.

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Yes, just for emergencies, changing a wheel. Do you mean an original Discovery bottle jack? I seem to remember seeing a Defender bottle jack somewhere?

thought of the Hi lift because we can have a lot of snow and I it would save rolling abut under the car do you just jack under the bumpers with the hi lift?

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So with a high lift and snow you would need a spreader plate otherwise the high lift will just sink in to the now.

I have a bottle jack, a 5ft high lift and a trolley jack.
The one I find the most useful is the trolley jack.
It's more stable than a bottle jack, it can be pushed under the vehicle without getting under it.
It's safer than the high lift and it spreads the load on soft surfaces better than the bottle or high lift.

Like the bottle jack it lifts the axle and not the body (the high lift can be a pain with high articulation suspension)

The only downside is that it is heavier and bulkier than both the hi lift and bottle jack.

What do I carry for emergencies when offroading - a bottle jack and the high lifts spreader base, getting a bit dirty or wet is a small price to pay for size and weight trade off of the bottle jack

Land rover bottle jacks are good but not cheap (Link)

Making a removable axle cradle for a much cheaper jack is a good options as well

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a hi lift is a very very useful thing, but they really arent safe. for anything that means you going anywhere near the underneath of a vehicle, including changing a wheel, then you would need to use some kind of support under there too, so you might as well carry both a bottle jack and a hi lift.

i think mines a 4ft hi lift, and it only just fits sideways across behind the front seats, so does take up a fair bit of room

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Why will you need to lift the vehicle?

For maintenance tasks, usually the vehicle will be at home, so a trolley jack of 2t capacity is best. And always use axle stands before going under a raised vehicle.

For emergency tyre replacement, the Discovery 2 bottle jack as mentioned is perfect, use with chocks and/or your centre difflock engaged.

For self recovery and general lifting in the field, a 48-inch farm jack, aka hi-lift jack is the best option as you can not always get under the vehicle to place the jack in a lift position on the axles. This type of jack can be used directly on the rear crossmember but is at it's safest when used with an adaptor that mounts in the holes on the chassis end at the front and rear of the Defender. Jackable sills also have suitable holes to take such an adaptor.

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I've borrowed a hi-lift attachment to use today that's rather good ....31F3CBF8-6ADC-4AB6-87AD-6B6BE1FBAC7F.jpg

Very stable. Made by Jackall.

Like the idea of this but cannot see any sideways strength as all the beams are in the same plane and no diagonals?

My most useful is a trolly jack then hydrolic bottle jack finally hi-lift for pushing the vehicle sideways out of ruts.

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Another vote for a bottle jack, trouble with high-lifts are that you have to lift the suspension before the wheel lifts making the whole thing a bit unstable.

Discovery bottle jacks are good, they have a "y" piece on top to jack the axle tube with.

Mercedes Sprinter vans also have a similar bottle jack, they come up quite cheap on ebay.

I carry a bottle jack and a hi-lift in the 90 but rarely use the hi-lift and never for changing wheels or working underneath it. A hefty trolley jack is best but rather heavy to carry all the time.

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Anderzander - that looks quite cool. Shame it's almost as big as my forklift!

I think for most general usage, a Disco 1 Bottle jack is hard to beat. I bought mine for about £20 at Newbury Sortout and it has proven invaluable. It's very well made, and unlike most small bottle jacks, has never let me down! Also as it's designed to lift Land Rover axles, it has the right amount of travel and justifiability and a base that does not need a spreader on many surfaces.

Si

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If you do go the bottle-jack route, a bit of advice - always store it upright!

If you store it on its side there's a good chance that when you come to use it it will have developed an airlock and you'll spend some futile pumping-time before the air-bubbles shift and you actually get some lifting action happening. Not fun at 1AM in the middle of a rainstorm at the side of the A1(M) which is where I first discovered this issue.

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there's a guy on ebay selling brand new Merc Sprinter bottle jacks for a lot less than £100. They are 2.6T, two stage ram and have an axle tube saddle on the top.

Lots of D3 owners are buying them to replace the (alledged) deathtrap supplied by LR.

It goes pretty high (took the wheels off a mates 404 with it) but it might not be short enough to go under a LR axle with a flat tyre. (I can measure if anyones interested).

normal_018.JPG

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If you do go the bottle-jack route, a bit of advice - always store it upright!

If you store it on its side there's a good chance that when you come to use it it will have developed an airlock and you'll spend some futile pumping-time before the air-bubbles shift and you actually get some lifting action happening. Not fun at 1AM in the middle of a rainstorm at the side of the A1(M) which is where I first discovered this issue.

The Discovery jack is stored in the vehicle on it's side.

battery_cover.jpg

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The discovery bottle jack fluid reservoir (the outer casing) is made from plastic I think as I had one develop a crack and leak out all it's fluid.

You can buy new telescopic bottle jacks without the cradle quite cheap e.g http://www.sgs-engineering.com/hydraulic-jacks/bottle-jacks/tbj4-4-ton-telescopic-bottle-jack

I actually went for a cheap 20Ton as it had the lifting range I needed and it had a metal body. (also useful for a 17ton vehicle)

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The discovery bottle jack fluid reservoir (the outer casing) is made from plastic I think as I had one develop a crack and leak out all it's fluid.

Mine is all steel. Perhaps the later ones are plastic?

Si

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P38 Range Rover, RRC, Disco jacks are all excellent, not experienced a plastic one though?

A mate managed to drop his truck on a P38 jack, and cracked the casing, but that was him being silly, but certainly didn't look like plastic.

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  • 3 weeks later...

My early RR has a screw jack, around the same size as a D2 bottle jack but with the long crank that comes with it, I reckon a lot faster, at least it feels that way.

That or the D2 bottle jack. They're the same size-ish, both have a concave head to cup an axle, and they have to be the most practical to keep onboard day to day.

I also have this Duff Norton 10 ton jack I found in a breakers, the guy thought I was mad paying him €10 for it. Took half a day to unsieze it, but it just about slides in right under the ends of my RR chassis rails, has a massive foot and can lift almost twice it's own height from two different points - one at almost ground level. Just looked on ebay and they're going for £150 and up. Score!

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