Trev’s Tips

Jack it up

I’d like to say this months Trev’s Tip was all my own idea but I’d also like to make it to the big 4wd play park in the sky someday so lying is not something I commonly practise.  Although this product is a home manufactured item it was not my home but my Fathers where it was invented.

What is it?  Actually I don’t know what to call it because I’ve never seen one before so I’m just going to call it a bloodygoodidea.  What does bloodygoodidea do?  It is a device that attaches on the wheel rim of your car that allows you to jack the wheel up without the need for putting the jack under the car (see pictures below).

Why would you want one of these?  This I am very qualified to tell you.  After becoming stuck in soft sand (or even seaweed) to the point that you can’t even get your arm under the car to dig it out, trying to get a jack under there is going to take much digging and quite possibly (actually from past experiences, most likely) a few hours of work.  Because the bloodygoodidea attaches onto the outside of your wheel you can just about get away with jacking up the car in your Sunday best without getting dirty.

Best of all though the bloodygoodidea lets you to jack the bogged wheel of the car a long way up off the ground because you don’t have to allow for the droop of your suspension.  What do I mean by this?  Well normal when you put your jack under the chasis of the car and start jacking the wheel takes along time to come off the ground because as the body of the car increases in height from the jack the wheel stays firmly on the ground because of the thing we call wheel articulation.  However the bloodygoodidea starts jacking the wheel immediately which means less work and you are able to get the wheel much higher.  It certainly doesn’t lift as high as a high lift jack or an exhaust jack but it gives more than enough clearance under the tyre to fill in a hole or slide a few rocks under (or perhaps your son’s boogie board) for the wheel to get a grip on.

Although the factory standard Pajero jack might do a reasonable job of jacking a wheel off the ground in your garage it doesn’t have anywhere near enough lift to get the wheels off the ground in a bush situation where some of your jacking height is lost due to the soft ground compressing under the weight of the jack.  A jacking plate under the jack will help this to some extent but in a truly stuck to your axles bog even a small amount of ground compaction will prevent the jack from lifting the body high enough to get a wheel off the ground.  Because of the extra lift the bloodygoodidea gives you, you can have a fair amount of ground compaction and there will still be enough lift left in the jack to get that wheel up.

Of course the other great things about it are, its light weight, compact for storage permanently in the car, cheap to make, quick construct and very easy to use.

The design of the bloodygoodidea can be seen in the photos below, but just to give you a few tips.  It is constructed of mainly 25mm by 25mm box steel that has 3mm thick walls.Under the arm that sticks out from the main upright, weld a small lip on the end to prevent the jack from slipping out if things get a bit out of square during the jacking process (not shown in photos).The holes in the main upright arm are so that the jacking arm (smaller sticking out section) can be put in a number of positions depending on how bogged the wheel is.  This allows you to get the jack under the jacking arm without having to do any digging. The design of it may differ slightly depending on the diameter of your rim, the number of slots and positioning of these slots in your rim.  For this reason I have not provided dimensions of the bloodygoodidea because it will need to be customised slightly to fit individual rims. The top part is made from flat bar and has been shaped slightly so that it fits neatly

onto the outside lip of your rim.  It also has some rubber glued to it to prevent scratching the rim.  The round bar at the bottom can be inserted through the slots in your rim on an angle and then once through locks into place on the inside of the rim.  I actually have two of these (to fit different rim sizes) so if you would like to borrow one to copy the design just contact me. 

The usual safety precautions for jacking should be adhered to when using the device with a couple of extra details to be aware of. 

If using it on the front wheels make sure the car is engaged in first gear low range 4wd.  This will prevent the wheel from turning causing the jack to slip out.  Just applying the handbrake is not enough because this usually only operates on the back wheels allowing the front to still spin, and low range just helps to keep the compression a bit higher in the engine to prevent the wheel turning as easily as in high range.  Of course the best idea is to do a couple of trial runs in your garage first where there is no pressure.

Although the bloodygoodidea will never be as good as having a 9000 pound winch on the front of the car and maybe (in some instances) not as good as an exhaust jack it is an excellent little device that can be left permanently in the car, will halve the recovery time and effort of getting your car out of a bog and is extremely cost effective by compassion to many commercial recovery products.  If you only ever travel with someone else who has the ability to snatch you out of difficult situations then it would be waste of time making the bloodygoodidea, but if you ever travel alone especially to remote areas then consider giving the construction of this a go.  If nothing else the peace of mind of knowing your can be quite self sufficient in your own recoveries will save a lot of stress.

Till next time

Happy 4wd’ing

Trevor

There are many ways to argue with a woman, none of which work.