Ontopic A Thread About Butt Mustard, For Those Who Drive Automobiles

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Domon said:
I'm generally an advocate of Harbor Freight, but I still tend not to put my life in the hands of Harbor Freight things.

If you absolutely would never be in a situation where you were underneath it and depended on it holding. Then maybe

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I use jackstands all the time...and still leave the jack pressed up against the underside (with the real weight on the stand though). Like primary and emergency.

I'm not a safety nazi but all it takes is once.
 
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Domon said:
I'm generally an advocate of Harbor Freight, but I still tend not to put my life in the hands of Harbor Freight things.

If you absolutely would never be in a situation where you were underneath it and depended on it holding. Then maybe

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You should never depend on a hydraulic jack for safety, good quality or not.

Jackstands, always.
 
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HipHugHer said:
Any reason to not get a harbor freight floorjack these days?

Home use. Not depending on it to earn a living. No liability.

It's just a lever, a hand operated hydraulic pump/cylinder, couple o-rings, and a valve. Old technology and not exactly high art.

Have they cheaped out on metal quality? Bushings (or lack of)? Do they twist under stress and not go straight up and down anymore?

Is there something else I don't know about that's comparable? Or if this something else costs a little more does it have some quality or benefit I would care about?

Will they last 20 years like my old one?


Don't need no high speed low profile quick rise aluminum jobby just yet, although after using a buddy's who is 15 years older than me, one of those will be my next new one after this new one. If I get one like that now it would be used at a price similar to a new heavy steel Chinese one.


Thank you.
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For the price, there's an Arcan (northern tool/princess auto brand) for sale at Costco that I've had for 5 years now with no complaints. XL35, I think? It's a 3.5 ton, and I paid about $130 for it.

edit: my friend swears by Hazard Fraught jacks, but I've always found the ones he owns have a ton of slop in the stroke, where there'll be a huge dead zone before it starts pumping and lifting. Not a big deal for most, but I'm usually trying to lift with the jack between two cars in fairly close quarters.
 
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Jehannum said:
For the price, there's an Arcan (northern tool/princess auto brand) for sale at Costco that I've had for 5 years now with no complaints. XL35, I think? It's a 3.5 ton, and I paid about $130 for it.

edit: my friend swears by Hazard Fraught jacks, but I've always found the ones he owns have a ton of slop in the stroke, where there'll be a huge dead zone before it starts pumping and lifting. Not a big deal for most, but I'm usually trying to lift with the jack between two cars in fairly close quarters.
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We have a northern tool brick-n-mortar here, or at least used to. It's been a while. If not, we got Costco. I'll check into it, thanks for that.

And ya, I can't stand that slop. Little bit as the joints tighten or whatever is OK to me but the handle shouldn't have to move very far before the jack goes up. Technically/mechanically it might be fine but it doesn't exactly breed a whole lot of confidence.
 
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Domon said:
I'm generally an advocate of Harbor Freight, but I still tend not to put my life in the hands of Harbor Freight things.

If you absolutely would never be in a situation where you were underneath it and depended on it holding. Then maybe

Sent from my BLN-L24 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

I'm also of the same mind about harbor freight. I put in the category of, "if you're gonna use this thing every day to feed your kids you need to spend more and get better, but if you're just working on your own stuff around the house it's perfectly fine and spending more likely won't bring much if any return".

It's just we're talking about lifting 2000-4000 pounds here and you still got to get at least some body parts under there to place the stands.

Actually that reminds me of one other thing...the release valve. Be nice to have one with some travel to enable a slow and controlled decent, not some 1/8 or even 1/4 turn goes from standing solid to slamming down. Especially useful for stabbing transmissions or lining up motor mounts.



That's 900-1800kg in rest-of-the-world-measurements for you @MacG .
 
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HipHugHer said:
Any reason to not get a harbor freight floorjack these days?

Home use. Not depending on it to earn a living. No liability.

It's just a lever, a hand operated hydraulic pump/cylinder, couple o-rings, and a valve. Old technology and not exactly high art.

Have they cheaped out on metal quality? Bushings (or lack of)? Do they twist under stress and not go straight up and down anymore?

Is there something else I don't know about that's comparable? Or if this something else costs a little more does it have some quality or benefit I would care about?

Will they last 20 years like my old one?


Don't need no high speed low profile quick rise aluminum jobby just yet, although after using a buddy's who is 15 years older than me, one of those will be my next new one after this new one. If I get one like that now it would be used at a price similar to a new heavy steel Chinese one.


Thank you.
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Will not last 20 years.
O rings might start leaking, but that's somewhat common amongst all jacks now. I dont think I have one that doesn't have leakdown after two years or so. Desk jockey at Sears fucked up and gave me a much much much nicer 3 ton unit than the one I had and was leaking. New one started leaking pretty soon after.

Other than that, not a bad jack
 
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Jehannum said:
edit: my friend swears by Hazard Fraught jacks, but I've always found the ones he owns have a ton of slop in the stroke, where there'll be a huge dead zone before it starts pumping and lifting. Not a big deal for most, but I'm usually trying to lift with the jack between two cars in fairly close quarters.
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Symptom of low fluid, usually.
 
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Mr. Asa said:
Will not last 20 years.
O rings might start leaking, but that's somewhat common amongst all jacks now. I dont think I have one that doesn't have leakdown after two years or so. Desk jockey at Sears fucked up and gave me a much much much nicer 3 ton unit than the one I had and was leaking. New one started leaking pretty soon after.

Other than that, not a bad jack
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Thanks.

If the o-rings are the only "issue" they're easy enough and cheap enough to replace. I guess assuming they're still built like old ones where you can disassemble and repair/service them. I've no idea if some things (like the cylinder & piston) are built as a sealed unit or not. Doesn't make sense to me that they would be but I just don't know.

If I can replace seals/gaskets it pretty much comes down to structural integrity and valves. Overall quality of design I suppose but jacks are old, well developed tech.
 
Mr. Asa said:
Symptom of low fluid, usually.
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Usually, yes. I've run across some that were sloppy anyway full up. I assume it was either old, dirty, not-maintained sticking the valves or maybe some less than good design to begin with.
 
Mr. Asa said:
Will not last 20 years.
O rings might start leaking, but that's somewhat common amongst all jacks now. I dont think I have one that doesn't have leakdown after two years or so. Desk jockey at Sears fucked up and gave me a much much much nicer 3 ton unit than the one I had and was leaking. New one started leaking pretty soon after.

Other than that, not a bad jack
Click to expand...

This has me thinking I should just overhaul the one I have. Had it for at least 15-17 years or more and it wasn't new back then. May've been a harbor freight jack from the early 90's, who knows. Any labels and a good amount of paint is long since gone but what's left is orange like those engine cherry pickers they used to have there. Release valve has good travel too, can ease shit down with precision.

Never had to replace o-rings and I think I've had to add oil to it once in all that time. Could probably use a top off now.

Was mostly looking at something else because the left front wheel is lost/gone, as is the second part of the handle that makes it like 4ft. long. And what's left of the handle is so rusty on the inside that area where the handle fastens into the jack gets full of rust powder it can't reach the slot anymore. Basically means you can't turn the handle to raise and lower, turn the gear wheel with a channel lock pliers instead.

Those actually ain't that hard to fix. The business end of it is still strong.
 
Immigrant said:
There is an episode of Dirty Money on Netflix that is informative and maddening, about how VW cheated on the TDI emissions tests. Watching it made me wonder why VW wasn’t banned from selling cars for awhile.
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They probably just promised secured financing on an investment loan for a Trump property in Germany to get away with it.
 
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Immigrant said:
There is an episode of Dirty Money on Netflix that is informative and maddening, about how VW cheated on the TDI emissions tests. Watching it made me wonder why VW wasn’t banned from selling cars for awhile.
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Hmm, one car company after another after another with big troubles. Soon I guess there will be one big ass company with self drivers only.
 
HipHugHer said:
I'm also of the same mind about harbor freight. I put in the category of, "if you're gonna use this thing every day to feed your kids you need to spend more and get better, but if you're just working on your own stuff around the house it's perfectly fine and spending more likely won't bring much if any return".

It's just we're talking about lifting 2000-4000 pounds here and you still got to get at least some body parts under there to place the stands.

Actually that reminds me of one other thing...the release valve. Be nice to have one with some travel to enable a slow and controlled decent, not some 1/8 or even 1/4 turn goes from standing solid to slamming down. Especially useful for stabbing transmissions or lining up motor mounts.



That's 900-1800kg in rest-of-the-world-measurements for you @MacG .
Click to expand...


Thanks buddy.
 
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