Hi Lift Jack Mount Ideas

I haven't wheeled anywhere without a winch for 53 years now. Yes, a HiLift will sort of work for that but it's a really poor substitute. Occasionally they also work better than a bottle jack. But in my off road career spanning 6 decades, only once did I wish I had one with me. And that singular incident wasn't because I needed it. A bottle jack, snatch block, and WINCH fixed that one too-the moral of that story being don't place a wheel too close to the edge of a rotten old bridge.

I have two of them and their most common use is pulling fence posts in places I can't get to with any equipment. I have also used them to bend various pieces of ag equipment back to where they started from. That is the only use where I actually sheared the shear bolt on one of them.

 

I actually use mine quite a bit. Tried about a half dozen mounting locations until I settled on this one.

 

I’ve tried a bottle jack and would need quite a few blocks to get the wheel off the ground. Hopefully I will never need to change a tire when out in the forest, but if I did need to, I’d hate to be stuck because I didn’t have the ability to get the wheel off the ground, or a method to get the lug nuts off. And cell service is not always available. I prefer to be as self sufficient as possible.

 

I mount mine horizontally on my swing out tire carrier with base removed and stowed. I use lug nuts to mount in the bar holes and use my tire iron to remove.

After carrying it around for years I finally used it this month to lift and un-invert my shackle. But I will start lubricating and covering it because it wanted to stick. I’m glad the Jeep is light and I didn’t have to get under it —- it was just as sketchy as people on here have said.

 

That is why you should invest in a winch if you do not already have one, along with on-board air, a welder, and a good trail tool/supply set. You should also have a personal location beacon to use as a last resort. My wife and I wheeled solo for the majority of our off roading and most of that was in areas with no cell service (or should I say most was BEFORE cell service). Nary once did we not get out. That said, the backpacks were always along and a week's un-planned stay would not have been uncomfortable.

 

Yes, I was referring to my hydraulic bottle jack. It screws up but still no enough range.

 

I have the same mounts, still have the paperwork on the jack, as the Jeep is still in a non-running state

 

Hope you never are stuck in two feet of swamp muck.

I'd like to be buried with my hi-lift, since I never got in a hole it couldn't get me out of.

I use jacks of all kinds daily in my work. Also been jeeping a half century plus. I own about four hi-lifts and many bottle jacks. Bottom line IRL? I never carry a bottle jack in a jeep and consider them useless except in a paved parking lot, and even there I prefer a rolling floor jack.

OTH, I carry a hi-lift even in my DD pick-up. Saved my butt a hundred times in multiple ways. Way more than a hundred, actually.

 

Here is what I use

 

I’m on a Jeep JK forum where a member said someone reported his hood mounted high-lift jack to the police, because they thought it was a machine gun. Got me thinking that it would be funny to paint a high-lift all black and mount on my old Jeep using a belt fed machine gun style mount. Could even mount an ammo can next to it holding other recovery gear. To the untrained eye, they do look pretty similar:

 

$58.50 for the "jack" and $150 for the shipping? Makes one wonder what the collapsed size is. Doesn't look that big. Ships from china? The air bag jacks do have some merit.

 

I am a believer of having both a winch and a wagon jack. Too many times I have been in places where there is just no place to anchor my winch line to such as in deep mud, snow, etc. and no tree close by or my anchor will not hold. The only way out was to use my wagon jack to lift my jeep and pile rock, logs, etc. under it to get unstuck.
For those who have used a wagon jack a lot know about the problem with the jack is if they start to lean, they will slid off what ever they are lifting and the jeep comes down. To solve this when I built that know bumper I drilled a couple of holes in the ends of it and have 2 long bolts to drop in the holes. When the jack starts to slide off and the jack hits the bolts and it does not slid off.

By the way I do not know if a lot of folks do not know the reason that I call it a wagon jack is because that is what they were originally designed for, changing wagon wheels. So around my part of the woods that is what everybody here stills calls them.

Mike



Here is a example of where my winch could not get me out and I had to use my wagon jack.

 

I mounted mine to the front bumper with a couple of mounts I bought from Amazon and bolted on.

I like that it keeps any rust from dripping down the paint if mounted to the hood, tail gate, or bed. I think the mounts on the spare tire swing are good too for the same reason.

 

I used that mount on my JK, worked well and the jack was easy to remove.