Ok guys i am wondering if anyone else has had this problem with these jacks I was jackcing up my 97 Ford F150 4X4 to see if i could get the broken exhaust studs out of the drivers side manifold and while jacking up the truck this happened!It all of the sudden let go as i was reaching for my jackstands.The front bumper almost got me as i was reaching for the jack stands to put them under the truck.Luckily the tires were still on it aand i didn' get hurt.I have always babied this jack and have never overloaded it and only used this a handful of time in the two years i have owned it.If you look closely you will see that the cast iron piece let go and not the hydraulics.The puddle in the drive way is actually water from the melting snow in my driveway not hydraulic fluid.I took it back to the store where my mother had purchased it two years ago for me for christmas and they did give me a new jack but only a 2 ton not the 2 1/4 that i had.**** they told me i was lucky i was hetting anything as it was out of warrenty.It has never been beat on and still looked almost new and the store manager was shocked to see where it broke and said he has seen the hydraulics go before the jack itself.But a word to the wise yet again another instance of our wonderful chinese steel at work.I guess also i am wondering if i am the only one to have this happen with these jacks?
I never trust jack...too many things can happen as you well know... don't forget to use jack stands, even when the tires are on...glad your ok and not hurt
What broke there exactly ? looks like a small bolt in the base of the ram? Glad you walked away from that one !!
Ya if you look at the pic you can see the bolt hole that actually broke the bolt came flying out along with a chunk of the cast front section where it broke.It literally pushed the right side of the jack away and almost bent it in an L shape!That was a bad day all the way around! Just before that happened we found out my dad has prostate cancer and then after me and the wife were out running errands and got a call that a local kid we knew that was in afganistan was killed by a roadside bomb.My wife went to school with him and he used to stop and bs with me when i work =ed at a small body shop/mechanics shop here in town.Real good kid 25 years old on his second tour and enagaed to be married.R.I.P. Schuylar Patch
Well Thank You sir! It was a pretty crazy day my mother inlaw had my son watching me out the window and when it gave way i heard her houler at my father inlaw that my jack just gave way and to get out there to see if everything was ok.
every bad ends at midnight...glad the ac delco(the new Harbor Freight) didn't bite you...i'm concerned about your pops...hopefully they caught it early...
Sadly, sometimes you think you're doing the right thing by paying a little extra money to buy a name brand product. But more and more, ACDelco and other brand names are no longer involved in designing and building all the products that carry their name. Their accounting and marketing people have realized that it's just cheaper to license their name to an outside vendor who occasionally turns out a substandard product. Then a few years down the road they stand there scratching their heads and wonder why customers aren't beating down their door to buy their products. Go figure! I've got a similar looking Craftsman jack out in my garage that'll get a good going-over before the next time I use it.
Ya i figures when i opened it up for christmas that it would be great for doing the little things i do but appearantly not.I haven't ever seen one break like that before.But the pice that broke off looked very pourous and of shoddy qualityand the store manager freaked when he seen it called a couple places and was told they only carry a 1 year warrenty and then told me he would call the vendor.After talking to the vendor and telling him the jack still looked pretty new,the vendor told him he would replace it.Now i will not be using it on anything that has any weight to it kinda scared to climb back under a vehicle after that one.
O ya he remembers you.I told him i still hear from you on here and he said he needs to get out of his slump and get out of the house.Now that he found out that he has cancer he's been going through bouts of depression and at times don't want to talk to anybody or see anyone but he should hopefully find something out by the end of the week or the beginning of next.If my stepmom don't make it in off the road then i am gonna take him back out to Iowa City to the Veterans Hospital so they can discuss the progression and possible treatment options with him.He's really having a rough go of things especially cause the fact that he has lost all his sisters and brothers to cancer and his father also.So we are keeping our fingers crossed.Especially me since these past three or four years has been awesome we have really got closer than we ever were before lots of B.S. from my mom growing up made me think my dad was a bad guy and i regret those years of my life cause when you grow up you soon find things were different than you were told!I really want my son to be able to grow up and remember his grandpa cause my little boy lights up whenever he is around.
Sorry to hear about you pop and your wifes friend. As far as the jack goes, I never trust a cheapo jack. Don't even like expensive ones made off shore. I got my Lincoln just before the stopped making them here in the USA. Now, I think Hein-Werner is the only American made jack available. Even the OTC has foreign parts in it. A GOOD jack is priceless. The few hundred bucks they cost upfront is really much cheaper in the long run. Plus, you can usually get rebuild kits and customer service from better quality brands, this goes for most shop equipment. Glad that your arm wasn't reaching underneath the truck to set the jackstand, that would have been baaaaaddddd...
Ya i figured it would be a decent jack when i opened it up and got it on christmas.It seemed to be built fairly sturdy but appearantly not.I will for sure buy my own jack next time.
Is it just the water or is the ground uneven where you were using the jack. From the picture it looks kinda sketchy, and uneven ground will make em do stuff like that. Better luck next time.
The ground is pretty level there thats in my driveway.All the snow was melting and pooling in the driveway.
I had prostrate surgery 2 years ago and everythings fine now. Although at the time I never thought it could be. There are days when I forget about it completly. Tell your Dad to hang in. Also if it fits his case to consider Robotic surgery, much easier recovery. If he needs any info have him pm me. Oh yeah, watch out for that mechanical stuff, stay safe.
Well we found out today they rated him on a scale of 1 to 10 of how bad the cancer is and they rated him at a 7.They told him that they have three different options and that he has his choice.The first was radiation and Chemotherapy,second was a shot that they inject something into his prostate and third was to remove his prostate.He chose the third and they said that while they are there, there is a possibility that it has spread to his lymphnodes and that if it has they will also remove those.But they are unsure if it has spread as of yet.So he goes in on April 1st to have his surgury and he is looking forward to getting rid of this.
I will plan on doing the allthread cause that seems like the best way to make sure it doesn't happen again.When i took the jack back to the store and they seen what had happened and he called the rep. the rep didn't ask any Questions and said that he would send me a replacement right away.But while talking to the store manager he gave me this whole spchiel that i was lucky to be getting anything when i *****ed that they were only gonna send me a 2 ton and not the 2 1/4 ton that i owned at the time.But i am planning on sending the company a letter and a picture of what happened and tell them i am displeased with their product and how they could have had a major lawsuit on their hands had I not got clear of the truck as it came down.I also plan to send them the vehicle weight for my truck to prove that it was not being abused either.
First of all, what a cute kid! Second, Buffalo Tools has the AC Delco naming rights, total Chinese junk! Do yourself a favor & check Craig's List, Swap Meets, etc. for a good quality USA made jack & get it refurbished, if you have to. You won't be sorry. I scored a Hein-Werner long reach (59 Impala!) jack at the local swap meet for $125.00 & had the local jack guy put new seals in it. For less than $200.00 I had a $1500.00 jack that will outlive me & it's smooth as silk. Unfortunately, the parts store I work at sells Chinese jacks. The "high end" ones are $250.00 & I know for a fact that the Hein-Werner was selling for $1500.00 new when I bought mine. Also, stay away from the Chinese aluminum "racing" jacks! I have seen some scary defects come back on those. we stopped selling those, cause the defect rate was so high. Hope this info helps.
How many times have you had that happen, or heard of that happening? I've seen it before on a friend's jack, but it's the exception not the rule Here's the real bottom line. Either that jack had a metallurgical defect, or somewhere in it's life something caused a flaw that caused failure at a later date. In the case of the failure I know personally, it was undoubtedly caused by rough handling and letting it drop onto concrete. The new jack isn't even the same model as the one that broke. Even if it was, I don't like the allthread improvement plan. From what I know of stress, and what I know of jacks, I'm not gonna go move stress around and tie things together without a damn good reason. Too much unpredictability in where you push the failure. When these things happen, it's easy to get caught up in the need to do something. But perhaps the place to look isn't the jack itself, and you may be overlooking easy safety improvements to the lifting process, in a quest to reinvent the wheel (jack). Good luck with it all.
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