Which floor jack to purchase?

This guy, "Project Farm" with 2.54M subscribers on Youtube does a pretty good review of a number of tools. Here's his jack review video.

That said, I bought an Arcan HJ2500 jack from Costco a dozen years ago after the POS Craftsman labeled jack started leaking after not much use. It's been years and it still works perfectly.
I haven't seen a jack like the Arcan there since, I wish they had good stuff more often. I got my Maxjax from costco.com.

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eriknetherlands said:
Indeed, I have the same light weight jack that @Markos pictured, though in a different paint scheme. I love it.
Bought it two years ago after my larger steel version was slowly lowering my car unintentionally: I ditched that before it did me. had it for about 6 years before it died.

O how we are all depending on Chinese imports....
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That slowly lowering the car problem is likely an o-ring. I repaired my Sears floor jack about ten years ago; no trouble since.
 
For those of you with 2002s, I use the HF jack that Markos has to help install that obnoxious lower spring on the rear brake shoes. Insert the spring into its retaining holes on the shoes, clamp it down with a couple of clamps, put a screwdriver under the center of the spring in the indentation and on top of the jack pad, jack it up slightly, push the spring back with another screwdriver, and, viola, all done.
Not near as much fun as operating a fork lift, but almost as gratifying.
 

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halboyles said:
For those of you with 2002s, I use the HF jack that Markos has to help install that obnoxious lower spring on the rear brake shoes. Insert the spring into its retaining holes on the shoes, clamp it down with a couple of clamps, put a screwdriver under the center of the spring in the indentation and on top of the jack pad, jack it up slightly, push the spring back with another screwdriver, and, viola, all done.
Not near as much fun as operating a fork lift, but almost as gratifying.
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Hal,
I'll be doing the rear shoes on my '02 likely this weekend. Thank you for the road map.
Stephen
 
I also bought a small bottle jack from HF. It is great for those little things like dropping and replacing the rear diff, raising a hub with the wheel off to replace a sway bar link or get that shock to align with the tower. Even used it to drop and replace kitchen cabinets. Larger jacks get in the way in these situations. Always have a piece of pressure treated wood to use with it.
 
bavbob said:
I also bought a small bottle jack from HF. It is great for those little things like dropping and replacing the rear diff, raising a hub with the wheel off to replace a sway bar link or get that shock to align with the tower. Even used it to drop and replace kitchen cabinets. Larger jacks get in the way in these situations. Always have a piece of pressure treated wood to use with it.
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Bottle jacks are nice because the movement is 100% vertical. Mine is packed away so I didn’t use it on my home project.

The floor jack has an arc that moves the pad 6+ inches horizontally during travel. Fine on a car because the jack rolls accordingly. Trickier when jacking up a 4x4 post supporting a beam.
 
I got the HF 1.5 ton that everyone else seems to have a little while back. Not much use but so far so good. My previous floor jack still worked okay, but the lift pad at its lowest point was still too tall to get it under most of the jacking points without lifting the car some other way first.
 
We can all conclude that the Sears floor jack was just one of the many reasons they went under. Why did I even buy a second one years ago. I can still see the oil stain in my garage.
 
I have a Bacho 11500, long reach and very low (7cm / 2,75"). For its big size and weight it's not lifting that much (1,5ton) but I rarely lift tractors or semi trucks :D
It's wonderful on a flat concrete floor, and you can get it under almost any car, and reach diffs / subframes and other hard to reach lift points.
 

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eriknetherlands said:
Indeed, I have the same light weight jack that @Markos pictured, though in a different paint scheme. I love it.
Bought it two years ago after my larger steel version was slowly lowering my car unintentionally: I ditched that before it did me. had it for about 6 years before it died.

O how we are all depending on Chinese imports....
Click to expand...

you can use a hazet...i know they do not make all their catalog, but...

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Markos said:
Trickier when jacking up a 4x4 post supporting a beam
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You are pointing out that even if you are vertical when you start, as you jack it gets less vertical. That can cause the jack to want to roll away. Not an issue with 500lbs on the jack, but maybe yes with a 2 ton load. At that point you should use something more appropriate for lifting.
 
JFENG said:
You are pointing out that even if you are vertical when you start, as you jack it gets less vertical. That can cause the jack to want to roll away. Not an issue with 500lbs on the jack, but maybe yes with a 2 ton load. At that point you should use something more appropriate for lifting.
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Pretty much!
 
Markos said:
Pretty much!
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Happened to me lifting a 24’ LVL. Fortunately I had build an adjustable scaffold thingy which never left more than about 8” for the LVL to drop. And I lifted in using only 1/3rd of the lifting range (8”).
 
JFENG said:
Happened to me lifting a 24’ LVL. Fortunately I had build an adjustable scaffold thingy which never left more than about 8” for the LVL to drop. And I lifted in using only 1/3rd of the lifting range (8”).
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Exactly. My beam couldn’t drop more than 8” at any point. Had to lower the supports a few times. It was also captured on all sides.

What I did was let the support post start to go off kilter as the jack followed its arc. Then I would tap the jack rolling it to get the lifting post vertical again.

My other beams I used a genie lift but it was too tight with all the supports in the way. Plus they are heavy as hell and I didn’t want to carry it up the stairs. :D
 
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