Air bag exhaust jacks

[NDNDNDND]

Having spent a frustrating and nerve-wracking Sunday afternoon trying to jack up one of my cars, I'm back to thinking about different ways of getting cars off the ground.

A bit of googling brought up these things:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/4t-ton-Exhaust-Jack-for-...

They seem like a great solution - no more stressing about damaging jacking points with your trolley jack, or groping deep under the car to try and balance on the differential at the back, or cross member behind the engine. With this bag, theoretically, I could chuck this under the middle of one sill without worrying about damage, raise and lower one side onto axle stands, and then repeat on the other side to the get the car fully in the air easily, quickly and safely with a minimum risk of damage to the car.

But does it work like that? I can't find many examples of them being used like this - I can only find examples of them being used to recover cars off road. Has anyone any experience of using one of these exhaust jacks to get a car onto axle stands?

[DuraAce]

Never used one but I'd rather use a decent trolley Jack, with rubber pad to protect t G E sills. Takes me 2 minutes to pop my car onto axle stands.

I'd think a decent jack will be more controllable than the airbag for lower into stands etc.
How/why are you struggling with a jack?

[NDNDNDND]

It takes two minutes to get your car onto four jacks?

As I said above, it's mostly fear of damage to the sills - not just from abrasion but from pressure on old metal. Added to that, both central jacking points at front and rear are located deep under the car, meaning the car has to be quite high before the jacking points can even be accessed.

The process is just a protracted PITA. First drive onto wooden blocks. Then jack each rear sill until I could get a tyre under each rear wheel. Then jack each front corner until I could put each wheel onto another spare alloy. Then use a wooden block to get the (already quite tall jack) to get the diff high enough to clear the gearbox I'm removing. Then back to the front where the nose is too low to access the cross member from the front. Jacking each front corner gets very sketchy as you start to lift the car diagonally, twisting the jack.... It's just a massive pain. Plus the constant risk of the jack slipping or tipping creating expensive damage or personal danger. I just hate doing it. Anything to make it easier, quicker and safer is welcome.

If this airbag works as it seems, it would be a huge boon. I'm just after personal experiences from anybody who's used them as I intend.

[GreenV8S]

NDNDNDND said:

both central jacking points at front and rear are located deep under the car, meaning the car has to be quite high before the jacking points can even be accessed.

I'm not familiar with your car or the jack you're using, but the process you're describing of jacking up in small increments and putting stuff under the wheels seems very tedious. I suspect you'd find it far easier with a suitable jack that can lift one end of the car at a time and drop it onto a pair of axle stands. You shouldn't have an problems picking it up by a foot at a time - more, if you get a high lift jack. I don't know how much clearance you need for the diff but hopefully a couple of feet would do it - you should be able to get that with either two or four lifting operations, depending on the jack.

Picking the car up on air bags sounds like a recipe for disaster that might be your only option if you're in a field but certainly not something I'd plan to do in a workshop.

[DuraAce]

NDNDNDND said:

It takes two minutes to get your car onto four jacks?

Yes. Maybe three if I need to open the garage door first. Lift the rear, stand under either side. Lift the front, one stand in each side. 2 jacking movements. 4 axle stands fitted.

Your method sounds hideously complicated! What car are you jacking? What Jack?

I have a 2t machine mart one, rubber padded top, easily lifts up to the height of my axle stands in one go.

[NDNDNDND]

I'm using a 2.25T Halfords high-lift 4x4 Jack. It's a good bit bigger than my standard 1.5t Jack. Anything larger is more specialist and costs a good couple of hundred pounds.

I could probably lift my Micra as you describe, as the car is relatively high up and the central front and rear jacking points are quite close to the edge of the car. However both my MX5 and Camaro are jacked by the differential and a cross member behind the engine - both cars are low and the jacking points a long way underneath. Even getting the car up on blocks doesn't necessarily mean having enough room to operate even the longer jack. And once one end is on axle stands, the other end is then lower, making access even trickier. This means the only way to lift it is to raise it incrementally by the corner points until it's high enough to access the central points. The higher you need to get the car lifting by the corners, the sketchier it gets, especially when you've got the car supported on three points. With the Chevy, it just started getting unstable before I could get access to the front cross member. I could have just perservered and maybe the jack wouldn't have collapsed, but it was starting to tip and I'd had enough of taking risks with it.

So yeah, it's a pain in the arse. I'd love to be able to lift the car onto Jack stands using the wheels, but I can't find anything that does that... Well that doesn't cost £600 anyway.

[SystemParanoia]

DuraAce said:

NDNDNDND said:

It takes two minutes to get your car onto four jacks?

Yes. Maybe three if I need to open the garage door first. Lift the rear, stand under either side. Lift the front, one stand in each side. 2 jacking movements. 4 axle stands fitted.

Your method sounds hideously complicated! What car are you jacking? What Jack?

I have a 2t machine mart one, rubber padded top, easily lifts up to the height of my axle stands in one go.

similar. jack under gearbox or subframe from front, lift, slide both axle stands in at. crack on with the oily bits

[jebus]

It sounds like you are going a very roundabout way to jack your car up. the jacking points on the sills are 9/10 the best place to jack up, many cars have a larger flat area by them for use by ramps so jack on that with a jack pad/block of wood.

If no flat area you can get your hands on jack pad with a groove in it, or cut on into a pad that will fit around the seam on the sill, and again a nice stable place to jack from.

Some cars have some odd jack points BMW springs to mind and need an adapter to use the proper points, but for the most part these cost under a tenner and make the risk of damage far lower and everything just that more stable.

Have only even seen those types of jacks being advertised for emergency use offroad, and can't see them lasting a long time, used for working on the car.


Out of interest what car is it you are working on? and what trolley jack have you need using, the little 2 ton halfords ones are handy and cheap but nothing compared to the much bigger and more stable workshop ones (they just cost a freaking fortune)

[GreenV8S]

NDNDNDND said:

both my MX5 and Camaro are jacked by the differential and a cross member behind the engine - both cars are low and the jacking points a long way underneath.

You're jacking a front engined car by a point behind the engine? That seems strange - is that the approved jacking point?

[NDNDNDND]

GreenV8S said:

NDNDNDND said:

both my MX5 and Camaro are jacked by the differential and a cross member behind the engine - both cars are low and the jacking points a long way underneath.

You're jacking a front engined car by a point behind the engine? That seems strange - is that the approved jacking point?

Yep, 100% the right jacking point on both cars, as confirmed in both cases by multiple manuals and sources.

As for those saying 'jack by the sills', you can't safely lift a car onto four jacks by the corners. Once the car is on two jacks lifting one of the other corners will make the car very unstable. I was hoping setting the rear wheels on piles of tyres would allow the suspension to mitigate this, but the car still walked and the jack still started to tip. You need to jack centrally to pick each end up in turn. However, I suspect the air jack would have enough give that you could jack side-to-side rather than front to rear.

[S0 What]

I've had one, i sold it and bought a small trolly jack, dont't get me wrong it worked and didn't damage any of the vehicals i used it on but the only real improvement over a small trolly jack was in deep mud, great for recovery work but not worth the effort for day to day running IMHO.
Having said that i had a large one ment for offroad recovery so it slighly maybe a wee bit more of a PITA to use ??

[dudleybloke]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

I remember seeing these years and years ago - and wondered if the had died away.


Would be handy for swapping the Winter / Summer wheels on the 911....... but it has four pipes !
Banana in the tail pipe time ?

[NDNDNDND]

S0 What said:

I've had one, i sold it and bought a small trolly jack, dont't get me wrong it worked and didn't damage any of the vehicals i used it on but the only real improvement over a small trolly jack was in deep mud, great for recovery work but not worth the effort for day to day running IMHO.
Having said that i had a large one ment for offroad recovery so it slighly maybe a wee bit more of a PITA to use ??

Did you ever use the air jack to transfer onto axle stands? My main concern is being able to deflate it controllably enough to settle the car onto two axle stands at a time.

[GreenV8S]

NDNDNDND said:

Yep, 100% the right jacking point on both cars, as confirmed in both cases by multiple manuals and sources.

Roughly how far is the jacking point from the nearest edge of the car, and how low does the jack need to be at that point to clear the bodywork?

[NDNDNDND]

Probably between 80cm and 1.2m. It's far enough under that the body of the jack, plus most if not all of the handle goes under the car. The problem isn't just getting the jacking pad to the jacking point, it's also still being able to move the handle enough to actually operate the jack! There are 'long body' jacks available, but they're a lot more expensive than a conventional jack.

[GreenV8S]

That is a long way to reach. No chance of approaching it from the side?

[NDNDNDND]

Not really, it's a similar distance and clearances are about the same if not worse.

Still looking at those air jacks and wondering!

[imagineifyeswill]

I had a rep demonstrating these airbag jacks around forty years ago but have never seen one since thought they hadnt caught on, but certainly worked fairly well and quick, really just a smaller version off the airbags used for heavy vehicle recovery.

[Mr2Mike]

NDNDNDND said:

Yep, 100% the right jacking point on both cars, as confirmed in both cases by multiple manuals and sources.

As for those saying 'jack by the sills', you can't safely lift a car onto four jacks by the corners. Once the car is on two jacks lifting one of the other corners will make the car very unstable. I was hoping setting the rear wheels on piles of tyres would allow the suspension to mitigate this, but the car still walked and the jack still started to tip. You need to jack centrally to pick each end up in turn. However, I suspect the air jack would have enough give that you could jack side-to-side rather than front to rear.

Easily resolved by using two jacks and jacking them up incrementally at the front and then rear. This is how I get cars onto axle stands all round.

[NDNDNDND]

Mr2Mike said:

NDNDNDND said:

Yep, 100% the right jacking point on both cars, as confirmed in both cases by multiple manuals and sources.

As for those saying 'jack by the sills', you can't safely lift a car onto four jacks by the corners. Once the car is on two jacks lifting one of the other corners will make the car very unstable. I was hoping setting the rear wheels on piles of tyres would allow the suspension to mitigate this, but the car still walked and the jack still started to tip. You need to jack centrally to pick each end up in turn. However, I suspect the air jack would have enough give that you could jack side-to-side rather than front to rear.

Easily resolved by using two jacks and jacking them up incrementally at the front and then rear. This is how I get cars onto axle stands all round.

As in two jacks at the front sill corners until high enough for axle stands, and the jacking the rear sill corners until high enough for axles stands? I might try that at the weekend, it's the only scheme I've really got at the moment!