Trolley jack maitenance
Discussion
Just wondering whether to do a little maintenance on my trolley jack.
How often does anyone else do this? What do you do and what products do you use?
The jack I have is this one: https://www.drapertools.com/product/31481/Low-Prof...
Great jack btw. Would recommend.
Thinking about cleaning and re-greasing the moving bits and perhaps changing the oil as per the manual, but unsure what grease or oil would be best.
The manual doesn't state how often to do this or the products to use.
How often does anyone else do this? What do you do and what products do you use?
The jack I have is this one: https://www.drapertools.com/product/31481/Low-Prof...
Great jack btw. Would recommend.
Thinking about cleaning and re-greasing the moving bits and perhaps changing the oil as per the manual, but unsure what grease or oil would be best.
The manual doesn't state how often to do this or the products to use.
227bhp said:
It depends on how much use it gets, ring Draper for oil spec, but generally and amazingly something labelled as 'Trolley jack oil' or 'hydraulic jack oil' will do.
Ah OK. Didn't know specific trolley jack oil existed tbh, but probably should have Googled that in hindsight lol. Just light home use I guess. Two cars, general servicing, oil changes, brakes, swapping wheels, some other tinkering with the MX5. Maybe out once or twice a month on average. More in the summer.
I'm sure with this light use it probably can go a long time without maintenance, but just curious really how often others do it (if at all!).
Drew106 said:
227bhp said:
It depends on how much use it gets, ring Draper for oil spec, but generally and amazingly something labelled as 'Trolley jack oil' or 'hydraulic jack oil' will do.
Ah OK. Didn't know specific trolley jack oil existed tbh, but probably should have Googled that in hindsight lol. Just light home use I guess. Two cars, general servicing, oil changes, brakes, swapping wheels, some other tinkering with the MX5. Maybe out once or twice a month on average. More in the summer.
I'm sure with this light use it probably can go a long time without maintenance, but just curious really how often others do it (if at all!).

I think changing the oil is a bit far at this stage, but it'll do no harm and greasing the joints won't go amiss. Usually people wait until the jack indicates to them it's low on oil and then top up.
I've had my 2.5 ton jack for about 25 years, the seal failed once and let a VW Beetle down on me which was novel, that was over 20 years ago, I rebuilt it, took a while to find a seal, used jack oil then, but subsequently it's been convenient to use others, I have used engine oil haha, I used Dextron transmission oil more because it was at hand, and currently top up with it, it has always seeped some oil, but it's great really. Should have bought two (Kamasa)
GreenV8S said:
On you? I hope you gave yourself a severe
for being so stupid as to get under a vehicle that was supported by hydraulics.
This.
You have to be severely lacking in any sort of intelligence to ever think it's a good idea to go under a car with just a trolley jack holding it up. No matter how quick you think you're going to be.
sgtBerbatov said:
GreenV8S said:
On you? I hope you gave yourself a severe
for being so stupid as to get under a vehicle that was supported by hydraulics.
This.
You have to be severely lacking in any sort of intelligence to ever think it's a good idea to go under a car with just a trolley jack holding it up. No matter how quick you think you're going to be.
I gave them both the mother of all b

Jacks can fail quicker than you can move, it’s a very easy (and avoidable) way to get maimed or killed.
Super Slo Mo said:
sgtBerbatov said:
GreenV8S said:
On you? I hope you gave yourself a severe
for being so stupid as to get under a vehicle that was supported by hydraulics.
This.
You have to be severely lacking in any sort of intelligence to ever think it's a good idea to go under a car with just a trolley jack holding it up. No matter how quick you think you're going to be.
I gave them both the mother of all b

Jacks can fail quicker than you can move, it’s a very easy (and avoidable) way to get maimed or killed.
The only time I nearly got caught out by a trolley jack was when I was changing a wheel on my car. By the time I had rolled the wheel away and came back with the new one, the jack had collapsed. I wasn't under it at any point, but it was enough to show that, like what you said, they can fail quicker than you can move.
I didn't even hear my jack fail, that's the scary part.
Gassing Station | Home Mechanics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff