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Front Jacking Point

36K views 38 replies 15 participants last post by  alarmist 
#1 ·
Today I jacked the front wheel of my van using the bottle jack. It appears to me that the only way this can be done using the jack points in the manual is by putting the jack on about 2 and a half inches of plank and angling the jack so that the handle goes trough the wheel well. (I have the standard U-haul running boards.) Please enlighten me if I'm wrong. I will try to post a pic with this.
 

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#2 ·
I've jacked up my T 250 with the stock Jack, with no spacer beneath it. It's hard to tell from your pic, but, I suspect you did not use the prescribed jack point. The jack points have come up in conversation, even recently. The manual could definitely be clearer. AND, there's a difference between 'lift points," for putting the vehicle on an overhead rack... and jack points. Consensus is that each jack point is a round, horizontal section of rod in a bracket, about 2 inches from the vehicle transport hook points, at the rear of the front subframe.
 
#5 ·
Sheesh. Look under the van. There is a (approximately) 1" x 4" tube, aligned front to back, in a bracket at the outboard end of the trans cross member. It's about a foot behind the front tire and a foot inboard. The jack goes under the tube. The tube is the lifting point. Not the sheetmetal, not the subframe, not anything flat you could deform and damage. Why a round thing? Likely because it made sense to some engineer. I don't plan on overthinking it. It works just fine.
 
#6 ·
I had a flat tire today, and purely by luck I used the jack point you describe. However, I could not get the stock jack to go up enough to get the tire off the ground, so I ended up calling AAA. PITA.

It appears that the stock 4Ton bottle jack has two stages, i,e. there is an inner and outer piston. But it stopped raising when the large diameter piston was all the way out, and the inner piston did not extend even with a bit of extra pressure on the jack handle. Is there some trick?

-Dave
 
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#13 ·
There is a longish thread on that somewhere. Not a problem. The van can only see four sensors. If you put one in the spare and rotate 5 tires, you need to "learn" rather than "calibrate" the 4 active sensors into the computer at each rotation. It's a different process, but no more complicated.
 
#17 ·
in 40 years of using hydraulic bottle jacks on an almost weekly basis i have never seen a 2-stage hydraulic bottle jack, this 2-stage Transit jack is something that is all new!

the only place i have saw 2-stage hydraulic jacks (2-stage hydraulic cylinders.) is on dumptrucks to dump the box, and they use a high volume engine driven hydraulic pump with a pressure of 10,000 PSI to jack/lift the dump box.

i threw the transit jack in the metal recycling bin as soon as i saw it and replaced it with a Jet Tools 20-ton hydraulic jack i had laying around.
 
#26 ·
But you still have to tell them what to look for.

I took mine in to have the tires rotated and made a point of waiting in the lot to make sure I talked to the guy actually doing the work. I don't have a whole lot of faith.
 
#30 ·
Best just to observe what they are doing. I was told by the manager of the tire shop his techs knew what they were doing. Observed two of them struggling with how to remove the spare tire for a 5 tire rotation. Had to explain how to do it. Next explained how to lift the van and directed them at the front to the bright green spray painted lift locations. No problem as long as I was directing. Was very nervous on how high they lifted the van with visions of a crushed solar panel. Multiple statements about the roof hitting the ceiling.

Bottom line is to supervise any work on a tall Transit to prevent problems.
 
#32 ·
At almost 80 years old one does delegate some work to others. We will be interested in how much physical work you will be able to do at that age if you are not in a rest home.

I can still rotate the tires but prefer to trade money to watch someone else do it.
 
#35 · (Edited)
That's exactly why you have kids. They're required to stay local so they can do the dangerous jobs like clearing roof gutters and hanging xmas lighting. If they fall, they're a lot more bouncy and even if something happens, kids heal fast. OTOH you'll definitely break things and take forever to heal. Plus, you might not be able to go in to work. If the kids miss a few days of school, who cares?
 
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