FAO Doug King

[Surfer]

Would like to see a photo of your jack in place between the wheels

how to post photos on the forum

Obviously if it's top secret

for the Gents and Ladies of the forum.

Are you familiar with hydraulic bottle jacks Sprocket? If so, why are you taking the ......?

The gap between the tyres of my Al-Ko twin axle is about 85-90 mm and the bottle jack is only about 190 tall and obviously fits easily between the tyres. Unlike the photo above our caravan has one of its shock absorbers visible. The axle fixing points fold under the chassis rails, the holes in the chassis rail, and the shock absorber mounting point combined with the axle mountings provide easy points for reiforcing plates and the lifting point.
If you could manage to pop to you caravan Sprocket and slip a burgundy wine bottle between the tyres and stand it up you'd provide your own answer. The operating tube for the jack is only 20mm tubing and easily sticks out between the fully inflated tyres for leveling on site.
If both my neighbours 4 and 5 year old daughter and son can operate the pump lever of a bottle jack and jack up their dads LWB HT Sprinter Van with ease Dusty Dog, what's the problem? My wife couldn't turn scissor jack handles on a couple of cars we've had, but like the kids she can easily pump a bottle jack handle and lift a car or caravan.

Prof John. I'm really sorry. I just never realised that operating a wheel wrench on four or five wheel nuts or bolts and positioning a jack and operating it was an engineering degree level operation or needed a mass of training or higher Mensa level intelligence.

May be I'm a genius and know one ever told me.

I find your last paragraph very insulting and I am surprised that a mod has not removed it! I pay Green Flag to attend to my wheel changing needs although I know how to change a tyre. Are you implying that you think that a person who cannot change a wheel is mentally challenged? I think that is an insult to all people who have various disabilties preventing them from physically changing a wheel on their vehicle.

 

[Dustydog]

I think that this topic has run it's corse now, there is nothing meaningful to be added to the thread so we'll wait to see if Doug replies to the o.p. in the magazine letters page.

Ok Parksy but it is a shame that a thread on a very serious safety matter gets hijacked because one person "knows better".

As an aside I stil can't see how a jack or Al-ko stiffener , or a purple line bracket can be fitted between the two wheels.

I hope Doug King responds soon if only for the sake of any newbies who may inadvertantly get it wrong.

 

[colin-yorkshire1]

I think that this topic has run it's corse now, there is nothing meaningful to be added to the thread so we'll wait to see if Doug replies to the o.p. in the magazine letters page.

Excuse me Parksy for interjecting but I think there is? "banter and side tracking aside" I think how one should safely jackup your van on all ground surfaces is important and I don't mean just in case of a puncture, there are many reasons why one could need to lift the van but how to do it is the question, clearly a trolly jack as stated by Doug King is not the answer as demonstrated by DD although one could see how in certain circumstances it may be an option, Alko apparently supply a scissor jack although I never got one? there is one in the car but considering how they work from the swat position lifting one side of a van that could weigh nearly 2 ton would beyond the capabilities of any one slightly built or suffering a disability, on the face of it some sort of bottle jack seems to be the best option, but still there are problems in this I see where Gybe is comming from placing inbetween the wheels of T/A should work but a single axel with a mover fiitted that just about covers the stub axel would mean crawling under the van to find a lifting point not something I would undertake at the side of the road, using a kojack with stiffener plate may well be good also but once again only used with the corisponding jack DD's, experience shows what happens if an inapropriate jack is used on the plates Kojack's are also prone to early failure of the seals even though they are not cheap neither are the inflatable bag jacks @£99 a throw too expensive for anyone on a budget,
none of this however addresses the weight issue that some of us have 5 or 6kg may not seem much in the grand scheme of things but for an item that may never be used, there are better things one could carry.
it is a pity that threads like this are sometimes diluted by side swipes and other issues as they are important, a article by PC after exhaustive tests might help, but Nigel is the one for that,

personally I dont carry a jack specially for the van but prefer to let the professionals sort it out if that makes me lazy or inept fine, at home it's different where I have all the tools, at present my van is in the garage for the winter, sat with the weight off the wheels on axel stands, the jack used was a 4ton trolly jack but I have a flat concrete base in there, in a field in the middle of Devon is something else.
so Parksy by all means let us wait for Doug's reponse but in the meantime a sensible discussion as to how best to jack up the van is surely not out of order.
colin, aka "Sir Chunky"

 

[Parksy]

I find your last paragraph very insulting and I am surprised that a mod has not removed it! I pay Green Flag to attend to my wheel changing needs although I know how to change a tyre. Are you implying that you think that a person who cannot change a wheel is mentally challenged? I think that is an insult to all people who have various disabilties preventing them from physically changing a wheel on their vehicle.

The times when random 'new' members were allowed to join (or rejoin) this forum and post comments that fellow members find insulting or abusive are long gone. Without going into detail, take it from me that I have taken action to protect the forum and maintain it's good reputation.

.....Excuse me Parksy for
interjecting but I think there is? "banter and side tracking aside" I
think how one should safely jackup your van on all ground surfaces is
important and I don't mean just in case of a puncture, there are many
reasons why one could need to lift the van but how to do it is the
question, clearly a trolly jack as stated by Doug King is not the
answer as demonstrated by DD although one could see how in certain
circumstances it may be an option, Alko apparently supply a scissor
jack although I never got one? .....
....so Parksy by all
means let us wait for Doug's reponse but in the meantime a sensible
discussion as to how best to jack up the van is surely not out of order.
colin, aka "Sir Chunky"

I agree Colin, safety is paramount. A civilised discussion is fine, although I have to say that most of the relevant points appear to have been covered earlier in the thread.

 

[chrisbee1]

The Roadside service providers do a lot of training and they will deliberately use their big colourful vehicle with flashy lights as a temporary barrier, making themselves as obvious as possible to approaching traffic.

Attempting to do the same work without the benefit of a temporary barrier is simply foolhardy, and that is one of the main reasons the officials recommend leaving such repairs to the roadside services.

I agree 100% with the Prof. A couple of weeks ago I was attending a foreign vehicle on the hard shoulder of the M20. My van had more strobes than your average wedding disco but someone still managed to completely obliterate the 2 warning triangles the driver had placed well onto the shoulder at 100/50 metres prior to his vehicle. Believe me, if I have to stop on a hard shoulder I'll be out of my car and up the bank quicker than Usain Bolt!

 

[Dustydog]

Sir Chunky said
it is a pity that threads like this are sometimes diluted by side swipes and other issues as they are important, a article by PC after exhaustive tests might help, but Nigel is the one for that,

Parksy
Nothing in the February issue of PCV. I had hoped that something may have been printed about such an important safety issue, from the jack to the roadside safety aspects.

 

[Parksy]

I'll contact Nigel Donnelly after the holiday to find out if there is going to be a response to the core issue which is a vitally important in terms of safety
Another solution might be to write to the letters page of Practical Caravan magazine about the salient points raised in this topic (apart from the side issues where a forum member [now ex

] tried to hijack the thread)