Automotive Jacks

Any do-it-yourself car owner, likely has familiarity with some variations of automotive jacks. Primarily, car owners use the jacks on smaller cars. By doing this, changing tires and other types of car maintenance such as changing the oil becomes easier. Currently, people can find the jacks in a variety of styles and weight capacities. 

Usually, the jacks come with safety features in order to protect the user from harm. However, these safety mechanisms become useless when the jack is used improperly, making them exceed their weight capacity. In general, the main mechanism, in which applies the force depends on the jacks specifications. In general, most come with either a hydraulic cylinder or screw thread.

Screw vs. Hydraulic Automotive Jacks

Generally, people use screw thread automotive jacks for lifting cars, houses, as well as other larger equipment. These consist of a screw threded rod based design. In general, most people have become familiar with this type since they usually come standard with every car sold. For this reason, some people refer to them as bumper jacks. Most of the screw jacks come with a low weight capacity. Usually, most range within the weight capacity of 1.5 and 5 tons.

A hydraulic jack on the other hand, usually works according to pressure generated equally within two cylinders. Even so, the force becomes higher, since one of the cylinders is larger. Therefore, one cylinder produces more force, while the pressure remains the same. As for lifting, the hydraulic automotive jacks use a pump plunger in order to move the oil throughout the two cylinders.

Pulling back the plunger causes the suction valve ball to open, while additionally sucking oil into the pump chamber. On the other hand, pushing the handle forward causes the suction valve to close, while additionally causing pressure to build within the cylinder. Most people do not store a hydraullic jack in their vehicle for roadside emergencies, prefering to keep them at their workshop.

Hydraulic Bottle Jacks & Hydraulic Floor Jacks

Originally, bottle jacks became the most popular choice during the early 1900s when the auto industry had just started to take off. Furthermore, bottle jacks are referred to as hand jacks, since they allow people to lift and move them for things as a roadside inspection. Initially, these automotive jacks got their name from how they looked similar to a milk bottle. Despite their limitations in the past, they now come in a number of sizes in addition to weight capacities.

Therefore, the jacks usually can lift things as small as a hundred pounds, up to several tons. Normally, the 1.5 to 5 ton jacks people use for lifting cars. The uses for bottle jacks also extends outside of the automotive industry. In addition, they are used for things such as lifting patients, material lifts, pipe benders and a number of other things too.

Floor jacks on the other hand usually give people the option of to have wheels or no wheels. One of the main differences with the floor jack in comparison to the bottle jack is how they consist of a horizontal shaft. Overall, this contributes to them having a different range in regards to their vertical lift.

In the past, people only had the choice of the original jack, which weighed around 200 pounds and consisted of 4 x 4 feet in size. This model has a weight capacity between 4 and 10 tons. However, people now have the option of a more compact model, which consists of three feet in length and the ability to lift 11/2 tons.

There are other applications for jacks with their own specialist designs, some of them are these: