And some are just more suited for natural selection as evidenced by Darwin and his celebratory dance.
Theory vs reality
- Thread starter Boostpowered
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Influencer I
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Honestly what it comes down to is awareness. You can be doing the most sketchy dangerous thing in the world, but if you are aware of that fact you will probably make it. On the other hand you can be doing everything as safely as possible, but become tunnel visioned and have an accident, I have seen it both ways working in a shop, hell both have happened to me.
Example I have done 6" lift springs on the front of a 78 K10 with just a high lift, we knew what we were doing was sketchy but we pulled it off. On the other hand I recently was replacing the forward drive differential/ power devider in a Frieghtliner. I was in my shop, all safety tools were in place. While moving the differential it shifted, allowed my straps to loosen and came off the jack, it fell about 3' to the floor nearly hitting my leg and foot. Ironically the second example is where I came closest to injury, because I honestly trusted my safety equipment too much, I became complacent.
I have experienced parallels to this in car racing, motorcycling, and shooting.
Example I have done 6" lift springs on the front of a 78 K10 with just a high lift, we knew what we were doing was sketchy but we pulled it off. On the other hand I recently was replacing the forward drive differential/ power devider in a Frieghtliner. I was in my shop, all safety tools were in place. While moving the differential it shifted, allowed my straps to loosen and came off the jack, it fell about 3' to the floor nearly hitting my leg and foot. Ironically the second example is where I came closest to injury, because I honestly trusted my safety equipment too much, I became complacent.
I have experienced parallels to this in car racing, motorcycling, and shooting.
there was a saying when i was a commercial diver...there are BOLD divers and there are OLD divers, but there are not any BOLD and OLD divers!
Member III
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We all see these things. There's a guy down the road from where I work. I see his Wrangler everyday I work. Full on overland setup driven to work every day. He may use it or he may not, I can't say for sure but hauling around 1000 lbs of extra gear to go back and forth to work seems.......wasteful to me. I dunno, not my money not my problem.
Boostpowered, don't forget we live in Texas. The offroading opportunies here are few and far between, unlike the western half of the US where I'm pretty confident you could explore for the rest of your life and not see all the public access areas they have out there.
I'm one of those people that avoids mud if I can. If it's in the way yeah I'll go though it but I'm not purposely going though mud just because it's there. I hate the cleanup afterwards ha. One of the things I really miss about being out west is the desert in the low lands and the mountains.
Boostpowered, don't forget we live in Texas. The offroading opportunies here are few and far between, unlike the western half of the US where I'm pretty confident you could explore for the rest of your life and not see all the public access areas they have out there.
I'm one of those people that avoids mud if I can. If it's in the way yeah I'll go though it but I'm not purposely going though mud just because it's there. I hate the cleanup afterwards ha. One of the things I really miss about being out west is the desert in the low lands and the mountains.
To me that's not such a bad thing. I'm more of an introvert so there's very few people I enjoy spending large chunks of time with. And it takes a while to find folks that I enjoy spending time with. The silence of camping in a dispersed spot with no one around it quite enjoyable :)
Member III
Enthusiast III
I like that line
My favorite is: Life is terminal, live accordingly
This topic is exactly what I needed to hear. I am a retired Bricklayer.After a 29 yr marriage, 2 kids and all the ups and downs that go along with it, I have little $$ left to pursue 4x4ing. For 40 yrs I always promised myself "Next summer Ill get 1". Or a emergency would come up, and their goes the savings. Or Id save up a bunch of $$, then get laid off for 6 months.
Construction in the 90s in Wi. wasnt booming by any stretch of the imagination. I have had 1 car payment in my life, when we bought a van for the kids.I usually had the cheapest ,ugliest truck around, the wife and kids had the good stuff. I have had only 1 newer vehicle in my life, a 2009 Tacoma TRD. My wife bought it for me about 2 mths ago. The tires are offroad , 80,000 mi. and looks and runs like new.
Im looking forward to using it out west this year, and I have been reading alot of opinions on "Must-Haves" for the trail on various websites. After researching alot of the items on Amazon etc., I realized this can get real expensive real quick.
To a new person, it could be easy to get caught up in all the hype, go in debt, or just plain be depressing.
This topic clarified a lot of issues I have been wrestling with as far as preparedness. Im going to keep it simple, yet comfortable and stick with the basics.
P.S. When I heard the term hi lift jack, I thought it was some new fangled offroad thing.
When I saw it, I had to laugh.. All the cars had them, they came with em. Ive probably thrown 100 of them in the junkyard.
We stopped using them because we all knew somebody that had a bad experience with em. Couple of my friends lost teeth using them. They can kick out pretty fast too.Busted up shins and ruined rotors.
Funny how things come back around..
Great site, John
Construction in the 90s in Wi. wasnt booming by any stretch of the imagination. I have had 1 car payment in my life, when we bought a van for the kids.I usually had the cheapest ,ugliest truck around, the wife and kids had the good stuff. I have had only 1 newer vehicle in my life, a 2009 Tacoma TRD. My wife bought it for me about 2 mths ago. The tires are offroad , 80,000 mi. and looks and runs like new.
Im looking forward to using it out west this year, and I have been reading alot of opinions on "Must-Haves" for the trail on various websites. After researching alot of the items on Amazon etc., I realized this can get real expensive real quick.
To a new person, it could be easy to get caught up in all the hype, go in debt, or just plain be depressing.
This topic clarified a lot of issues I have been wrestling with as far as preparedness. Im going to keep it simple, yet comfortable and stick with the basics.
P.S. When I heard the term hi lift jack, I thought it was some new fangled offroad thing.
When I saw it, I had to laugh.. All the cars had them, they came with em. Ive probably thrown 100 of them in the junkyard.
We stopped using them because we all knew somebody that had a bad experience with em. Couple of my friends lost teeth using them. They can kick out pretty fast too.Busted up shins and ruined rotors.
Funny how things come back around..
Great site, John
Advocate III
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Welcome John.
To all newcomers to this hobby I always give this simple advice. Get good decent used camping gear. Get the best you can afford recovery gear, and go out and use and abuse it. During the first year, only upgrade the stuff that broke and wore out. Make a list of “man I wish I had this”, “gosh that is a cool gadget” , “this do dad would save the day” items. Then separate the list into “Must have” items and “want” items. Lastly buy the things from the must have category first and budget in the bling. This advice comes from building way to many rigs and kits over the years. I think I have it down to a science now though. My Bronco is getting a full Mike Rose overhaul to be my trail rig I always wish I had owned. My wife’s 4Runner is just getting the bare essentials to get into our favorite camping holes. You would be surprised where a stock rig will get you.
The Highlift never went away. My dad still owns the Handy-Man jack I learned to use when I was but a wee little boy pulling stumps to set the foundation for what is now his house. It looks like the day he bought it. But it has been used more than any other tool in his garage... the stories it could tell... and he is an ex automotive technician, construction worker, and local truck driver... so that says a lot. I am on my second High-Lift Jack. My first one got stolen with all of my recovery gear when I was 19.
I’m not telling you to go buy one, or not buy one. I’m just saying the Handyman now High-Lift “farm jack” hasn’t gone away or even lost popularity over the years... it’s a tool that is here to stay weather you think it is or isn’t a good piece of gear.
Advocate I
There are safer, easier and cheaper ways. To use a Hi Lift Jack you need proper jack points, those cost money as well. Might be better off with an air jack, folds to nothing, it is light and safe. get a small hand winch if you need that additional functionality of the Hi Lift jack..
Go out first, start small with a few essentials than see what you need. Modifying vehicles .. never done it, except adding an engine skid plate, and I did fine the last 5 years since I started this hobby. My first car for overlanding was an old subaru forester, not exactly the most capable off road vehicle out there. All I modify on them are things to make camping more pleasant, like adding a battery for a small fridge, things like that.
I remeber I had a set of all season all terrain Yokohama Geolandar g015. Everybody was telling me buy KO2, these are bad.. etc etc.. never had a flat on some very hard trails full of sharp rocks and driving them with low pressures. At 40k km they were not even at half life. . Guess what, on the next vehicle I bought them again and they did fine.
Member III
$40 for the Lift-Mate and you can lift pretty much any vehicle on the road (Amazon).
$70 for 5lb collapsable aluminum jack stands and you can change a tire--or do any other work more safely than any jack alone (Amazon).
$70 for a winching kit and maybe $35 for a decent winch extension line for additional reach, and you can now literally pull or lift yourself out of any situation (Amazon).
The cheapest Truck / SUV exhaust jack I have found is about $120 on Amazon. Simpler? Sure. Safer? possibly. Cheaper? Not quite.
Bottle Jacks are popular for their simplicity, but they have a relatively limited lifting range and thus are not as widely useable as a Hi-Lift (i.e. what will lift a 4x4 on 35s likely won't fit under the stuck Subaru you find on the trail, and vise-versa).
In my observation, cheap hand winches / come-alongs can be somewhat hit-or-miss when placed under significant loads. Applying 500lb of tension to haul a car onto a flat bed as one thing, but applying 4000lb+ of force to drag a truck out of the mud is arguably more than the cheaper stamped devices can reliably handle. So, you're easily looking at $200+ for a "trust it with your life" model, whereas a well-kept Hi-Lift can handle such a load all day.
As to safety, Hi-Lifts take lots of care to use--often more than just shoving it under some steel and cranking away. But, I also carry other dangerous tools like guns and knives and so far, so good.
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Hi-lift jacks may be the second most polarizing topic on the internet.
There isn't much middle ground, and the "oooh those are dangerous" people feed the fear as much as is humanly possible.
Hi-lift jacks are definitely a case of "you have to be smarter than the tool you're using".
Like anything else, practice and train with your tools, if the first time you ever use it is under the worst possible conditions, the likelihood of a positive experience diminish exponentially.
That said, I consider a hi-lift a last ditch weapon, I don't like them for many reasons but bulk and weight lead the field. If they were even half as dangerous to use as the internet will have you believe the product liability insurance policies and parasitic litigation would have long ago priced them out of the market.
There isn't much middle ground, and the "oooh those are dangerous" people feed the fear as much as is humanly possible.
Hi-lift jacks are definitely a case of "you have to be smarter than the tool you're using".
Like anything else, practice and train with your tools, if the first time you ever use it is under the worst possible conditions, the likelihood of a positive experience diminish exponentially.
That said, I consider a hi-lift a last ditch weapon, I don't like them for many reasons but bulk and weight lead the field. If they were even half as dangerous to use as the internet will have you believe the product liability insurance policies and parasitic litigation would have long ago priced them out of the market.
EVERYTHING becomes polarizing once it gets onto the internet...
Member III
Still not as polarizing as my what to do when you run outta tp thread.EVERYTHING becomes polarizing once it gets onto the internet...
ha! that's right! i need to find that thread and resurrect it one more time...
Member III
Whats that patches?
If ya got onboard water you can make a bday of it
Huh, sounds like a funny way of celebrating a birthday...
Kinda new here but I'm going to side with the other guy on here who pointed out that, what we now call the "Hi-Lift" WAS indeed the ONLY king of jack that came with most American made cars and trucks back in the day. Same kind of jack we had in our Chrysler station wagon and my dad's '78 Ford truck. Maybe there was a bottle jack in the Pinto, I dont know but I dont think so. The key was the same as gun, axe, and knife safety -stand to the side of the business end of this thing or you could be dead. Thats all. There it is.
I remember learning how to use one back in the day, when I was about 10 years old, I think. About the same time I learned in the hands-on sense of how to use an axe, a mall and wedge, how to build and think fire safety, firearms safety - all that type of stuff.
And although i learned it at about that age, i sure wasn't allowed to use any of it alone until I was in my early teens, back in the early '80's. And yes. You should ALWAYS shore up the vehicle beyond the jack, before getting under it to work.
Common sense isnt so common, especially for those who never had to work with thier hands. And I'm a piker compared to that linesman who spoke up earlier in the thread.
I remember learning how to use one back in the day, when I was about 10 years old, I think. About the same time I learned in the hands-on sense of how to use an axe, a mall and wedge, how to build and think fire safety, firearms safety - all that type of stuff.
And although i learned it at about that age, i sure wasn't allowed to use any of it alone until I was in my early teens, back in the early '80's. And yes. You should ALWAYS shore up the vehicle beyond the jack, before getting under it to work.
Common sense isnt so common, especially for those who never had to work with thier hands. And I'm a piker compared to that linesman who spoke up earlier in the thread.
Member II
You don't squirt water on your butthole on your birthday? You're missing out.
