Best place to mount a high lift jack?

Neskie Crawler

TJ Enthusiast
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Dec 26, 2015
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So Im looking to get a high lift jack for my 97 tj. I prefer U.S. made and looking for the best price and quality.also any input on the best mounting points and hardware would be appreciated. Never got stuck yet but all I carry is a 2ton puller and a jack mounted looks way cool. Is there a least desireable place to mount it?
 
I purchased a Hi-Lift about 6 months ago.. Made In USA, I also purchased the hood mount .(this is where I prefer the mount) but I've seen them mounted on back bumper, which looks cool and I've seen them on the side of Jeep. With the mount and Jack itself, the cost was about $140 which was the best deal I could find. I purchased both on EBay. I also purchased a rubber handle keeper to keep the handle from shaking...


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High lift jacks really aren't good for anything at all, especially if you have a winch and the stock bottle jack.

It's actually much more dangerous to lift the Jeep up on the trail to work on it using a high lift jack than it is with the stock bottle jack (which is more than adequate for your Jeep, even if it's lifted).

I'll let @Jerry Bransford chime in on this one as well, since he undoubtedly has much more trail experience than I do.

Just trying to help you to not waste your money on something that is really not good for anything other than looking 'cool'.
 
Thanks and the cool look is a plus but I am after versatilaty. I do not have the stock bottlle jack nor do I have a winch and the tool seems very v ersatile to me., but, yes, lets let others chime in.
 
Get yourself a replacement factory jack, it's what you want and need for changing tires. A Hi-Lift is not a good or safe tool for changing a tire. The factory jack is far faster and infinitely safer.

Also the factory jack is suitable for changing up to 37" tires. Yes, that is true and I've used it for my 35's for many years. No matter what the suspension lift height is.

I stopped carrying my Hi-Lift 12 years ago once I figured out it's hardly ever the right jack or tool, it's more dangerous, and it's just unnecessary weight. Despite the fact that my TJ enjoys trails that are often more difficult than what 90% of this forum's Jeeps will ever see.

Not to mention the more experienced the Jeeper, the less likely he'll bother to carry a Hi-Lift.
 
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Get yourself a replacement factory jack, it's what you want and need for changing tires. A Hi-Lift is not a good or safe tool for changing a tire. The factory jack is far faster and infinitely safer.

Also the factory jack is suitable for changing up to 37" tires. Yes, that is true and I've used it for my 35's for many years. No matter what the suspension lift height is.

I stopped carrying my Hi-Lift 12 years ago once I figured out it's hardly ever the right jack or tool, it's more dangerous, and it's just unnecessary weight. Despite the fact that my TJ enjoys trails that are often more difficult than what 90% of this forum's Jeeps will ever see.

Not to mention the more experienced the Jeeper, the less likely he'll bother to carry a Hi-Lift.
Quit carrying one several years ago.
 
I've found my Hi-Lift jack to be handy for anything from pulling fence posts out to lifting small buildings to winching in a pinch to breaking the beads on tires, but I don't carry one on the Jeep. I agree they don't work well for changing tires.
I'm old enough to remember when cars came with a smaller version of a Hi-Lift from the factory for changing tires though.
 
I'm old enough to remember when cars came with a smaller version of a Hi-Lift from the factory for changing tires though.
Same here, all my first bunch of cars had them with the sole exception of my '66 VW beetle. Detroit stopped including them for safety reasons, too many people were getting seriously hurt with them. I have vivid memories of how the cars would often sway some when up on those jacks, they were scary even back then when they were common. Those jacks have their uses but changing tires is not a good one.
 
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For changing a tire, the stock bottle jack is fine. But if you're burried to the axles in muck, or just get hung up in a rut, a Hi Lift can be great to lift the vehicle high enough to put something under the tires.

I've seen them used to lift the front of an XJ that was up against a tree (he didn't want to tear his fender flares off), and then they pushed the front to the side, and the jack just fell. They did it twice, and he had plenty of room to drive away.
 
How often are you driving down the road and somehow end up stuck in mud with a flat? Probably never. So what's the point of having a hi-lift mounted to your Jeep all the time. If you *must* have it because you feel you need it on the trail, then pack it up with the rest of your trail gear when you head out.

Also, if I truly felt the need to have it with me at all times, the last place that I would want a 30lb chunk of metal mounted to my Jeep in an accident is a few inches away from my windshield.
 
Ok, I'll throw my two cents in here. I have a hi-lift jack, and carry it on top of the front bumper.

I don't use it to jack the Jeep up to change a tire. I do use it for a myriad of other things, including winching. Winching with one gives you time to contemplate your many sins and think about how to mount a winch. There are various attachments available that make a hi-lift extremely useful at times. The weight of a hi-lift, three shots of chain, various shackles other rigging bits is more than a good winch and mounting plate, and only slightly less expensive. I have one, I use one and I wouldn't recommend one. Get a winch, and a bottle jack.

Oh, look a TJ over and find all the places that you can hook into and lift from without tearing something up. There's not many, and not really in useful locations.
 
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I do use it for a myriad of other things, including winching. Winching with one gives you time to contemplate your many sins and think about how to mount a winch. There are various attachments available that make a hi-lift extremely useful at times. The weight of a hi-lift, three shots of chain, various shackles other rigging bits is more than a good winch and mounting plate, and only slightly less expensive. I have one, I use one and I wouldn't recommend one. Get a winch, and a bottle jack.

Oh, look a TJ over and find all the places that you can hook into and lift from without tearing something up. There's not many, and not really in useful locations.
Including winching as a potential use for a Hi-Lift was some creative marketing genius by Hi-Lift that sounds a lot better than it is in reality. It'd be better than nothing but if you ever did actually winch your Jeep once with a Hi-Lift in a real vehicle recovery, you'd never want do it again.

And I'd venture those who claim they carry a Hi-Lift with dreams/claims of using it as a winch are seldom if ever actually properly equipped to use it as a winch. You absolutely cannot use it as a winch in a typical situation without carrying a lot of rated chain. Rope? Nope. Snatch or tow strap? Nope. Wire cable? Maybe. Why not? Because of the Hi-Lift's inherently short distance it can pull... what's that, maybe 40" on a 48" Hi-Lift? It takes more than 40" of pulling to get the slack out before it could start pulling the Jeep.

4Wheel Drive & Sport Utility magazine did a test many years ago to see just how viable a Hi-Lift was as a winch. Under ideal conditions, as in on flat ground with ideal recovery gear including lots of rated chain. I don't recall how far they ended up winching the vehicle with the Hi-Lift but it wasn't far. Their verdict? Never again. Possible under ideal circumstances in some situations but the bottom line was they did not recommend it. Their recommendation? Don't carry a Hi-Lift with dreams or expectations of using it as a winch on the trail.

The best way to never get into a situation where you'd need a Hi-Lift as a last-resort to get yourself unstuck is to never frigging wheel alone. Because when two Jeeps wheel together and they are both properly equipped with front & rear tow hooks and at least a recovery strap, a simple tug from the other Jeep is usually all that's needed. Something that'd probably require an hour of sweat with a Hi-Lift if it could even be made to extract your Jeep.
 
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Jerry - would you consider a shackle in a d-ring mounted to the bumper (or whatever we are calling that combination these days) a tow hook, or do you still have the factory tow hooks mounted?
 
Jerry - would you consider a shackle in a d-ring mounted to the bumper (or whatever we are calling that combination these days) a tow hook, or do you still have the factory tow hooks mounted?
That'd work fine in place of a tow hook. That's actually a very good combination to have. :)
 
I've actually winched with mine, hence the comment about having lots of time for contemplation. AND the comment about the chain and weight of all the required gear and attachments. It's a Rube Goldberg contraption to say the least.

I've got the setup. If anyone wants to give it a go to see how it works, I'd be happy to stick my little SE and let them try it out. I'll be sitting in a lawn chair drinking bourbon. Lots of entertainment value there. Plan on several hours of rigging and fiddling about.

Shit Jerry, I'm a po' boy from a poor family in logging country. I'm not arguing about the utility of a hi-lift as a winch. Those boys from the magazine tried it out and didn't like it. Fair enough, and they probably got their fill of working that thing pretty quick. It's hard, sweaty, dangerous work. There's a reason that every crummy in the woods has a Warn bolted to the front of it. My 12 year old grandson can do with a 12,000# Warn in ten minutes what it took me an hour and a half to do with an old farm jack and lots of sweat. Hell, you can't hardly rig a farm jack for pulling in ten minutes. It takes about five minutes of farting around just to get all the slack out of the rigging and start to actually pull. Then you move what you're trying to move about 24 - 36", reset the rig, take a little slack out, and do it all again. The furthest you can realistically pull is about 15'. Then you reset the WHOLE rig and start over again. Oh, and don't forget to grease the beam and make sure the mechanism is fairly clean and free from dirt and sticks and pine needles. It really doesn't take long for a snatched strap and a cheap winch to start looking really good and a cheap investment. Don't even get me started on doing all that in snow up to the headlights.
 
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Let's see...slid my truck off the low side of a corner in the ice. Sometimes a locker just sucks. Pulled that one about the length of the truck, what? About 20' Sucked. IIRC, probably 3 resets on that one. Hung the overhang on a berm, same truck. Two resets on that one and only pulled about three feet at a bad angle. Slid the rear of the truck into a rut deeper than a 33x12.50r16.5 tire. That really sucked. Pulled about 30' in half a day. Went home and saved up for a used winch after that one.

Hung the XJ crossing a log. Used the farm jack to pull the log out from under the rig after trimming it a bit. That only took about half an hour, minus chain saw time.

Dropped my tiny 215/75r15 tires in holes twice on the TJ. Used the farm jack with the wheel lifting attachment to lift the tire out of the hole, filled it in with a little shovel work, and off I went. Did the same thing for a couple of folks in the sand.
 
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This was back in April, I was by myself, but close enough to home that I loaded the Hi-Lift, and a couple of chains onto my ATV and winched myself out. It wasn't fun, but it was better than letting my right rear tire buried under water until I could find someone to help.
 
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Oh, forgot the CJ5 incident. Got up in the hills on deep snow. All was good until the sun made the crust soft and we fell through and buried the rig up to the frame. Tried pulling the Jeep backwards, because there wasn't anyplace to rig the winch in the front. Plus going forwards just seemed stupid at the time. Kept winching with the farm jack and just about the tme we'd get the thing back on top of the snow it would break through again. It finally froze up enough about midnight that we finally succeeded. In hind sight, we should have just waited to state with, or not gone as far back as we did. Probably winched about 40 - 50' in eight hours.