Used floor jack

JimS · Feb 22, 2016

I see a couple of used floor jacks on Craigslist that do not look like a bad deal. My question, if I get a bad deal, how rebuildable are decent floor jacks (Allied, snap on, husky, etc not harbor freight or Wal Mart)?

glennster · Feb 22, 2016

if you can find the parts, and do the work yourself, not bad. if you have to take it to a shop, it will cost more than just buying a new one.

JF in MI · Feb 22, 2016

I have several of those cheap floor jacks. One of them was having difficulty going up (piston seal was leaking internally). I searched online and was able to find rebuild kits for around $20. Problem is you can buy a new jack for around $18. When I took the jack apart and found the seal to be hardened up. I heated the seal with a hot air heat gun to soften it and flared it out a bit. Reassembled it and its working fine now. If it fails again its scrap metal.

souNdguy · Feb 22, 2016

Agreed. if you can do the work yourself, and it's a common, locally available seal or oring.. you can come out.

Over the years I have rebuilt a few bottle and floor jacks.. chinese or not.

So far I have been lucky, all were O-ring style, and between the 2-3 multi kits I have, i found will fit rings.

one of the floor jacks looked new, in a hard case.. little 2.5 ton job.. silver color.. probably kmart or tsc. it didn't pump up.. looked 100% new.

I put gear oil in it, and it worked fine.

I think it was actually just EMPTY and had no issues other than that.

anyway, I still have that thing. must be 20 ys ago that I got it, still running on that 80w90 oil i put in there.

glennster · Feb 22, 2016

we sent a few of our shop floor jacks to get repaired, they we good guy ones, 300 or so new. was a little over 200 to rebuild them. just plain wasnt worth it. buddy of mine that owns a tire shop buys the harbor freight low pro 2 1/2 ton jacks when they go on sale for about 90 bucks, then throws them away when they quit. he gets about a year out of them.

Steve@Advance · Feb 22, 2016

Some are rebuildable. Also depends on what failed, if it's a seal a good hydraulic and seal supply will have them. Be sure to go back with the correct seal though. The ones I have worked on used polyurethane seals. They re usually a blue plastic looking material. Poly-packs or standard hydraulic seals will not hold up. BTDT

Don't expect a repair shop to be interested in repairing them. I took a Warner jack to a shop once, it's a good jack, still have it... The old xxxx working there cussed me a blue streak! "Get that Taiwan piece of xxxx out of my xxxx shop!!!" LOL I ended up replacing the seal, that was 30 years ago!

If I were buying a used jack, I would insist on a demonstration under load before buying. Also look for leaks, bent or welded or broken components.

Geo-TH,In · Feb 23, 2016

I could never find parts. Hate to admit I own2 there ton and two light low pro aluminum jacks from HF. Get them when on sale. Been good to me. HF jacks look same as all the rest.

Used floor jack

JimS

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glennster

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JF in MI

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souNdguy

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glennster

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Steve@Advance

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Geo-TH,In

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