Four wheel drivers with lifted vehicles are often faced with quite a significant dilemma when out in the bush with a flat… their factory bottle jack is no longer effective! They have lifted their vehicles 50-100mm and the bottle jack ram does not extend high enough to get the tyre off the ground.

To get around this the current options are to:

• Get a lump of wood or cribbing blocks to place under the bottle jack (dangerous because instability could result in collapse)
• Purchase & carry a new bottle jack/trolley jack with a ram length extendable to suit their lift (expensive & big/heavy to carry)
• Use a High Lift jack or similar (unstable at height, sometimes difficult to use, not everyone has one)

Roadsafe have a program in the form of ‘Bottle Jack Extensions & Jack accessories’. All aimed at making the process of jacking up vehicles a much safer and more secure one. Roadsafe Bottle Jack Extensions are sized to slip over the ram of the standard bottle jack and basically act as a ram extension, adding length to the ram so the jack can sit firmly on the ground while the load is lifted. The parts slot snugly together, which makes the jacking option much safer and less likely to tip and become unstable.

The standard extensions have been designed with 35.5mm ID so suit for ram diameters of between 28-35mm (6 ton bottle jack typically have a 1.25” (31.75mm) ram diameter). With adaptors available to suit for 35.5mm-39.5mm, 40mm-44.5mm & 45-49.5mm. Extensions have been designed allowing for 75mm (3”), 150mm (6”) & 225-305mm adjustable (up to 12”). The extensions have been designed to slot together snugly, so you can interchange the pieces to get the height & configuration required. Using all three extensions together will give 530mm (20”) of extension.

Jack pads have also been included in the range. The jack pads simply slot onto the ram extensions (or adaptors) to provide a flat 100x100mm head, or an angled head suited for axle tubes and other rounded surfaces (ie. rock sliders etc.) up to 80mm in diameter. The pads increase the jacking stability and serve to distribute the load over a greater surface area to minimize damage to the specific area being lifted.

Another issue experienced when jacking, especially in the terrain four wheel drivers take their vehicles (sand, mud, dirt) is the jack sinking into the ground under load. To alleviate this the smaller footprint of the jack needs increasing. Included in the program is an upgraded base plate measuring a whopping 205x460mm.

The large 205x460mm ‘Big Boy’ plate, has been designed to provide the ultimate in jack stability. The ‘Big Boy’ gives you 940 square centimetres (145 square inches) of jacking safety! The widened & lengthened base is 4 times more stable than the jack on its own, and the size of the base makes supporting loads on soft surfaces very easy - with the footprint up to (depending upon the original jack size) 10 times larger. For example a typical 6 ton bottle jack lifting 2700kgs would have a ground loading of approx. 28kg per square centimetre – but with the ‘Big Boy’ that is reduced to only 2.8kg per square centimetre. The base is shaped with ‘sled’ style ends & convenient handles so it can be easily positioned & carried.