TAKE A SECOND LOOK—ITʼS NOT AS DUMB AS IT MAY SEEM
Combining a standard screw-turned scissor jack with a 12-volt motor rated to lift up to 2250 pounds is a great idea. Most street rodders don’t carry a spare tire, let alone a jack or a lug wrench, generally because of the lack of a place to store it in the car. Even if you can’t carry a spare, it’s a good idea to have a jack, especially with your car as low as it is. As handy as this unit is, you’d be wise to tie one to the framerail if there’s no other place to hide it. Think of the hero you’d be if you could help out a fellow rodder in a pinch.
We know youʼve already checked out the photos or you wouldnʼt be reading this. You obviously wish to know a little more about this jack, so weʼll cut to the bottom line: If you get one of these for your very own, youʼd better not tell any of your buddies about it, or you will have to make room in the safe to store it. If they spot it in your trunk, just laugh about how you got it as a gift and hope none of them reads this article, or you will have to tape a cell phone to it to find out where it is this weekend–just when you need it!
We first saw this gizmo a couple of years back and took it to be a fugitive from one of those gadget catalogs. We figured that the guy who had them in his booth had picked up a couple of cases on the cheap and was trying to make a buck. Recently, when we saw the booth again, he was giving somebody a demo, so we took a few minutes to see what it was all about. Well, it was actually kinda cool—up it went and down it went with only the push of a button, while connected to a 12-volt battery.
One enterprising street rodder we know had the clever idea of adding a Ford brake pedal pad to his jack to reduce slipping and avoid scratching his detailed undercarriage
Of course, if you want to go first class and have the coolest jack in town, you could add a rumble seat step instead of a pedal pad. Either way it’s a bolt-on deal, and Bob Drake has several styles to choose from.
The salesman said it was great for changing a flat on a lowered car, because you didnʼt have to work a lever or crank in limited space. That made perfectly good sense to us, having been in that predicament ourselves a time or two. It fits easily in your trunk and will plug into the lighter, or clip directly to the battery. We thought it was very handy.
We walked on nonetheless. Suddenly the wheels began turning, and they did so for the next hour or more. We had to go back and ask some questions: “Will it work at any angle? Will it do this? Will it do that?”
In stock form, the jack compresses to just
4 1/4 inches high, low enough to slip under your framerail if not your dropped axle. The typical street rodder will figure out a way to get it down at least another 1/2 inch.
In little more than 1 1/2 minutes, the jack will reach 14 1/2 inches, for a total lift of more than 10 inches. There are micro-safety switches to cut the power when it reaches full up or full down.
Well, yeah, it really does do this, and it really does do that, and youʼre going to love this thing! Weʼve shown you just a few reasons why, and weʼre sure youʼll have no trouble coming up with more on your own. Once you realize that it will pull just as well as it will lift or push, youʼll be up all night thinking of even more uses for it. Could you chain it to a rafter and pull your engine? Weʼre not certain, but possibly. Could you lift the sagging corner of your garage? Pull off a brake drum? Push the clutch in and out from under the car? If you can jig it up, this thing can do it.
How can such a small motor running on only 12 volts lift so much weight? It runs through a reduction gear case, fully engineered with bronze bushings and factory packed with enough lube to last many, many years.
Though we havenʼt had the need to try it yet, we suppose it would come in pretty handy for changing a tire as well.
Okay, enough jacking around—let’s get to the good news. This is way more than a side-of-the-road emergency jack. We recently attempted to replace all the body-mount rubber under our ’47 Ford coupe delivery without removing the body. It was a piece of cake with our Zap-A-Jack, shown here lifting the body high enough to slip the new biscuits in place.
At the other end of the car, we used it to raise and support the front sheetmetal group and align the mounting holes during a radiator swap. The minute amount of movement that one touch of the button provides makes any cumbersome, heavy alignment problem a snap
Okay, enough jacking around—let’s get to the good news. This is way more than a side-of-the-road emergency jack. We recently attempted to replace all the body-mount rubber under our ’47 Ford coupe delivery without removing the body. It was a piece of cake with our Zap-A-Jack, shown here lifting the body high enough to slip the new biscuits in place.
At the other end of the car, we used it to raise and support the front sheetmetal group and align the mounting holes during a radiator swap. The minute amount of movement that one touch of the button provides makes any cumbersome, heavy alignment problem a snap
The setup was simple. We made up a jig to work off the dashboard and set the jack against a body dolly in the panel reveal. Note that the jack will work at any angle, unlike a hydraulic bottle jack. The control is a simple momentary rocker switch in the cord, about 4 feet from the jack.
Here’s the cool part: Kinney was outside watching the action as he worked the button controlling both in and out movement. He also was able to work the panel with a body hammer while the jack held the dolly in place.
Oh, yeah: It also will jack up a vehicle to change a tire. Note the 12-foot-long wire going to the truck’s battery. The jack is rated at 2,250 pounds, but it has been known to lift one end of a diesel pusher motorhome (however, we cannot recommend that). Check out the shadows under those tires–it’ll pick up your street rod!
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