Club 80-90 Forums

Good day, all!

My puny little 2-tonne trolley jack that I use for jacking up my Mini probably isn't going to cut the mustard for jacking up our T25 (I doubt it'd barely lift enough for a wheel-change), so I'm currently looking into a new jack.

The driveway is a bit old and knackered, and when I'm jacking the Mini it's already a bit of a struggle for the wheels to easily move over the surface as it's jacking, let alone using a bigger jack on a much heavier vehicle (granted, the wheels on the larger jack may be bigger thus reducing the issue a little).

So my options are/appear to be 1) new driveway (er, no. I just bought a T25 and the coffers are a tad low for that), 2) wood under trolley jack (not comfortable with that, and it's more faff) 3) use a reasonably heavy duty bottle jack

I've gone for option 3. Having looked around, could I get your views on whether a Clarke CTBJ5 would be a suitable alternative to a good trolley jack? It also has the benefit of being easily stowable on board, so at least I don't have to mess with the VW jack for road-side repairs.

https://www.tool-net.co.uk/p-425413/cla ... AjXT8P8HAQ

Thanks in advance!

I use a 2 tonne jack and wood but the wood goes between the jack and vehicle.

I jack under trailing arm and front control arm ( no risk of damaging jacking points and the lift required is much less)

Once the van is up as far as the jack and block of wood allows, lower onto piece of wood under wheel and repeat withtwo pieces of wood between jack and vehicle to get it higer if needed.

if working under I then lower onto ramps placed either way so it can't roll off.

It certainly seems to have the height range, and the load capacity at 5 ton is enough to lift the whole van fully loaded twice over, so I don't see any reason to say no.

However, I would also suggest that you get some 3 ton axle stands to put the van on once it's raised up.

clift_d wrote:It certainly seems to have the height range, and the load capacity at 5 ton is enough to lift the whole van fully loaded twice over, so I don't see any reason to say no.

However, I would also suggest that you get some 3 ton axle stands to put the van on once it's raised up.

Marvelous - thanks for the input there. I figured it looked the ticket, but just wanted a second (or third, fourth, fitch) opinion; moreover that the height of it would be sufficient (I imagine I'll be jacking with a hard-wood block on top of it as well, to spread the load a bit...)

I'm thinking I'll go exactly the same route as Itchy (thanks for the photo Itchy - spot on) when I'm working under the vehicle for any length of time (with wheels on). I have 2x3tonne and 2x2tonne axle stands already, but if they make me nervous I'll upgrade. Ironically, I gave away the two ramps I had a couple of years ago, as I wasn't using them!

Thanks again folk.