Hi Lift Question

Hi All. I just had a kind of scary situation. I used a Hi Lift to jack up the back of my truck by the trailer hitch receiver. I have the SafeJack base for the Hi-Lift and was using that but doubt it had much to do with what I am about to describe since the stabilizing cables were completely free of the jacking mechanism and had plenty of slack. For that matter, this is a fairly new Hi Lift that is kept out of the elements under my DiamondBack bed cover.

So, three times today I jack up my rear and twice lowered it using the Hi Lift. The third time it wouldn't lower. The direction lever flipped into lower direction just fine and the arm went up and down but I couldn't hear it clicking. This was a little scary since my truck was stuck jacked up and I wasn't sure what to do.*

After I finally got it down (see below) I tried jacking and lowering again and the Hi Lift worked fine.

Has this (a Hi Lift not lowering) happened to anyone else? Does anyone have any idea what happened? This was a real situation.

*I ended up using two service ramps that I had for the truck. I put it in 4wd to get traction from the front and gently backed onto the ramps. The jack just pushed back with the truck until the truck was high enough on the ramp that the jack was no longer holding weight.

 

You probably need to pit a climber pin kit in it.

 

I've seen it happen a couple times. It's just from a lack of lubrication. Use WD40 or some fluid film on there and it won't happen again (spray it all up in that bitch, all over). That's why I lube up my jack before every off road trip to make sure this doesn't happen.

 

You mean put a new climbing pin in it? I've only used it about 15 times.

 

I will hit it with WD-40 but it still basically has the greasing it came with. It was almost as if something wouldn't catch.

 

Always always always lubricate your hi lift before each use. I've seen one fail while holding a vehicle because it was never lubricated. Its not pretty.
I have a 2nd hand HiLift that's been in use for a number of years and has not once failed to work properly for me, but I douse it in dry lubricant every time before I use it

 

I'd bet you a beer it's what I said. I've seen it on two different jacks on two different occasions. One was stored in a covered bed and rarely used and still did it.

 

This may seem like a silly question but can I hit it with CLP? I always have a can in my truck.

 

I'm sure that'd be fine but seems more expensive compared to other alternatives.

 

I use this stuff on virtually everything unless it requires real grease. Never let me down and doesn't collect more dirt like a lot of other lubricants will

 

True. The advantage is that I always have some since I shoot a lot.

 

Well, thank you gentlement. It seems like a consensus on lube. I will take heed of that advice.

But like I said, if it happens to you just build some kind of ramps behind the jacked tires and gently back on to them.

 

Yep, I had to replace my pins after only a couple of hard uses. I use the silicone spray as well. It doesn’t take a lot of over torquing to bend the bolt or damage the pins. I over torqued mine for sure, but didn’t realize it at the time

 

This actually reminds me of when I used a friends hi lift on a trail to replace a flat tire...his Hi Lift even when lubed wouldn't always climb down like you're describing, he claimed it was normal and the way around that was to give it a whack with a hammer right where the pin was. Doing this would get it to climb down on the next try.

No idea why his acted that way and mine never has...even stranger that yours is new and doing that.

I always just use my own now even if it's a pain to unbolt off the bed rack, cause that just didn't feel right or safe to me

 

This exact thing happened to us this past weekend up north. One of the guys had a can of something (might have been that WD40 dry lube actually, I cant recall) so we drenched the pins with that. After working the handle back and forth to transfer wight between the pins and spraying more lube, it seemed to work just fine