I don't mind using the standard car jack in an unexpected situation by the side of the road, but when I'm doing work on the car at home, using that jack seems rather inconvienient since it is designed to be cheap and small, not necessarily easy to use.
The obvious solution is to just go out and buy a good hydraulic floor jack, but 1) I'm cheap, and 2) I don't want it taking up storage space. So what if I just made a little adapter that allows me to use my power drill to crank the hand jack?
This has the obvious advantage of taking less physical effort, and going faster, but in addition, it should make it less awkward to handle. The normal setup seems to be operated best by using two hands to turn the crank and one to hold the jack steady until it gets some pressure on the car, but with only two hands it is somewhat awkward. With the drill, only one hand would be needed to turn the crank, and the other would be free to stready the jack.
My first thought was that this would be extremely simple: just a small piece of metal that fits into the jack on one end and the drill on the other. That might work with some drills, but a lot of drills (especially cordless ones which would be handy in this application, or cheap ones owned by the type of person who doesn't want to buy a floor jack) probably don't have quite enough torque. For those drills, the device would need to have a built in gear reduction.
It seems so simple, it ought to have been baked or at least half baked before, but I failed to find it anything like it. Maybe other will have more success.-- scad mientist, Apr 14 2004 Lugnut helper http://www.tracone....ype-AsinSearch.htmlmakes removing stubborn lugnuts a bit easier. [Freefall, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004] From my experience, you need quite the bit of torque in order to operate a scisors jack effeciently. You'd either need a really fancy drill, or just a lot of elbow brease. Besides, I prefer to raise my car slowly as not to have it fall on me. I know those cool 3-pump floor jacks that will lift your car in record time are baked ... see NASCAR about those.-- Letsbuildafort, Apr 14 2004 Yep, all it would take is a device with a gear reduction to give you the required torque.
On a similar note, there are gear reduction units that can be used to remove/replace the lugnuts when changing a tire, that just snap onto the wheel. (link to come)-- Freefall, Apr 14 2004 How about a 12V-powered car jack? Wouldn't lift very fast, but could be more convenient than hand operation.-- supercat, Apr 14 2004 Tried on a Honda Civic with a Milwaukee power drill and a twisted up coat hanger for linking the two. Worked just fine.-- kbecker, Apr 14 2004 [Z] I know, but [s m] wants to do it with a power drill and those don't fart.-- kbecker, Apr 16 2004 I think everyone is missing the obvious - I have a sizzor jack w/ a folding handle (95 GMC) - but it has a hex bolt head - which made me think... WHY don't they provide a sizzor jack with a bolt head to match the wheel lug nuts. Then use a 12V Impact wrench (w/ cig lighter adapter) to raise/lower the vehicle and remove the lug nuts... Only ticky part is you would need a hand on or "guide" or "torque" arrestor on the jack - just until the vehicle weight is on it... At home use you air impact - you may have to strenghen the screw and bolt...-- sklaus, Aug 12 2004 You know, we can leave the drill out of this and make the jack with an electric motor built into it.-- 5th Earth, Aug 12 2004 random, halfbakery