The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Tool Chest Original Jack for 3100 pickup?

I am looking for an original jack for my 1953 3100 Chevy Pickup. I have seen conflicting information. Some says this came with a bumper jack and another said it came with a piston jack. Can any of you give me a definitive answer and where do you think the best place to find one is?

piston jack

http://chevy.oldcarmanualproject.com/chevyresto/53158.htm

eBay and place a want-ad in the Swap Meet

Unless I'm missing somethin Tim, that isn't a very graphic discription in the restopac. I though they were all the screw type like this: http://www.pbase.com/dennygraham/image/136560155
or is that what is calle a piston jack?
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

Denny's pic looks like the original (broken jack that left me limping down the side of the road!) I had in my 1959 31 Apache. It was definitely a screw type. I would call a hydraulic jack a piston type.

I have two Advance Design trucks and both had one of those $10 Chinese hydraulic bottle jacks under the seat. I've also worked on several more trucks who's jacks were "converted" to hydraulic also.
Seems like the original screw jacks simply weren't up to the task after they were thrown back under the seat still wet and muddy from that tire change in the rain. After all, trying to get that spare out from under the bed on a cold rainy night would try an ones patients.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

Good points, as usual, Denny.

Yes, I think it was called a piston jack, but perhaps not a hydraulic-driven piston - screw-driven is most likely the correct terminology.

The heights given in the spec manuals are the heights of the jack at fully extended and at fully closed piston. It is interesting to note that the dimensions for the 3100 jack are the same for all Advance-Design years (I am not certain if all characteristics of the 3100 jack-handle/wrench are the same for all years).

that jack [Denny's] was the standard until sometime in the 60's with very little change, - never heard the term 'piston jack', always called them screw jacks and the Chinese ones bottle jacks, a subset of hydraulic jacks

I notice in the pak Tim links, the bigger trucks "use tire changing iron" for the jack handle, that'd be the bottle jack I suspect, or you'd get some frustrated turning the screw with the screwdriver tip of a tire iron while hunched under a 2 ton

Bill

I've seen that "screw jack" with several different style of pads on the top but the bottom looks pretty much the same on all of them. If my memory serves me right, I believe the tire changing irons for the big trucks were round rods with one end flattened out. And that would almost have to be used with some sort of hydralic jack.

DG