As an extra safety precaution secure a shackle to the rack with it's pin through the nearest hole directly under the lifting mechanism. Whatever you do, make sure nobody goes near or touches that jack, If the handle keeps flopping down, to avoid somebody walking into it, tie it back to the rack with a piece of string.
Shackles, however, also come very useful for attaching the top of the rack and the underside of the toe to secure either chains or ropes for short pull winching. You may have to file out the hole under the toe to accept the shackle pin. This is a cast hole and therefore not always perfectly round.

Mounting Rack

Ideally your high lift jack should always be secured in the vehicle. Not quite so easy in a Classic Range Rover or Discovery, but in a Land Rover - no problem. In a vehicle with a bulkhead behind the front seats the high lift can be secured and indeed locked into place on the special two part Mounting Rack. It can also be secured on the side of one of the rear wheel boxes should seats be installed above as in the case of a Station Wagon. If your hardtop doesn't have rear seats fitted, the Mounting Rack could be bolted to the top capping on the lower body above the wheel boxes.

Sometimes you see high lifts mounted outside the vehicle to one side of the rear door. In my case it is up on the roof rack. For total security I've gone a bit overboard by utilising two Mounting Racks and discarding the non locking top brackets. I therefore end up with padlocks each end.

You could of course make up your own mounting rack by using two longish 12mm bolts coming through the bodywork from the back secured with one nut with washers each side. On the protruding studs, Locktite a 'stand off' nut into position. The high lift 'rack' is then simply lifted onto these two fixings and secured into place with another nut. You could cross drill the end of the studs to accept small padlocks. The handle could be kept closed to the rack with a bungy strap to stop it clonking about when driving off road.

If there is nowhere to secure it at all, then either wrap it up in a blanket or make up a rifle case type of bag in heavy canvas. At least this will protect the inside of the vehicle.

Index [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]

(c)Goodwinch Limited 2006