Hi-Lift Jack HL-605 60" Red All-Cast Farm Jack - Heavy Duty Off-Road Vehicle Recovery Tool for Trucks, Jeeps & SUVs

These things haven’t changed much over the last 120 years. It has been a long time since I last used one of these jacks, but I recall the castings being a little bit better quality on the older models. Perhaps that’s just my memory but I recall the cast parts being formed a bit better with tighter tolerances. Maybe that’s just nostalgic thinking.Other than that impression, this jack is the same workhorse it has always been. I wanted the maximum amount of travel for winching operations, so I purchased the 60”, all-cast model. The jack arrived in good condition, and I lubricated it as the manual instructs. I disassembled some of the parts to inspect the jack and lubricate it. I used a little white lithium grease on the reversing latch and the reversing switch cam bar. The other moving parts got a little Ballistol oil. There’s not much to these things and that’s positive feature – there’s very little to go wrong. After being lightly oiled the jack functioned flawlessly.The main steel bar was well made and as good as any I’ve seen. The holes for the climbing pins were clean, sharp and well formed, the rails were straight and true. It looks like Hi-Lift puts a lot of attention into the quality of that main bar. I was not impressed with the cotter pins used to retain the handle and the base plate. I’ll likely upgrade those components. The top clamp/clevis is attached with a bolt & nut. While the bolt head and nut are ¾” hex and fairly heavy, this setup looks like a potential failure point. The bolt head and nut should have a flange or at least a washer to spread the load more. The entire shank of the bolt is threaded, and it is a loose fit through the top hole in the bar. That hole is the same shape and style as all the other holes for the climbing pins. That bolt should have a non-threaded shank where it passes through the bar and that shank should be a closer fit to that hole in the bar. I suspect the Pittman bolt would shear, as it is designed to for safety, before the top clevis or top clevis bolt failed; but it looks like a potential failure point.All the fasteners appear to be finished with zinc chromate or dichromate (yellow steel), which generally holds up well to weather. The Pittman bolt and nut (which also acts as the shear pin to prevent overloading the jack) has a locking nut to prevent it from backing off on its own. To disassemble the jack, you need TWO each of the following wrenches: ½”, 5/8” and ¾”. Plus, there are a couple of cotter pins that need to be pulled out to remove the handle and base plate. A hammer and punch are required to remove and replace the climbing pins. In a nutshell, if you had spare parts and some hand tools, you could conceivably repair one of these in the field, but you would likely be better served with a second jack.The paint on a tool like this is destined to get worn off during regular use. I don’t get too upset about the initial quality of paint on something that will spend its life in mud, dust, dirt, snow and gravel; but the paint actually looks pretty good right out of the box.I haven’t done any serious work with this jack yet but in some moderate testing, it performed as expected. The 60” (5 foot) model is a bit unwieldy so if you don’t need that extra foot of travel, you can save yourself some bulk and 3 pounds by going with the 48” (4 foot) model. The 60” model comes in at over 31 pounds and that’s before you start hanging chains and rigging hardware on it.The best piece of safety gear to go with these jacks is located between your ears. Use your brain and a Hi-Lift jack can be an extremely versatile and useful tool. Be stupid around it and it can kill or maim you in an instant and it will be nobody’s fault but your own.So, there you have it, a 120-year-old work horse that is still working and doing it at a reasonable cost.