Thrift Store Bottle Jack

I found an old bottle jack at a thrift store for a few bucks, at a glance, it was non-functional and would just bounce up and down. In the current state, it's unusable and potentially dangerous.

I hate seeing old tools get thrown out when they can be easily fixed and I'm a firm believer in 'fix, not replace'

1. A busted old bottle jack
2. Transmission Oil (or jack oil if you have it)
3. Kerosean
4. Wire brush
5. Paint
6. Paint stripper
7. Brake Cleaner or other degreaser

The first step is to remove the little rubber plug and drain the old oil out. This jack was missing a lot of oil and what was in it was pretty dirty.

I like to give the jack a flush of kerosene at this point to purge any remaining oil from the jack.

I then completely disassembled the rest of the jack and gave everything a good wash with kerosene. While it's not necessary I stripped the old paint off and gave everything a final clean with some brake cleaner.

I then used some masking tape to cover the parts of the jack that I didn't want to paint. Now give everything a couple of coats of spray paint and once it's dry remove the masking tape.

I let everything cure for a few days so it can harden a bit more.

You can now reassemble the jack, use a small amount of oil on all the seals and then tighten everything down.

Now for the most important part use a syringe to fill the jack with oil. You need to prime the jack by pumping it a few times and then topping off the oil again. Once you have pumped it a few times back off the release valve and while it's open pump it a few more times. The jack should be fully primed now, give it a final top off of oil and insert the rubber plug.

Note: If you have jack oil use that, otherwise transmission oil will work fine.

Now give the jack a wipe down to remove any oil you spilt and you are ready to test the jack. When using a jack make sure to operate it safely, never go under a load that is held up solely by a jack, be sure to use axle stands or some other kind of block.

You can now see the jack operates correctly. I now have a dirt cheap Bottle Jack and saved some waste from the landfill.