He has one on hold for me, but I will probably get it after he gets back.

I'm to sick to make the drive over there to pick it up, and I'd hate to end up giving his family what I have.

 

I picked up my cradle today and got to meet Jeff for the first time. Interesting guy...

He's got a couple of VERY nice rigs in his shop right now - and one of them is his. Lucky guy.

The cradle is high quality work and fits as designed. I actually have a copy of the Hi-Lift from "Larin", and I had to do a bit of grinding on the jack lip to get the bolt to pass through, but my guess is that folks with real Hi-Lifts won't have an issue.


btw... you might want to think about airing down before going down 309th avenue... It's ROUGH!

 

Mark, I have seen that jack that you mentioned at G.I. Joes I think. It resembles the stamped steel Hi-lift. I actually had a Carolina Lift jack that I bought at Pep Boys a few years ago. It had rusted up pretty badly so I ended up giving it away and getting an all cast 48" Hi-Lift jack. I really like the 89 pickup that he has-it is the model for what my pickup is to become! So how many of the jack cradles were left when you left his shop?

 

Yeup... I bought it at a GI Joes in Portland. I wasn't paying close enough attention and just read "Hi-Lift" on the box. At the time, I did note that it was made in China, but I didn't know enough to know that it wasn't a "real" Hi-Lift.

Yeah.. at this point i'm just happy to have something that will work. I ended up bolting it down inside the rig, so it shouldn't have too much of an issue with the elements.

That thing looks INCREDIBLE! He says it's been sitting there for about a year and half though. He can't get time to work on it.

Did you see his 1st gen? He's having fun cutting that up as well.

He had a rear bumper system up on a jig - it looked REALLY nice. He had incorporated a swing-away spare holder that also has mounts for a Hi-Lift, Shovel and... I can't remember.

Just three. one black (which was the prototype and had a smaller cradle) and then two more red ones. He was also sending one out to David (mad chem).

He said he was pretty surprised at the response to this. He credited you for the exposure.

 

Jeff is a great guy and he makes some great products. I was glad that he was willing to take on producing the hi-lift jack cradles. As far as the bumper that he had on the engine stand, I am thinking of having him build me one when I go on deployment. I am considering leaving the truck with him for the six months that I will be gone so that he can do the SAS and possibly the flatbed at his own pace. Wow, his supply of the cradles has gone pretty quick! Oh well I thought that it was a better idea than his "parking brake lock" that he has on the website. :pat:

As far as your jack, who really cares if it is made in China? As long as it works isn't that all that really matters?

 

Yeup, I know... But there's that weird tinge of "stereotypical quality worry" that runs through me. I really only brought it up as a hind-sight indicator that it may not be a "real" Hi-Lift. I don't have a fear of it collapsing on me, it's more of a long-term durability issue.


Good luck on getting him to take-on your truck whilst you're wandering the world. When I saw him, he was REALLY tired having been up all night finishing his last bumper of 2003. He's looking forward to being away from the shop for his full-time business for a couple of weeks. Though he says he's got plenty of work to keep him busy for a while.

and... Good luck wandering the world!

 

Yup, just ordered mine, guess I need to get a HiLift now...

With some of these custom mods, if you don't order them right away, you'll never see them again.

That bumper you saw may very well be the 3rd gen rear bumper he was supposed to be designing for me, but I could be wrong.

 

Actually if that was the bumper that I saw on the engine stand with the swing out tire/axe/shovel carrier then that was a project bumper that is for a 1st gen 4Runner~actually for Jeff's own 4Runner, but he said that he had kind of given up on it. I guess it just might be available for someone that has a 1st Gen or a 2nd Gen pickup even. I really think that it would be way cool to have a bumper like that but I will likely just get him to build me a flatbed when he does my SAS in a couple months.

 

Yeah, might as go all the way- I'd do a flat bed as well if I pick up a 1st gen at some point. They're doing a round of cost-cutting at work, so I'm waiting for the dust to settle before spending any dough.

 

Bumper wise... Rome's right, it was his own for the 1st Gen. It was real purty.

Actually David, he brought your name up on the fly and apologized to me for missing you when you came buy for a welding job, and then again for the bumper project. He feels real bad.

I get the impression that he gets really swamped and doesn't like to say "no" to people. I worked on him for a while to see if I could get him to make a 3rd member skid plate, but he just doesn't want to take on more work.

It was funny though... I told him ballpark what you paid for your Trail Carnage plates and he perked up. He saw a high profit margin and got excited. I called him on it, and he laughed.

 

I don't think he's a bad guy, and I agree that he takes on a bit more than he can chew. I thought he had hired on at least one welder full time to work in the shop?

 

He did, but when doing custom stuff like what you're asking for, then he's still involved in the design, layout, spec, pricing, etc. I think that's where he kinda' fell behind with you.

 

Man I wish I knew how to weld.
Jeff's got a fantastic shop with all the equipment.

Love to work there.
With enough working there full time, we'd be crankin' out some serious stuff.

Besides the pics on Jeff's site, I have quite a few here of his work.

 

Dood... Lake Washington Technical College can make that happen for you:
http://www.lwtc.ctc.edu/future/catalog/

Daryl (DarylD) is taking a welding class there now, and David (Mad Chemist) and I are talking about taking one next quarter.

 

Anybody got any drawings, PDFs, CAD files or more specifics on these things so I could save a little time and effort on trial and error and just fab one straight up? This looks like an excellent addition to my hi-lift jack.

 

Thanks for the bump wabbit.

Wish i had your shop and fab time...
so i didn't have to pay retail for half my ˟˟˟˟˟.

chalk up another $45 bucks, mine is on the way.