I'm sure most of us own at least one floor jack. I bought my first Lincoln/Walker about 30 years ago and paid handsomely for it. It served me well for all that time and made me a lot of money as has it's brethren that I acquired at various auctions. As an American made piece of equipment they are far heavier than the current crop of import clones and are rebuildable.
I recently downsized my shop a bit and sold off one of my two jacks only to find within a month that was a mistake. I have often considered purchasing one of the imports to backfill the loss, when last summer my trusty old Lincoln/Walker finally succumbed to old age and abuse. The hydraulic shop I had used in the past had gone out of business and the ones I called all told the thing wasn't worth fixing and could they put me through to their sales department. I rat holed the carcass and have been limping by on some cheap department store import jacks thinking that some day I would find some place that can and will restore mine back to it's former glory. I found a place on the web that sold me a rebuild kit and I made an attempt at installing the kit but decided against it when I had difficulty removing a large plug without damaging the pump body.
I got home yesterday after spending most of the day with my mother going to her doctor appointments and then running errands, etc.. I made a pot of coffee and settled in to see what I had missed out on and force of habit took me to check out C-List for the KC area. There I was, all settled in to spend the evening doing laundry and house hold chores when I spot this,
My garage door. Not so pretty, but it keeps out some of the wind.
Basically like new. A bit of dust and some surface rust from lack of use.
Data Tag
The jack was an hour and a half away but the $50 asking price had me hooked. I went back to the List and looked at several other ads for stuff I really had no interest but kept thinking the jack was too good to pass up so I called the number and was surprised to hear it was available and I was caller #1. I explained I was some distance away and it would be a couple of hours for me to get there. I expected to hear "The first with the cash gets it" but the lady said she would hold it for me for the evening since I was coming such a distance for an old jack.
Feed the cats, grab my coat, run by the ATM for the cash, Mickey D's for "road food" and off I head for the city. I pulled into the drive way exactly 1 3/4 hours after calling and collected my jack. The seller told me the phone had rung non-stop and she had given the callers numbers in line just in case I backed out. She seemed surprised that I drove so far to buy a jack that is no longer manufactured and I seemed so eager to pay $50 dollars.
Oh, and in the process of trying to find a sell price for this jack I found another shop that says they will rebuild and re-machine (hone the bore, recut the valve seats, etc.) my old one. It's going to cost me twice what I paid for this one. I'm CHUFFED to have 2 jacks again!
