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Exhaust jacks


Barry

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@Barry, you won't believe how useful these jack can be- I use them on my trips through Africa all the time. They are particularly useful to fill in deep holes in washed out tracks; you place one or two in the hole, inflate them with a compressor, and voila, you have an instant "bridge". 

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I have heard few praising it in Dubai even having bigger 4x4, only key is to cover this jack with some cloth or bed sheet (explained by @Rahimdad) to avoid touching the hot exhaust pipes.

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Let's root for each other & watch each other grow.

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Gaurav bhai, you are right, I have experienced this first hand. Although I heard some negative reviews about it, but I was surprised to see how well it works. Just make sure you place like an old carpet on top of the jack so that it does not come in contact with the hot part in the underbelly of the vehicle as it may damage. On the contrary to what treks has said, you do not need to use the air compressor, all you need to do is connect it with the tail pipe. BTW desertdude, I was also skeptical when I first saw it come out to use on the Toyota Land Cruiser 100 series and was getting my jack ready for action, but than they put an old carpet over it and connected it with the tail pipe, within no time and effort the car was lifted enough above the sand to fix the pop-out. So this jack can be used on heavy cars unlike the stories going around. I think this is available at the Ace Harware in Festival City and is a good investment by any off-roader as it takes less space and much lighter than the conventional high lift jack. 

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I would imagine if as @treks explained, the vehicle has to be moved a considerable distance to get it out of a hole, then a compressor would be best to inflate the jacks. I agree that if the vehicle just has to be lifted in place, then using the exhaust would be fine.

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@gautam I guess I will have to experience a situation where a compressor has to be used, but in my opinion, even if the air compressor is very powerful it would take it ages to fill in the exhaust jack, my opinion is if the tail pipe is so far in the sands that it cannot be used, than use another cars exhaust at hand. i guess if none of this is possible than somehow the only choice left would be to use an air compressor.

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@Rahimdad, the reason why we use compressors is that normal exhaust pressure is only about 4 PSI. On my last trip through Africa my vehicle weighed 3 800kg fully loaded, so lifting that weight by using the exhaust places too much strain on the exhaust and the engine, and in particular, on the head gaskets. 

Here it it is not a problem if you break something because help is a phone call away, but in the depths of Africa, help could be a thousand miles and several days away- hence the reason why we use compressors to inflate the jacks. It only takes about six minutes with a compressor, so it is really not a problem. 

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@treks Thank you for sharing your experience, although it is not that easy to get help in UAE once you are in the middle of the desert, however I would agree that it is easier than what you have described in Africa.

I respect your point and I would like to agree with you, however, thinking about it, how would the weight of the car put a load on the exhaust and in turn put a strain on the engine and particularly on the head gasket. Please do not mind, i am just trying to understand this better. The exhaust throws unwanted air out from the engine through a manifold which opens and lets the air out, This air is than pumped in to the jack through a pipe and the jack also has a valve that allows air to come in to the jack and cannot be released back to the exhaust, so how can this effect the engine or the head gasket.

Maybe @Barry can shed some light as to the possibilities because he is a certified mechanic. From what I had witnessed teh jack was filled with the air required in less than a minutes and the engine or exchaust did not seem like were doing any hard work. I might be wrong and would like to learn more and make an educated choice if I should be going for an  exhaust jack or not.

Thank you in advance for all your thoughts.

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@Rahimdad, @treks is very qualified, way more experienced than me. 

Ill answer your question though, these jacks work on pressure. When the pressure builds up in the exhaust system and there's nowhere else for it to go, it starts building up in the combustion chamber which puts extra strain on the head gasket. It's a bit like blocked DPF or catalytic converter doing the same thing. 

Just to add, I have no experience of using these jacks, I'm just applying theory and common sense to it. 

I wonder how they work if you have 2 tailpipes running from one centre pipe. I imagine you have to block the other pipe off with bananas or something?

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