The Wifely Unit is pissed off now boy.
A couple weeks ago now I saw this old floor jack on Craigslist.
The guy says it’s a two ton and it works but it’s all rusty looking.
The ad said it had been posted like 17 days ago.
One look at the price though and I was on it like white on rice.
So I emailed him and never heard anything back for about a week.
Dang it.
This has happened before so just for shits and grins, I tried a different method of emailing him instead of Gmail.
A couple days later I finally get a reply.
Yes it’s still available, sorry it took so long to get back to me, he had gone hunting.
That was Monday.
According to the kinda close map on the ad, it looked like it was fairly close.
He said he didn’t get home until 5:30 and he would text me as I sent him my number.
Nothing again, until today.
Turns out he is like 4 minutes away.
My phone had been blowing up and it woke me up from a nap.
This guy, the pharmacy, CederQ, Irish and my youngest daughter.
All in the space of ten minutes.
So I get woke up, tell the wife I need to go pick up the pills today because I have 2 medical appointments tomorrow.
Google maps takes me to the wrong address.
I put in 13570 so and so street and the fucker took me to 14570.
So I am texting the guy and trying to find his place, wound up going down a Cul De Sac and on the way back out, see the guy standing one house down from where I had just driven past. Nice guy, early 30’s.
No luck hunting unfortunately.
He has the jack sitting on the sidewalk.
I give him the THIRTY DOLLARS he wanted for it and I took one look at it and went to getting the cherry picker in the ass of the truck deployed.
This thing has to weigh a hundred and fifty pounds, easy, plus it’s at least four feet long.
Here’s a crappy picture of it, I’ll take some better ones later and post them.
It was getting dark..
It’s blurry as hell but you get the idea.
It’s like the floor jacks you used to see at gas stations and tire shops back in the day.
For $30….
The Wifely Unit caught me red handed trying to push it in the garage and she is Big Mad now.
You would think she would learn by now but apparently not.
Which is why I don’t even bother telling her about shit like this anymore.
I have a Horror Freight 1.5 ton floor jack already.
Trying to pick up the ass of that Dodge don’t work so good.
I wind up underneath the bumper trying to jack the thing up and me no likey that shit.
Not too mention it barely get’s the thing picked up at all when it’s empty.
If this thing works like the guy says then I will be able to roll it underneath the differential and pump away clear of the back of the truck. And at $30, it was $20 cheaper than any seal kit I have seen to even rebuild a cheap Chinesium jack.
So sorry dear, you may be pissed off but there is a method to my madness.
Even if I have to pay to have this one re-sealed I will be money ahead.
Tell your Wifey Unit to quit bitchin’, your hobby is rather practical.
It could be worse.
You could be spending your money on booze, drugs, loose women, or TV evangelists.
Phil, as Judy says, you could be spending *your* money on other things. Go bring home some chick with an interest in mechanical things, they must exist. See how quickly your wifely unit changes her mind about you spending your money on worthwhile expenses.
Yes, Johno (chick with an interest in mechanical things), we exist. Hubby used to have to drag me out of the tool section of any big box or hardware store. I could fill a shopping cart in no time at all. And he would never let me into a Horror Freight or Northern Tool store. I probably should not have bent to the social pressure of the time and pursued a degree in mechanical engineering, or better yet, become a machinist or millwright.
Yes, Judy, too bad, for you and society as a whole.
Somewhere around 1973 my dad bought a Walker 2 ton floor jack from a service station(remember them?) that was closing. He, I, my brother, my grandfather, etc all used it. Fast forward to 1 1/2 years ago. Cleaning out dads garage after he passed, there it sat. Nobody else was interested in having it, damn sure wasn’t gonna put it on CL, so I drug it home.Glad I had a trailer with a ramp as the sum beach weighs near as much as I do, cast/forged iron everything. No stamped sheet metal or plastic anywhere on that lump.
$68 to have the hydraulics gone thru, sand blast and paint another $75, now looks and works like new.
Good for another hundred years, at least!
Bitchin’. Wish I had that jack; I’ve already got the eternally mad wife anyway.
My wife gave up years ago. I retired from farming but still run a welding & repair shop here on the farm and that helps hide all the things I’ve bought lately. Sold my 12 year old PowerMax 80 plasma and bought a new one, bought several new Dewalt cordless and corded tools and other neat things I NEED for the shop. Bought a new Miller pulse welder to weld aluminum and sold the old one for what I paid for it five years ago. Still have the antique Miller CP 250 and the much newer Miller CP 302 wire welders along with a Miller DialArc for stick welding and another portable welder on my service truck. Most of the repairs I enjoy doing but occasionally I have to pay the piper by fixing some rusted out POS. I think my wife goes along with all this since it keeps me out of the house.
Women have no jurisdiction over old tool purchases.
Next time she gets bent, give her hell for buying $30 worth of makeup or a $100 haircut.
Classic. Its easier to ask forgiveness
Easier to beg than ask for sure. Those jacks on a pumpkin can lift the ass end of the truck a good 4 feet off the floor. Now you need some bumper stands so you can make it all safe.
Just a couple days ago, I was shopping in Horror Fright and looked at floor jacks. The little one I carry in the pickup can barely lift my wife’s Honda, let alone the F250. I am deeply jealous, new ones are $$$$, even the Chinesium crap ones.
The Farm has one about half again the size of that, except it is rated at 10 Tons.
We only roll it far enough to get it into the bucket of the payloader, to move it.
Picks up the Four-door-diesel-dually for fun.
Nice score, Bud!
I just got myself another saw, for my birthday present to myself. Never asked, just bought it. My old lady doesn’t pitch a fit about me buying tools. In the long run, they save us money. Besides, not a nickel of her money went towards it – so, she has no say in it anyway.
Leigh
Whitehall, NY
I need a better floor jack. I have a 1.5 ton HF “aluminum racing jack”, and it struggles to pick up my old Toyota. I could only pick up one corner at a time on my Jeep with it.
I need one of those to get my fatass out of this lazboy. It have to lift pretty high, though to keep my scrotum from dragging. Hangs down like a sock full of pennies.
Don’t understand why no one’s said it yet. That’s the steal/steel deal!
I’ve got a great ole lady. She’s got the “math brain” thing going on, so I appointed her CFO. The only time I get a “no” is because of some BS like property taxes or some other none sense is due. It’s usually a “go” on hardware and such. I think she got an extra testosterone wash in the womb, or something. Yeah, I’m a lucky geezer.
Once we have expenses for the living essentials covered (house, carz, food, insurance, emergency fund), I don’t get to whine about money she spends on her clothes and shooz and she doesn’t get to whine about money I spend on my guns and toolz. Our marriage may not be perfect but as long as that status stays on the quo, it works for us.
Uh, $50K or more in Games Workshop figures and such over the last 25 years or so, and a few rooms full of them, particularly my Skaven. I tell people that I spend money on necessities such as Dark Eldar attack craft, while she spends money on things like the electric bill.
44 years together, so I can’t have p!ssed her off too much…
I had one like that but two ton. The handle ended in a T and it had steerable front wheels. The cats meow, built by men who wanted it to last generations. Now that is pride in your work.