Hi lift - best use and best place to buy

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BRob2756

BRob2756

10 Year
Joined
Dec 15, 2014
Threads
52
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368
Location
Atlanta, GA
After emptying my pockets on the 100 (doh!) and now the 200, my winch funds are long gone.

Thinking about getting a hi lift for my 80 to use in case of emergencies. Full disclosure - haven't used or seen one used in a winch or come along capacity but have read up on it.

Question is - where is best place to buy? What add ons would I need to use as a last ditch winch/get me out of crap? My current kit (left over from my Grand Wagoneer days) includes two tree savers, two snatch blocks, a 3x30 tow strap, and all kids of brackets, D Hooks, etc. Anything major I am missing once I add the hi lift?

Many thanks!

-Rob
 
No. The lift works as a winch but is slow and you rerig a lot due to the short length. Better then nothing.
Farm and ranch supply stores have them.
 
Like Tom says above, you'll probably be rerigging it a lot (less if you buy the longer one), and what's to stop the truck from sliding back into stuck while you have the tension off the cable (don't use straps since they'll stretch so much - you'll lose what looked like progress when you loosen up to rerig and see 1/3+ of your sweat equity unstretch- use cable). Maybe someone will post a better method than what I've had to use and we'll all be better for it. Best bet is to always wheel with another truck, but you already knew that.

Got mine locally at 4 Wheel Parts. Price was fair, and my UPS man probably appreciated it. Tractor Supply-type places sell generic ones for less. I have no knowledge if they're any lesser quality.
 
Hi Lifts are great for making you look cool when it's strapped to your truck, and let people think you know what you are doing. In reality, they are cumbersome and terrifying to use for almost any purpose. I still own one, bought mine for cheap at Princess Auto here in Canuckistan, but I don't like it and try not to ever use it.

If you primarily want it to be used as a come along/hand winch, why not just buy a chainfall, hand winch or come along so that you wouldn't be re-rigging it nearly as often?
 
I believe the Hi-Lift brand is set price under MAP pricing from the manufacturer. In other words, it should be the same price wherever you go. However, a place like 4Wheel Parts will have all of the cool accessories for rigging, jacking and using your jack to its full potential. I have the sand base, which can also be used as a shovel. One of their coolest multi-use tools. As always, be careful using a Hi-Lift. Very dangerous!
 
While I like to have a Hi-Lift Jack on the vehicle, it wouldn't be my first choice for 'winching' exercises. A good quality 'Come-Along/Power Puller' is better suited for that. Most folks choose the H/L because it 'can' be pressed into service as a multipurpose tool and can be stored outside the vehicle, I get that, but that doesn't make it the best (or safest) tool to use.

A 'pair' of Come Alongs can be used in 'tandem' to provide more pulling power (with a second person helping and synchronizing the pull), or one can be used to hold the vehicle while the other is re-rigged (so you don't have to go secure the vehicle each rigging). Or IF the pulling power of one is sufficient, you can daisy chain two together for twice the pulling distance before re-rigging (vehicle secured).

Of course the best thing would simply be to save up for a winch and put off any adventures that might require winching until you have an actual winch. But....a High-Lift or Come-Along can get you going again in situations where you aren't terribly stuck.
 
The best use I have for a Hi-Lift is as a tire bead-breaker for swapping/repairing tires.

Otherwise, they are heavy and cumbersome and a pain to carry around and they do a good job of smashing/pinching fingers.

I would NOT use one to actually change a tire on a vehicle, except maybe an actual tractor.

But they look cool on the hood of a Jeep, all painted and shiny!
 
HiLift is extremely useful, but you may want to know how to use it to get the most out of it. I recommend the Extreme, and 60". Pricewise, Amazon carries them for around $105. Near you is Southeast Overland, might worth the trip and get your hands on some, see what else they recommend.

Better solution, see if you can go to one of these, or find similar nearby. You can learn a lot from these guys.

Uwharrie Off-Road Training Center
 
Dork said:
Hi Lifts are great for making you look cool when it's strapped to your truck, and let people think you know what you are doing. In reality, they are cumbersome and terrifying to use for almost any purpose. I still own one, bought mine for cheap at Princess Auto here in Canuckistan, but I don't like it and try not to ever use it.

If you primarily want it to be used as a come along/hand winch, why not just buy a chainfall, hand winch or come along so that you wouldn't be re-rigging it nearly as often?
Click to expand...

what are you using as a jack?
 
Nothing can replace a high lift for the ability to lift one wheeel out of a ditch or your axel off of a rock. Took me 2 very dangerous hours with a bottle jack a few days ago would have been a 20 minute stress free job if I had highlift and the "wheel attachment" piece. Anyone who says it is just a nice hood ornament hasn't done very extreme wheeling in my opinion and the More time goes on I realize that this is the case on this forum. Can't tell u how many times I follows advice on here then actually wheeled my truck and was like "that was 100 percent mallcrawler advice.
 
Dork said:
Hi Lifts are great for making you look cool when it's strapped to your truck, and let people think you know what you are doing. In reality, they are cumbersome and terrifying to use for almost any purpose. I still own one, bought mine for cheap at Princess Auto here in Canuckistan, but I don't like it and try not to ever use it.

If you primarily want it to be used as a come along/hand winch, why not just buy a chainfall, hand winch or come along so that you wouldn't be re-rigging it nearly as often?
Click to expand...

Not sure if I really agree with this. For something like getting high centered in snow on a lifted truck, it really helps to lift up by the front/rear bumpers and put snow/traction plates under the tires.

If you don't have sliders and aftermarket bumpers then they become a bit less relevant.
 
A lot of great responses here. I need to dig in.

My initial thought is that I severely under estimated the danger and inconvenience of using a hi lift in the way I described. Of course they have a place and can be extremely useful but I need to go back to the drawing board. Too damn bad everything costs money!
 
BRob2756 said:
A lot of great responses here. I need to dig in.

My initial thought is that I severely under estimated the danger and inconvenience of using a hi lift in the way I described. Of course they have a place and can be extremely useful but I need to go back to the drawing board. Too damn bad everything costs money!
Click to expand...

Winches and recovery gear are all dangerous; people get hurt and killed by them. But it doesn't mean no one takes them. I think a lot of the avoidance is just that people don't use them a lot, so you don't get used to them, so you don't get good at them.

For something like a lifted truck with big wheels it would be super ridiculous to try to bottle jack it up in the field, if (like being high centered in the snow) you could even get a bottle jack under it in the first place.
 
DirtScaresMe said:
Not sure if I really agree with this. For something like getting high centered in snow on a lifted truck, it really helps to lift up by the front/rear bumpers and put snow/traction plates under the tires.

If you don't have sliders and aftermarket bumpers then they become a bit less relevant.
Click to expand...

Thats a great example. We use them to lift and cast on our rocky areas. You get high-centered (often because want to use lockers), and need to transfer the weight to a corner or front/back. HiLift is a lot faster than winching. But like many already said, you need the knowledge, any recovery can be dangerous, these are heavy trucks with lots of potential energy when stuck

 
The hi-lift can be a game changer. Very useful in a very narrow set of circumstances. The single most useful bit to get with it is the wheel lift attachment. It's also safer than lifting any other way. Off road base is good but you can make one from plywood that's just as good. The off road base is also useful as a place to put the factory bottle jack when lifting the axle.

It is nice to get some instruction on the basic operation of a hi-lift to avoid hurting yourself.

As a winch, while technically possible, it's so slow and time consuming to rig up, that you'll likely never do this.

For changing a tire, your bottle jack is much safer.

But for lifting a stuck flat tire out of a hole, so that rocks may be stacked, it has no equal.
 
I have used my hi-lift several different times in different ways, and it worked great. A couple of times I used it as a winch to pull from the rear, once when a rear wheel fell in a pit and once when I got stuck in deep snow. Both of those times I used the jack to put tension on the vehicle and was able to reverse out.

When I bought my Mercedes I upgraded from a 48" to a 60" so that I would have enough lifting height to get the wheels off the ground if need be. I have since used it twice to lift the front axle off the ground to block it so that I could work with the tires off.

I think that used properly there is no substitute for a hi-lift jack. Like others have said, there is a lot of potential damage that can be done with one, and understanding their strengths, weaknesses, and uses is essential.
 
decoco said:
what are you using as a jack?
Click to expand...

To be completely honest, nothing right now, not even the factory bottle hack. Embarrassingly enough i don't even carry a spare tire with me (working on a solution though) so my opinion is rather worthless.

I used a hi lift a grand total of once with my old truck while offroad alone to lift each corner of the truck to put stuff under the wheels. Scratched the hell out of my paint, destroyed factory bumpers and took hours on end to do a job that could have been done in 10 minutes. After that trip i said screw this and got a winch.

Was lucky enough so far to just never have wrecked a tire on the trail and have a floor jack to use in the garage. In fact, my last truck went 8 years without ever using the spare once.
 
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