I've got a 99 2500 that I bought without a jack and tools. I'm looking for replacements. I figure I might be able to make something to crank the spare down with, but my question is on the jack. With my floor jack under the traditional spot on the frame behind the front wheel, it took about 20" of height to get the tire off the ground. All the bottle jacks I find only lift a height of 14-16"--obviously not enough!

I even found a jack for sale from a 99 4x4 2500, but it only goes to 15".

Has anyone used their stock bottle jack to change a front tire? If so, how? What does the manual say? (Bought my truck used, so don't have one.)

thanks,
Jim

 

Simple. When you jack off the frame the suspension has to decompress. But the jack under the axle and you won't have this problem.

And for all the people that say the axle isn't strong enough, I'm going to model on axle in Unigraphics and do an FEA on it to mathmatically prove its strong enough...

 

hey man try ebay to find the stock jack kit and bars it shoulnt be too much money and i also found a owners manual for i think it was 15 dollars check it out its nice to have

 

I know where to jack on the rear axle, but where is your jack point on the front?

 

Is your truck 4x4? If so right on the front axle too, om the axle tube is fine so its more centered.

 

You can place the jack anywhere along the axle, it doesn't matter. Usually I just place the jack close to the wheel that i'm pulling off, the other side doesn't even come of the ground.

 

Happy New Year!

I got distracted from this question over the holidays, but now I'm back. My truck is 2WD, so I wouldn't say it has an axle. Is there somewhere else on the front suspension to jack?

 

I've used the axle to jack up my truck before as well. I've got a little broken piece of plywood that I put in-between the jack and the axle just to soften the contact point a bit and I've never had problems.

 

Are you saying that little jack that comes with the trucks is all I would need to use to swap my buddys 265's and my 285's on each others trucks? I do have two 3 ton jack stands I believe.

Or would I be better off getting a 3 ton jack with 21" lift height for $65 at Pepboys (its in stock)?

 

The 3 ton jack is nice, but not necessary. If you don't ust the frame the stock jack should give you plenty of lift to work under there.