On Wed, 08 Aug 2012 19:39:31 GMT, (Arthur
Shapiro) wrote:

In article , wrote:
I never gave a second thought to using bottle jacks in any position,
until I tried to use one on it's side, in other words, jack something
horizontally. The jack did not function

After experiencing the same thing last week (skipping a four-hour tale of
struggling with replacing the rollers on a garage door) I was about to throw
out my bottle jack in disgust.

Can't answer your question, but you just saved an innocent bottle jack from
the trash can. I ended up using a scissors jack from the car to get around
the issue in my situation.

Art

Damn, I should have posted this when I was struggling with that attic
floor plywood. A scissors jack would have worked for that, and I know
there's at least one of them laying around in my garage.

Glad I saved your bottle jack! Most of the standard ones will not work
on their side. It's because the fluid must be at the bottom in order to
go into the valves and ports inside of them, which do the lifting. I
dont recall ever seeing anything on the instructions about this. I bet
lots of jacks have gone to the trash because not many people know
this.....